The Life Olympics

By Jess Gartner

[jessgartner]

Show them the money: Why and how to bring pay transparency to your workplace - Technical.ly

Take it from Allovue's Jess Gartner and Urban Teachers' Crystal Coache, who have done it. The Baltimore org leaders break down the process of auditing, then changing, your pay structure for more equity.

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Experiments with Resin

This was my first time using resin. I tested a few different techniques in 3 sets of molds.

Agate slice coasters

These are meant to look like slices of geodes. I love this look, although I would use a much darker color on the outer rim next time to create more contrast with the lighter inner ring colors. I used three mica powder pigments with the resin— the aqua on the exterior, a pearl white in the middle, and then a dab of copper in the center with a few bits of gold leaf. These were the first ones I did and I was worried about overfilling the molds but I actually under-filled them and they came out way too thin (also not at all level because my house is not level 🥴) 

I think I used about 200g of resin for 4 molds and probably needed 375-400g to really fill them. I do love the little copper swirls with gold leaf in the middle. I also attempted these with the round coasters but the pigment was way too light and they looked boring and weird so I ended up adding some ink and making them a hodge-podge with silver leaf. They were my least favorite.

Alcohol Ink Coasters

I love how these came out and I am actually sad that they didn’t have enough resin to dry thick/flat enough. With these, I started by pouring clear resin and a little of the leftover pearl and copper resin mixes from the agate ones. Then I added a few drops of alcohol ink and swirled them with a combination of craft sticks and a hair dryer. They ended up in these really neat night-sky/galaxy patterns that I love. Unfortunately, I really didn’t use enough resin on these so some of the edges are untenably thin and flimsy. I think that I was filling them like batter in muffin tins expecting them to expand, but I really need to fill them right to the top next time. And maybe Rob can build me a workbench that is actually level in my house 👀

I used gold and silver paint pens to line the edges for a final touch. Unfortunately, none of these are worth saving since they’re so thin and uneven, but it was a good first attempt and I learned some good lessons for next time 🤞🏻

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The Undead of Languishing Tech

Zombies, Vampires, Frankenstein… no, it’s not horror movie night; these undead lurk around inefficient markets-- unvanquished.

The Innovator's Dilemma

In Clayton Christensen’s bestselling book The Innovator’s Dilemma, he talks about two types of companies: Sustaining Companies, who are the incumbent market leaders, and Disrupting Companies, the upstart entrants who threaten to destabilize or destroy the Sustaining Companies if they beat them on innovation and reach the mainstream market.

A memorable example is Blockbuster’s crumbling in the wake of Netflix’s meteoric rise as a result of their failure to take seriously trends in digital and streaming technology; compare this to Apple’s willingness to cannibalize its own business (i.e. iPhones ate the iPod) in order to innovate and create new markets.

I believe there’s a third category: Languishing Technology.

Languishing Technology pervades markets that are large but slow-to-innovate due to limited incentives for efficiency and high costs for risk and change. Languishing Tech is riddled with technical debt across an improbably fractured market landscape. There are no market leaders— only a sea of undead.

Do you recognize these creatures from your local City Hall?

Zombies: These are the companies you look at and say, “How are they still alive?” The product runs on something like mainframe COBOL and is maintained by one (1) dude in the basement who makes everyone nervous when he mentions retirement. Zombies are often hyper-regional entities— you see a lot of them in one state and nowhere else on the planet. None of their customers have a single nice thing to say about them— they’ve just been there so long and… it’s fine, I guess.

Vampires: Often market leaders in another industry, for another customer, with a solution for another use case, but they’re happy to ramrod a vaguely tangential technology for a modest configuration cost of twenty-million dollars or so. They’ll bleed your agency dry, if you’re not careful. After a five-year, seven-figure “implementation” period, their solution will be just half-baked enough when their contract comes up for renewal— and really, what’s a few more million at this point? The solution will be “finished” just in time for them to stop supporting this version.

Frankenstein: The closest thing to a market leader in an inefficient market, these monstrosities grow via aggressive acquisition. They bolt on Zombies left and right— their market “strategy” is stitching together inorganic revenue line-items while cost-cutting with chainsaw precision. Frankensteins can grow big, but never strong, because all that ill-fitting tape and glue will barely hold. Do all those awkwardly bundled solutions even talk to each other? Unlikely. Frankensteins can even transform an unmotivated Zombie customer into a disgruntled detractor.

