Best of 2022!

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I thought, no better way to compliment my friend Dan Ward than to emulate his "quick & quirky list of some of the best things from the past year, in a variety of random categories." While I changed some of the categories and obviously the content, thank you, Dan, for the inspiration!

BOOK(S): For work-related topics, I learned a lot from the book Hack Your Bureaucracy ( Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai ). I was such a big fan of this book's stories and methods in improving bureaucratic organizations that my Federal Innovators Salon team and I invited Marina and Nick to be showrunners in the fall - we so appreciated their enthusiastic engagement with our Salon participants! I'm currently enjoying Dan Roam 's "The Back of the Napkin," which is now nearly a classic in the design-thinking space. While I didn't have a lot of fiction on my shelf this year, I had a great time listening to Dave Grohl's autobiographical The Storyteller on Audible. His approachability and humility are refreshing, his stories of his early years before, during, and after Nirvana are fascinating, and his commitment to his family is so admirable. I also got my then-eight-year-old daughter to prefer the Foo Fighters (especially the song Everlong) over all other music for several months. Looking for more? See the bottom of this post for more books I love!

GIRLS SOCCER COACHING: Besides a few years playing as a kid and a couple seasons of Ted Lasso, I knew next to nothing about soccer when my daughter's coach stepped down from coaching last spring. To "save" her team, I volunteered to co-coach with another dad, John. It was surprisingly easy to learn how to coach thanks to John, and it afforded me more time with my awesome kid. While we mostly tied each game all season, I had a lot of fun learning more about soccer, patience, and 9-year-old girls, who are hilarious, inspirational, and sometimes a bit crazy!

KRAV MITZVAH (New skill!): This summer, my daughter started her official bat mitzvah training regime (it's a three year journey of learning about Hebrew, the history of Jewish culture and tradition, and the preparation to lead a multi-day service in English and Hebrew herself when she's 13). I'm so proud of her for choosing to pursue this challenging path. When we started taking her to Sunday and Wednesday classes, another dad at the synagogue, an active duty Navy officer named Josh, asked if I wanted to take the Israeli martial art, krav maga, from him while our kids are in class; my wife and I said "why not!" While my wife was overcome by her tennis instruction, I stuck with this training all fall and winter. Josh is an awesome instructor; each class, we spend some time stretching, learning knife, gun, and choke defenses, and most of the two hours per class sparring. I feel not only more able to defend myself, but more athletic than I have in years! I've even shown my daughter and some friends how to protect themselves from a few "typical bully moves."

TRAVEL (return of): In 2022, I mostly traveled domestically for work (Austin, Indiana, Seattle, Norfolk, and Boston), but also had a chance to travel with the family to Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, and back to Texas to see our extended family at Thanksgiving. Thanks to Sondra Laughlin , Annie Bullock , Mercedes Fitchett , ?? Nicholas Marchand , Jim Rabuck , Amanda Bresler , Luke Shabro and others, my work travel was so productive and fun, too. As Dan mentioned in his post, "It's delightful to travel again, and even more so to travel with people." We also gave "e-biking" a chance in Utah; my two cents is that it's really fun for long-distance city tourism or countryside rides (as long as there are safe trails!).

PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS: I conceived, helped pull together, wrote, and edited for a Defense Entrepreneurs Forum writing collection, "DEFinitely Disruptive," before the annual conference in October. I’m proud of the contributions of my friend and DEF Executive Director Trish Martinelli , over a dozen major DEF members, my Hopper committee alums, and the fact that John Hawley and Johnny Saye helped us create and publish this 150 page work in about 50 days. Now that I've helped edit a book (my sister Laura Jack 's The Compassion Code) and co-authored a book, I believe I can finally write and publish my own work.

Additionally, I *always* feel proud of the work we do in the Federal Innovators Salon, where 2022 featured intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant engagements with Basil White , Beth Archibald Martin , Sharon Benjamin , Daniel Hulter , Lee Gimpel , Mike McGinley , Janusz Wasiolek , Marcus “CUS” Carrion , Col Jason “TOGA” Trew, PhD (USAF Retired) , Chang Suh , Jenny Hegland , W. Ethan Eagle???? , and the above-mentioned Marina and Nick! Grateful for you and our amazing board, consisting of Basil, Beth, Trish, as well as Rebecca McBride , Chandra Osann , Wendy Walsh- EdD, MPA, MEP , and Katherine Tobin , as well as our William & Mary interns!

