This is yesterday's lunch at 701 Restaurant with the talented managers I am blessed with at work. 701 is a swanky jazz bar restaurant near the National Archives.

Pictured L>R are Michael, Liz, Amy, and me. Not pictured, but missed, is Sandy, who is on maternity leave for three more months. My managers (and their teams) help me keep a balanced perspective, and I learn from them all how to be a better manager myself.

The last photo is of what I thought would be a simple scoop of sorbet, but instead arrived as a dessert event!

- mike lee - washington, dc

Here are some photo highlights from the weekend: 1 & 2) Cianna recieves her LuvCubs NewBorn Baby Bear from her grandma. 3) Two candles in dessert pudding for the birthday girl at the Lakeside Restaurant 4) Checking out the Mountain Reflections holiday light display by the lake. 5 - 7) Visitng the park's aviary where we saw Black Vulture and Red-tailed Hawk. 8) Passing through Sideling Hill, WVA on the ride home.

- mike lee - wheaton, md - a treasure map

Spending part of Thanksgiving at Rocky Gap Resort in Cumberland, MD may be a new tradition in our family. We're meeting my inlaws here for the second year in a row as a convenient midpoint between our home towns in Ohio and Maryland to have another Thanksgiving dinner and a second birthday party for two-year-old Cianna. Here is the arrival at the hotel, including a daytime peek at the holiday light display, the view of 243-acre Lake Habeeb from our room, discovering that WiFi is finally available, and checking in our boarded dog via webcam. Now I have to climb a hill next to the hotel to get a signal to make this post.

- mike lee - cumberland, md

...for my daughter who turns two on Sunday. I didn't see any party hats I liked at the stores. They're all branded with movie characters so I made my own with poster board, heart-shaped Post-IT Notes, and ribbon from the drugstore. We are celebrating the first of two birthday parties at my mom's house today over turkey.

- mike lee - wheaton, md

We got our first bit of snow tonight in the hours before midnight. There's about 1/4" on everything but streets and sidewalks. It will all be melted by dawn, but I'm looking forward to seeing how our first big snow looks in our new backyard and around the neighborhood.

- mike lee - wheaton, md

1) Friday night shoot with model "Querca" and fall leaves 2) Introducing Cianna to the 1969 show, Frosty the Snowman, which is part of the Christmas Classics DVD. 3) A visit to the Wheaton Ice Arena. 4 & 5) Dim sum lunch again Saturday at Hollywood East, where I tried baked scallops, and Cianna downed an entire pork bun. 6 & 7) Tonight, we walked the holiday Garden of Lights at Brookside Gardens. Cianna growled back at the scary Loch Ness Monster sculpture that breathes smoke. More photos on Flickr. 8) Dinner after the lights was at Full Key Restaurant. The beef and egg on rice I had is a new addition to my list of comfort foods. It's also good to know we can buy an entire roast duck.

- mike lee - wheaton, md

Aside from our company's own team of superstar organizational coaches, I was introduced to some other industry superstars on the second and final day of our management conference. In the video amphitheater, I caught a bit of Loretta LaRoche, who is described by some as the "Jolly-lama" for her unique approach of using humor to diffuse tension in the workplace.

The closing speaker was David Maister, a former Harvard Business School professor, and author of the highly regarded books, Managing the Professional Services Firm and The Trusted Advisor. David's speech was deliberately provactive with proclaimations such as "strategic planning is intellectually trivial!" and "training and performance management should be abolished!" His basic point was that no strategy can be realized without truly committed people, and that all organizations should face the hard reality that if their people don't improve, the organization should help them move on. What made the talk entertaining was David's humorous examples sketched on an overhead projector, and spoken in a british accent punctuated by loud snorts and body bows for emphasis. Even cooler was the fact that he was in spitting distance (I was actually worried about spit!) of the CPO, who shifted uncomfortably in her chair a few times. Memorable. Here are some of articles by Maister.

And as a parting gift, we all got a company logo'd 128mb MP3 player/USB memory/FM radio/digital recorder gadget.

- mike lee - north bethesda, md

Today was the official first day of our management conference. The opening general session at 9:30am was particularly memorable. Accomplished conductor Roger Nierenberg presented the concepts behind his framework for leadership, The Music Paradigm, using a live symphony orchestra standing amongst the audience of over 450. He had the musicians play a movement from Brahms in various abnormal modes such as having orchestra members overplay their parts, and demonstrating how the orchestra attempts to play absent the conductor. In open microphone discussion with members of the orchestra and audience, many strong parallels were drawn between the dynamics of a live orchestra and large organizations. Here's more about Roger at Fast Company.

- mike lee - north bethesda, md

Minutes elapsed for the events pictured...

1) 300 minutes at the Marriott in North Bethesda at the new manager's pre-conference for work. Pictured is the conference binder and a really thick tome on performance management. The conference continues for two more days.

2) 60 minutes on a cross-county road to pick up my daughter from my mom's house.

3) 15 minutes responding to a request from a producer from Animal Planet who wants to use this photo of the social robot Leonardo.

4) 10 minutes checking messages on YackPack, a new async audio messaging system that's worth a try. My daughter spoke a cute message to Dr. Fogg tonight.

5) 20 minutes in Professor Maeda's Openstudio drawing the face of a nutcracker statue.

Plus some more hours' worth of minutes in meetings, answering work e-mails, and reading documentation.

Now, many minutes of sleep...

- mike lee - wheaton, md