These Languishing Technologies plague public agencies charged with performing critical social functions in domains of government, public safety, education, and public health. This army of undead makes these markets seem pretty unappealing, but they’re actually ripe for winner-takes-all Disruptive Technologies— one really good solution could handily slay 147 languishing ones. Steve Case makes a similar argument in The Third Wave— the Public Sector is poised for transformation and offers an ocean of opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Languishing Technologies often represent outdated categories of technology with so much accumulated technical debt that their dilemma isn’t so much whether or not to innovate, but just how to stay relevant with decades-old tech limitations. If new entrants can redefine the category with a solution good enough to carve out an early niche, their agility will allow them to reach and conquer the mainstream market faster than the undead can rebuild.

So...

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2021 Life Olympics

I was serious about finding joy in 2021. I left the Christmas "joy" decorations up for the whole year so that I would be literally surrounded by JOY JOY JOY at home all year round. Christmas doesn't have a monopoly on joy, after all. We need joy for all seasons.

Here we go. Year o' joy:

Work - Gold

In many ways, this was my best year of work. Allovue brought on a new roster of dream school districts to work with in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Boston, LA, and even my dear Baltimore on our new allocation tool. There was so much to celebrate all year. Our team also welcomed six new bundles of joy this year which made for a lot cute baby content in the #family channel and Zoom. Want to make meetings more joyful? Add a gurgling baby or two or six.

I returned to traveling for the wonderful world of education conferences this year. The joyyyyy I felt on my first airplane ride in 15 months! I did pick-up the COVID variant du jour at one of those conferences, but getting back to in-person events with our partners and friends felt like restoring a huge missing part of my work. Remote options are great and necessary but, for me, there is no substitute for presenting to a live audience, having a lively roundtable discussion, and breaking bread with people in good ole' real life.

Running a company in the second year of a pandemic? Still stressful! Which brings me to...

Health - Bronze

It was a pretty rough year health-wise-- physically and mentally.

I started the year struggling to figure out the right cocktail of ADHD medicine-- a process that left me listless and depressed. It was a long, dark winter. I mentally army-crawled my way to the right doctor and medicine and when I finally got it right-- that was joy.

I got COVID in July and, while my symptoms were roughly equivalent to a bad flu and considered 'mild' by coronavirus standards, it still really knocked me down. The bigger problem, though, was that I had a lot of trouble getting back up. I don't know if it was lingering fatigue from the virus or burnout from two years of navigating a company through an evolving crisis (both?!) but I felt down for the count. My energy levels were so low that I could barely function and my brain felt like it was short-circuiting just trying to string together basic sentences. After a few weeks of feeling like this, I decided that I needed a real, hard break. I took off to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a 2-week yoga retreat and brought myself back to life. I spent two whole weeks doing nothing but yoga, reading, journaling, hiking, and eating delicious plant-based meals. I started to feel like a human again after the first week but it took me the full two weeks to feel like me again.

My exercise stats this year came in at about 85% of 2020 levels-- this is decent considering I lost almost 2 months of regular workouts due to COVID/fatigue. I recommitted to my yoga practice after the retreat and found a wonderful new yoga home at Baltimore Yoga Union-- which I learned about from one of my yoga instructors in Mexico because the universe works in weird and wonderful ways.

Home - Silver

I can hardly divorce this year in all things Home from the ongoing fiasco with my back alley flooding. I spent a truly obnoxious amount of time this year clearing the storm drain behind my house to prevent flooding and calling/emailing/tweeting at various City Council members and City agencies and neighborhood groups trying to get a longterm, permanent solution to this issue. As an interim solution, I had a wall/flood barrier installed around my basement door to try to mitigate flooding into my house.

I'm giving this a Silver because my persistence is starting to pay off. As of this writing, the City's Emergency Services department is reviewing a contract for a study of the block's storm-drain system which is allegedly accompanied with funding for a potential solution. Fingers crossed for a real solution by this time next year.