FOREIGN EXCHANGE (continued!): From August 2021 through June 2022, we hosted Elsa, a wonderful teenaged girl from west of Madrid, Spain, through AFS Intercultural Programs , the same program my dad, sister, and I went on foreign exchange in high school ourselves (to the Netherlands and Costa Rica). Although my parents had hosted a great Austrian teen in the late 80s and my wife and I had been an "aunt/uncle" family before, this was our first experience having a student for an entire year in our home. Despite the still-weird COVID year, Elsa made friends, became part of our family, went to homecoming and prom, played volleyball, dive, and tennis (new to 2 of 3!), made all 'As' at our local high school, made excellent Spanish food for us and learned some of our favorites foods, went with us to Disney World and 8 states, and met a great boy she's still dating from afar. We feel like we truly gained a daughter (and a sister for our daughter!) and can't wait to visit Elsa in Spain (where I studied for a semester in college) someday soon!

MUSIC, MOVIES, PODCASTS: Thanks to my wife and my friend Mike Saewitz , I made it to a couple fun concerts this year. I also enjoyed encountering new-ish artist Katie Pruitt, re-discovering Hope Sandoval (remember Mazzy Star? That's her!), and the phenomenal Wakanda Forever and Maverick soundtracks. We really enjoyed the latter two movies (in theaters!), the Netflix comedy specials of Sheng Wang and Nate Bargatze, and continued to love the podcasts The Moth, Throughline, Fresh Air, and How I Built This.

FOOD OF THE YEAR: I discovered Costco's Healthy Warrior oatmeal (delicious and healthy!) and my wife, Autumn Conrad Schiff , shifted us from SunBasket to Hello Fresh mail-order meals. These meal kits can be faster and easier than "from scratch" cooking, but more importantly, they can add healthy and tasty alternatives to your diet (Bulgogi pork tenderloin and garden spinach ricotta ravioli). Autumn also got me and our daughter a cool Sur La Table baking class, in which we made 'pate a choux' snow people!

BEST TECH: This year, I continued loving the digital whiteboard, Mural (those who know me know I use this for nearly everything, from facilitating workshops to mapping out my network!). I also finally caved in and bought some of those voice-controlled smart plugs (life-changing!) and tried the popular psychology-based weight loss and activity tracker Noom , which was really effective in helping me not only lose weight, but be more mindful of what, when, why, and how I eat, and how much one croissant or one small portion French fries destroys your diet as much as it tastes amazing. Moderation! Lastly, we also added the Ninja Air Fryer to our crowded kitchen, and so far, it's totally worth it.

More books I've loved recently:

• Sapiens (Yuval Noah Harari), which retells the history of our species from a completely fresh perspective. It explains that money is the most pluralistic system of mutual trust ever devised; that capitalism is the most successful religion ever invented; that the treatment of animals in modern agriculture is probably the worst crime in history; and that even though we are far more powerful than our ancient ancestors, we aren’t much happier.
• Dan Ward's book Lift (a playful introduction to flying machines from the late 1800’s and the inspiring people who designed, built, launched, and crashed them. It is also a serious guide to innovation for 21st century problem solvers)
• Michael Kanaan 's book T Minus AI (A new spin on the history of innovation, and a masterful explanation about what each of us should know about modern computing and?AI)
• John Hawley and his partner Johnny Saye 's book Your Meetings are Stale Chips (?an organized series of tools and tactics to take your meetings and give them meaning. Use this kit to help prep, facilitate, organize, and overhaul meetings for any number of people: from 1-on-1 conversations to packed auditoriums.)
• Sabra Horne 's Creating Innovation Navigators (a vital resource for creating mission results, providing a common language and process for achieving mission acceleration. It can be used with any innovation methodology, and covers topics foundational to innovation: how to build innovation organizations, the necessary functions and resources for innovation, ways to measure progress, metrics to show impact within an organization, and how to communicate successes.)
• Mark D. Jacobsen 's Eating Glass (a compassionate and practical guide to navigating these seasons. Drawing on his own experiences—including a failed humanitarian nonprofit and a grueling PhD process—he guides readers through four stages: failure, aftermath, healing, and renewal. With unflinching honestly and a consistently redemptive spirit, he names the thoughts and feelings we all experience in these seasons, giving readers permission to embrace their own stories.)