2014 nov Susannah newIn a post on Medium,  Susannah Fox explains how an airplane emergency reinforced her belief in the power of peer leadership.  Tap into the ‘just-in-time/someone-like-me network, she says. And2014 nov tuck-ponder be ready to help the next person.
I’ve watched this happen on Michele Tuck-Ponder’s Facebook posts. She crowd sources everything from summer camps to bulk food purchases. And it works — people love to help.

Michelle is a former mayor of Princeton Township, mother of two, now manager of the Princeton University Center for African American Studies and a member of my church. Susannah, mother of two, is the former director of the health and technology portfolio at the Pew Research Internet Project,  now entrepreneur in residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — and yes, she is my daughter.

 

 

Art All Day — Saturday, November 8 — is an energizing, collaborative way to support artists — and Trenton. Especially wonderful is the A-Team exhibit at the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.

 

Lamentation-Variation-header

It was a great evening, the Martha Graham Dance Company’s return to McCarter tonight. Gorgeous dancing, with three works of Martha’s  (Errand into the Maze, Diversion of Angels, Cave of the Heart, and one new work  (the compelling Lamentation Variations, shown above),  and an unusually full house.  Other than Bill Lockwood, who programs the series, nobody could have been more pleased than Marvin Preston. Preston, a turn-around management consultant, responded to a call to turn-around the Graham company in 2001, when it was in the throes of every kind of despair. Preston took the job knowing nothing about dance, stayed six years, and put the company back on his feet.  Needless to say, he knows plenty about dance now. And he had every reason to be pleased and proud tonight.

Songs for the Congo: Sunday, Nov. 9

2014 a Karrin_Allyson_2LEnjoy a terrific jazz afternoon and support United Front Against Riverblindness. Together with another worthy charity for Congo, Woman Cradle of Abundance, UFAR presents its second annual benefit concert with 4-Time Grammy Nominee Karrin Allyson.

When: Sunday, November 9 at 3:00 PM
Reception with the artist will follow. Doors open at 2:30 PM.

Where: Solley Theatre, Arts Council of Princeton
Corner of Paul Robeson Place and Witherspoon St. in Princeton

Tickets are $70, $30 for students. Click here or call 609-924-2613.

UFAR, founded by Daniel Shungu of Lawrenceville, works to stamp out riverblindness in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where one-third of the 60 million people are at risk for getting it. It starts with a rash and leads to sight loss, forcing children to leave school to care for parents.

Woman, Cradle of Abundance, also known as FEBA, aims to change the dismal future for many women in the DRC, known as one of the world’s most dangerous places to be a woman. Founded in 1999 by an ecumenical group of Congolese women, it supports a sewing school where girls learn a marketable trade. It also provides medical care and support for women and children living with HIV / AIDS, counseling for survivors of rape and forced prostitution, and school fees for orphans. The US partner is raising funds to help the Congo project build a Women’s Center.

Karrin and BillHelp both causes by enjoing a jazz afternoon with Karrin (shown here with her partner Bill McLaughlin). She is described as “always globetrotting and delighting audiences all over the world with her unique and personal style — straight from the heart.”

Spruill and Shamsi for School Board

2014 nov 4 fernI support Fern Spruill and Afsheen Shamsi for Princeton School Board, two of four candidates for three seats.  They showed up for a forum moderatafsheen_shamsi_404114595ed by Walter Bliss.  I have worked with them both: Shamsi (right) is an incumbent who deserves another term, Spruill will bring valuable new insights.  Please vote. Polls are open until 8.

 

The new head of the New Jersey Technology Council, James Barrood, hosts a meet and greet tonight (10/30) at the Nassau Inn’s Yankee Doodle Tap Room. A bargain $10 (Members free) gets you a drink and snacks, 6 to 8 p.m. Keep out of trouble on Mischief Night!

The Future of Work: November 12

America is in the throes of a demographic overhaul. By mid-century, the population of the United States will be majority non-white and our median age will edge above 40-both unprecedented milestones. The November 12 conference,  The Future of Work, will look at the nature of work in this technology driven, hyperconnected, global world.

Keynotes: Paul Taylor, author of The Next America,  star political reporter, and Pew Research executive and Carl Van Horn, Director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development.

Register for $65 today at www.einsteinsalley.org.  Earlybird rate goes through October 31. It is cosponsored by Einstein’s Alley and, among others, the Princeton Regional Chamber. Registration includes copies of Taylor’s book, The Next America, and Van Horn’s book, Working Scared (Or Not at All): The Lost Decade, Great Recession, and Restoring the Shattered American Dream.

Entrepreneurs & TV, Entrepreneurs and…

2014 nov 6 eyeballSee/hear Wim Sweldens, co-founder and CEO of Kiswe Mobile, which offers multiple-camera streaming of sporting events  for those watching games on their mobile devices. The talk, sponsored by the Keller Center, is on Thursday, November 6, at 4:45 in Princeton University’s Carl A. Fields Center on the corner of Olden and Prospect. Sweldens is the Belgian computer scientist who founded the Bell Labs skunkworks,  Alcatel-Lucent Ventures. He is now Entrepreneur of the Year at Columbia. It’s free. Topic: “Entrepreneurship and the Interplay with TV, Mobile, and Social.” 

Borowitz Report: Christie now an MD?

TRENTON (The Borowitz Report)—Saying that he was “sick and tired of having his medical credentials questioned,” Governor Chris Christie (R-N.J.) had himself sworn in as a medical doctor on Sunday night. Read more in the New Yorker.

Moral Monday Rally