Horizons - Silver

All things considered, I could probably give this category Gold this year; I'm downgrading it to Silver because I feel like I really phoned this one in this year. I hit my modest reading goal of 30 books. I traveled as much as I could (Portland and Willamette Valley with Ali, Asheville and Breckenridge with Rob, Puerto Vallarta for yoga). I tried skiing for the first time since I was 3-years-old. I went on a yoga retreat. Aside from skiing, I don't really feel like I pushed myself to explore many new horizons as much this year. I was exhausted for so much of this year and my energy for trying and seeing and learning new things was at an all time low. More on that later.

Relationships - Gold

The relationships in my life were a real bright spot this year and the source of so much of my joy. My relationship with my former student and mentee offered such deep gratitude and joy this year. I got to spend time with my Mom, brother, and sister-in-law in Colorado. I was able to spend Father's Day weekend with my Dad. I ate a lot of delicious food and drank a lot of good wine with my aunt. I caught up with Ali for an awesome PNW trip. I reunited with my team for an incredible company retreat in Estes Park. I got to see my extended family for the holidays. I enjoyed many wonderful dinners and nights of deep discussion with the various loves of my life-- all of us navigating the respecting challenges of building companies, parenting, love and marriage, and all that other lovely messy human stuff.

And of course, I got to spend the better part of the year falling in love and being loved. I don't take a minute of it for granted.

I started this year with one Mary Oliver poem, so I'll end it with another one:

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

2022

And as for 2022-- what's the word? I had a hard time coming up with my theme word this year; I just felt somewhat uninspired. Usually, it springs forth from the recesses of my brain-- sometimes as early as September-- and I just know. This year took some noodling along with some help from Rob.

A few things loosely informed my word for 2022:

I recently opened a cabinet that contains games, coloring books, and other various tools of leisure-- I all but had to clear the cobwebs to find what I was looking for.

Crystal said to me, "When I first met you, you did plays and took pictures and made art. I hope you get to do those things again someday." Leave it to a best friend to drop a piercing insight on you that will resonate for weeks.

I haven't touched my camera in years, lazily defaulting to the iPhone for all my picture-taking needs, and I miss it.

I read Four Thousand Weeks, which has prompted me to reflect on my perceptions of time

::Gestures to the state of the world::

It occurs to me that I have a very broken relationship with the whole concept of leisure. I have been working a lot (probably too much) and when I'm not working, I'm often preoccupied with thinking about work or feeling guilty for not working. I don't mind working a lot because I genuinely love my work and find a tremendous sense of purpose in what I do-- but I could stand to have a few fewer hours of my life revolve around it. My routine stress-level is not great.

I've always been an anxious achiever-type, but I haven't always had such a fraught relationship with fun. I used to make things all the time-- paintings, needlepoint, cross-stitch, scrapbooks, stationary, crochet, various craft projects. I sang and danced (poorly, but I tried) and played piano (also poorly) and did improv and read aloud plays with friends; we wrote new harmonies to songs and silly scripts and sat around making up dream cast lists for our favorite musicals for no reason at all. I took so many pictures and spent hours editing my favorites, and then, in college, even more hours processing in the darkroom. I played softball and soccer; sang in choirs and practiced mock trials. I had so many extracurricular activities I don't know how I ever made time for the curricular ones.

My extracurriculars have diminished considerably. I still do a singing lesson twice a month; I read and bike and do yoga-- but most of those have some kind of productivity goal attached to them. Singing is really the only thing I still do just for fun. My extracurriculars now are various boards and workgroups and committees that are really just work in disguise.

Being an adult can't all be fun and games-- but surely some of it can be? I'm going to try to rid myself of the belief that everything I do needs to be productive. I want to have enough energy for things other than work. I want to make and build and create-- I want to play.

2022: Let's play.

[jessgartner]

Building Public Ventures

If you follow me on any corner of the Internet, it’s obvious that I’m a pretty public person. I share intimate details about my life, health, relationships, and company-- probably too much. 

But I’m a social person, a public person, and person who likes to process her thinking in writing... all of which makes me a prime candidate for social media use and abuse. I also believe in honesty and transparency-- I like to get everything out in the open and figure things out together: data, feelings, problems, politics.

Occasionally, fleetingly, I worry about this. I worry that someday I will make a grave misstep-- very publicly-- and bands of trolls will emerge from the darkest crevices of the interwebs to scour my public history and deconstruct and decontextualize every word I’ve ever shared to prove that I am a Bad Person. 

I know this would wreck me-- I have rejection sensitive dysphoria and anxiety on a good day. 

I also operate at the nexus of industries that love a good takedown story: public education and technology. I’ve read so many Founder Fall From Grace stories-- disproportionately featuring women CEOs-- and wonder/worry if someday they’ll come for me. I always feel conflicted by the mass schadenfreude: I believe in calling out bad behavior of those in positions of power; I believe that we hold women and leaders of color to a much higher standard than white male leaders; I believe that some things can be taken out of context and manipulated for shock value; and I believe that good people make mistakes. I’m glad to see the accountability, but I often hate how and to whom it’s applied. 

In general, I’m proud of most of the decisions I make and the values I live-- as a person and as a business leader. I also know that I’ve had bad moments; I’ve said things I regret; I’ve had and continue to have my own learning curve where my opinions and worldview and leadership evolve based on new information. It would just plain suck to have a bad moment scrutinized and ripped apart in public. Even if I unequivocally condemn the actions/words that are being broadcast and pilloried, I usually have some empathy for a person who is learning a lesson on a very public stage (unless they really deserve it). 

Why risk it? Why not just live my life more privately? For one... I just can’t. It’s really not who I am and I need to be true to myself and live my life on my own terms. But I also think there’s real value in learning and growing together. For every dumb thing I’ve said and regretted, I’ve had many more examples where people have told me that they learned something or thought about something differently or made their own life better in ways big and small because of something I shared publicly. That feels important to me. That feels worth the risk. That feels like the truest distillation of politics: living in groups; figuring things out together; resolving conflicts; making progress. 

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2020 Life Olympics

The real Olympics may have been canceled in 2020 but the Life Olympics persevered like the postal service of Olympics. 

First, I’d like to apologize for my role in the chaos of 2020 because I think I had a slight miscommunication with the powers that be and I feel partly responsible. Here was my plan for 2020: 

My theme for 2020 is Intention because I want to take the energy I feel right now and deploy it with more intentionality next year - bringing increased mindfulness to how I spend my time, money, physical and mental energy. And because I love wordplay, I also literally want to spend more time camping “in-tent” to enjoy more peace and quiet and beauty in nature.

The universe was like, “Oh, she wants to spend less money and more time outside? Well, shut it down. Shut the whole planet down.”

I mean, mission accomplished, I guess? I did spend less money and more time outside and had to be VERY intentional with my mental energy to survive the day-to-day morass of 2020. Next time, I will be more specific with my annual manifestations. Sorry to all. 

2020 was brutal for pretty much everything and everyone. I don’t know anyone who isn’t in some state of grief right now, including myself. I debated doing a Life Olympics at all this year, feeling like-- what is the point? Hundreds of thousands of people died, our democracy is hanging on by a thread, and millions of people lost jobs, businesses, and homes. 

Like many people, I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression this year which intensified as it got darker and colder outside. At a low point, I talked with my therapist about the struggle of just not wanting to do any of the things that usually bring me joy-- and how periods of relief were so fleeting. “But you have to keep doing those things,” she said, “even if they’re not working right now, you have to keep doing those things and trust the process; the joy will return.” 

So even though I don’t really feel like it and kind of feel like it’s dumb, I’m writing the 2020 Life Olympics. I’m trusting the process.

2020 Life Olympics Recap

Work - Participation Trophy

Starting a company is hard, operating a company is harder, but running a company during a global pandemic and economic crisis is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. 2020 was not a fun year to lead a business; it was hell. On March 15, the plan for the year pretty much went out the window and everything went into survival mode. I never take the company or my team for granted, but I’m particularly grateful to be able to usher this work into 2021.

Despite the craziness, we still had some big wins this year. We launched new product partnerships with PowerSchool and Amazon Business. We rebuilt our tool for equitably calculating district funding formulas. And I got to flex my creative muscles with EdFinToks! Throughout it all, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a team of people who are as compassionate as they are talented. 

I’m worried about public education more than ever after this year, but I’m going to keep fighting every day to make it work better for kids. 

This is Work-Lite but I also spent a good chunk of time this year leading the modernization workgroup for Bill Henry’s transition committee after his spring primary election to become the new Baltimore City Comptroller, ousting a 25-year incumbent, Joan Pratt. This was an enlightening (and infuriating) experience for me that gave me a glimpse into the operations of a segment of the City government. This process also really helped crystallize how much I enjoy making public agencies function more efficiently; I’m excited to see what Bill does with the recommendations (some are already being put in action!)

Health - Gold 

This is the second year in a row (and ever) that I’m giving myself a Gold medal for Health. This was easily a year that I could have regressed on all of my healthy habits and no one would have blamed me. Instead, I leaned into protecting and improving my physical and mental health in 2020. It’s not an exaggeration to say that walking probably saved my life this year. I spent a lot of time walking around my neighborhood and various state and city parks-- walking is maybe not the best word; I stomp and charge around like I have a score to settle with the ground beneath me. My walking increased 370% in 2020. This is a habit of 2020 that I’d like to keep. My brain and body are happier if I can spend a little time walking-- stomping-- around outside each day. 

I also did a lot of biking this summer. My cycling increased 200% this year-- with much more time spent cycling outdoors. My crowning achievement this year was biking to and from Annapolis:

I spent a LOT more time outside this year which was critical for my mental health. On the downside, I only did 90% as much yoga and 60% as much strength training, so I want to try to be a little more balanced next year. 

I also invested a lot in my mental health this year. I kept up with therapy every 2-4 weeks and in October I decided to pursue a formal diagnosis for ADHD which I definitely have! Needless to say, staying in one place this year has been a special kind of hell for me. 

Home - Silver

Well, I definitely spent less money this year. And the way I did spend money made me (mostly) sad: 

Travel down 70% 

Auto & Transportation up 200% (boo cars)

Shopping down 60%

Personal Care down 35% 

Gifts and donations up 200% 

Food and Dining down 40%

Entertainment down 35% (I kept up my singing lessons virtually which accounts for a lot of this category) 

2020 was quite the palate cleanser from my 2019 year of hedonism but maybe we can go for a happy medium in 2021? Just kidding-- I will resume my hedonist ways the minute the world opens. 

I also redid my home office like every other work-from-homer on the planet and replaced my crumbling kitchen floor so the house got some TLC. 

But nobody enjoyed having me home all year as much as Darwin:

Relationships - Bronze

What a weird year for relationships of all kinds. I’m giving this a Bronze because while I invested a lot into a few relationships this year, there are also a lot of people in my life to whom I haven’t been able to give my time and love. 

One of the most important relationships in my life this year was with one of my former students. After bouncing around in the foster system for many years, we reconnected around the holidays in 2019 and he started crashing with me while we tried to figure out stable housing and employment. He was arrested in January and was incarcerated for the next several months awaiting trial. Finally, we were able to negotiate a plea agreement with the State’s Attorney and he came home around Independence Day. We spent the next several months getting him set up with a phone and various identification documents-- a nightmare in normal times and a total abyss during the pandemic. I got him registered to vote when we got his ID card and I took him to vote for the first time (a supreme treat for this former social studies teacher):

He’s now got a full-time job and stable living situation. Calling this THE success of 2020. Thank you to everyone who helped me with resources all year for housing, legal processes, and documents. It takes a village. 

It was a bizarre year for family. We lost my grandmother in September, so not being able to spend the holidays together felt like an especially cruel loss. Other big losses this year include a trip to France to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mother and my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding (Mosby seemed pretty ok with the alternative plan, though):

But in many ways, my family has been more together than ever this year thanks to prolific group chats and photo-sharing. Mostly, I’m just glad everyone else is safe and healthy. As my father often reminds me, “Our problems are small.” 

And dating? What to do with this weird Jane-Austen-esque dating scene-- as if modern dating weren’t fraught enough. Is this the universe punishing me for ending my 2019 dating hiatus early? I, for one, have given up. You win this one, pandemic. I’m just going to have my little Twitter crush and call it a year. Next year, though...

Horizons - Silver Gold 

You know what? It’s hard to expand your horizons without people or places. 

I did the best I could. I finally got back on track with my Goodreads challenge and actually had a really good year of reading, including finally embracing audiobooks through my Libro.fm subscriptions. I especially enjoyed Michelle Obama’s book Becoming and Mike Birbiglia’s The New One on audio-- both narrated by their authors. 

I camped in Pocomoke (MD), Western MD, Lake Michigan, and Ohiopyle (PA):

I explored over 30 new hiking/biking trails-- some favorites including the Youghiegheny River trail in PA, the NCR trail, Catoctin Mountain, the C&O Canal Towpath, Annapolis Rock, and of course, Stoney Run in my backyard. 

I left Facebook and started the Life Olympics newsletter. I’ll be honest, I don’t miss Facebook but I also don’t understand where that energy, time, and brain space went. I was spending cumulatively hours a day mindlessly scrolling Facebook and I quit cold turkey and barely noticed-- what black hole of our brains does social media occupy? I kind of thought that with all that extra time I would write the next great American novel or something. I’m probably spending a little more time on Twitter, which I could stand to cut back on. Other than that, I think I was just trying to process the shitstorm of this year. Maybe I’ll write the next great American novel post-pandemic. 

For the first time in my life, I feel somewhat ‘caught up’ on pop-culture. I finally watched Parks and Recreation (twice); I watched The Mandalorian and finally actually watched Star Wars (episodes IV-IX); I watched the final seasons of The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek; I’m caught up on Insecure; I watched The Prom and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Jingle Jangle; I even started Bridgerton. I know what everyone is talking about and I’m catching so many more pop-culture references these days. (I guess instead of writing the next great American novel I watched Netflix?)

2020 Lessons

I’ve spent plenty of time mourning the missed opportunities of 2020 and will probably always wonder what this year could have been in an alternate universe with a functioning government. But we only have this reality for now, and we made the best of it. 

I wanted to slow down in 2020, try to be more intentional, more mindful, and...

No thank you! I liked the pace of my life; it makes my brain and heart happy. I’m happiest when I wake up in a different city three days in a row. I like darting around every borough of Manhattan for nine meetings and three cocktails and then taking a red-eye to Europe. I want to run around to eight conferences for 18-hours a day for three weeks and then sleep for 22 hours. I miss overloading my brain so much that I need a deprivation chamber to sleep. This is who I am. This is how I like to live. And when I was locked down alone in the house for a year, slowing down, being mindful, I never once thought, “I should have... when I had the chance.” Because I always did. And I always will. 

2021

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.

Mary Oliver

We’ve had enough grief. 2021 is going to be all about joy.

Universe, let me be clear: this is not a euphemism or code or secret signal.

I want pure, unadulterated, abundant, joy. I want multi-course dinners in restaurants with lots of close friends and good wine. I want the virus so far gone that I can make-out with handsome strangers. I want a rollicking good time in France and/or Brazil and/or Prague and/or New Zealand and/or Bali. I want to spend the day after Christmas in NYC with my father. I want to be a glutton for theatre and art and music. I want celebrations and parties and sequins. 

I want to shake with joy. 

If you’d like to receive the (shorter) monthly Life Olympics, subscribe here. 

[jessgartner]

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https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-12-22-things-fall-apart-will-public-education

Things Fall Apart. Will Public Education? - EdSurge News

I have been worried about public education for a long time. As a teacher, the long nights and weekends I spent creating and customizing reso

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Let me in...

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Annapolis Rock

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Ennui kitty

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Obituary for Kathleen M. Gartner at Weatherhead Young Funeral Home - Owner/Manager John A. Cutaio NJ Lic. No. 2763

Weatherhead Young Funeral Home 885 Mantoloking Road Brick, NJ 08723 Gartner, Kathleen M., 82, died peacefully, surrounded by family, in Mant

Today we celebrated the beautiful life of my grandmother, Kathleen Gartner. She was an amazing lady who quite literally made friends with everyone she met and was widely respected as the epitome of grace, class, and resilience.

My uncle recalled during the eulogy that people often joked that she would go to the grocery store for a head of lettuce and walk out with two new friends. And it was true. She had such an ease with people and a genuine curiosity about and care for everyone she met. She would go on a museum tour and later share the life story of the tour guide. Her memory for these interactions was absolutely legendary. When I was in 1st grade, she came to visit my school for Grandparents’ Day where I confessed that I was very jealous of my friend Timmy’s 64-color box of crayons. She asked me about “crayon boy” for the next 25 years.

She had an easy laugh, which my grandfather Pop, and later, her partner, Dick, brought out frequently with their sly humor and gentle ribbing. She had the most elegant way of cutting fruit. She somehow made a simple grapefruit or a piece of melon feel sacred. Her nails and hair were always perfect and once, looking at my own unmanicured hand, stared at me and said, “It’s important to take care of yourself; you’re showing people how to treat you.”

My grandfather urged her to go to college when my Dad and his twin brother, the oldest two of five children, went to college. She did and reinvented herself and her career as a teacher. Forty years later she could tell stories about her students and how she differentiated work for them; how so-and-so is now a famous cardiologist.

My life looks so different than hers did at my age and I know she wanted me to find a partner and settle down a little. “What ELSE?” she would probe about my life— never fully satisfied with the updates on my work, travel, friends. “What do you think I’m trying to stay alive for, lady?”

In processing my grief about her death, I felt a lot of guilt about this rhetorical question. But I also know she didn’t really want me to settle. After the end of one relationship she pulled me aside and said, “He wasn’t for you. He was settled like dust and you’re a comet racing around the sun.”

I will remember Grandma in grapefruit spoons and nail polish bottles and bright tubes of new lipstick. I will find her grinning at farmers’ markets and feel her in the ease of fast new friends and quick communion with strangers. And I know she’ll be there with me while I’m racing around the sun, shaking her head with twinkling eyes saying, “Lady, your life is scrambled eggs.”

[jessgartner]

#Baltimore

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The public/private false binary that hurts us all

Tracking with the hyper-polarization of American politics, I've noticed an increasing hostility between the U.S. public and private sectors that is detrimental to the health and productivity of both sectors. This rising animus and persistent denigration of sectors creates a good/evil false binary that silos talent, resources, and ideas thereby limiting the potential of both sectors as well as the overall economy.

I've spent my career dabbling in a combination of public sector, non-profit, and private sector work and I believe that we are all better served when the lines between them are blurred by shared goals and resources. The tax structures, ethos, and laws delineating the public/private sector make each better at certain functions than others, but none of these is inherently 'good' or 'bad'. Leaders in both sectors can leverage the respective sector advantages for maximum good or extort the respective loopholes for corruption and greed; sometimes they do both simultaneously.

I've worked in K-12 education for over a decade as a teacher, advocate, non-profit board member, and business owner; I've witnessed the greatest impact when all of these stakeholders collaborate. When we relegate any of these stakeholders to the worst stereotypes of their sector, we dramatically limit the brain power and resources for solving any shared problem.

There are brilliant, hard-working people in both arenas; there are lazy morons in both arenas, too. I've seen public officials abuse power for personal gain and I've seen corporate CEOs forgo their own salary to pay employees. I've seen brilliant public servants chased out of town over petty personal vendettas and I've seen private executives profit from malfeasance. There are corporate teams fiercely committed to fulfilling social missions and public agencies who have completely abrogated theirs.  Some school districts accomplish monumental feats on shoestring budgets while some VC-backed companies fritter away tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on frivolities. There are no categorical rules of behavior, intelligence, morals, or work ethic in either sector.

Have you heard? The times: they are unprecedented. The U.S. is likely going to be reeling from the impact of COVID-19 for a decade and we had no shortage of problems pre-COVID. We're facing monstrous national debt, historic unemployment, climate change, crumbling infrastructure, revolution-level inequality; our schools have fallen in international rankings while our incarceration rates climb. We cannot afford to exclude talent, resources, and ideas on any of these challenges and many, many more. Leaders in every sector must strive for hybrid public-private partnerships.

Assigning moral absolutes to an entity's tax status is a losing game; we must judge organizations based on the character of their leaders, the way they treat employees, the nobility of their mission, and the caliber of their work. When we allow for nuance, we expand the pool of talent, ideas, resources, and tools available for solving pressing challenges efficiently, successfully, and cost-effectively.

[jessgartner]

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Examine the break down of virtual learning cost compared to in-person learning in school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic.