Looking Back
Sometimes to look forward we need to look back. At this time of year, successful businesses are publishing their annual reports and plans and promises for the coming year.
Summer/Winter
In the Southern Hemisphere it is the peak of summer, and most people are still on Christmas Holidays. Perhaps now they are just called “Summer Holidays”.
Since living in the Northern Hemisphere for a few decades already, I no longer predicate every statement with a referral to the south, Down Under, my origins, where I come from.
Review
I’m preparing this blog article for my Dream Job UN website.
My consciousness is universal.
My values are interdependence, mutual prosperity and universal values.
As a retired International Civil Servant, I am entrenched in the global mindset.
Yet, I am a Westerner.
I am a global player of the developed world.
NGO
My NGO projects reach out to the Philippines, Africa and Latin America. My personal experience is from Australia, USA, and Europe.
My consciousness seeks to embrace all humankind.
Down Under
As my youngest son takes his trip to Australia, I can’t help but reflect on the developments during my lifetime. As my mother took forty-three days on a ship to travel from Europe to Australia in the 1950s, it took that many hours in 2024 for the same journey. And in an instant we can talk to each other on a tiny hand-held computer with a screen. Well, the time difference of ten hours is a slight impediment. None of us wants to be woken up in the middle of the night. So, we are happy to receive text messages and recorded videos and photos.
Strategy
As most successful mentors and coaches will tell you, review and analysis are important tools. Reflection on the past and planning for the future are an integral part of successful businesses.
Another Issue
Yet today we have tools at our fingertips which can spit out a professional report in less than ten seconds.
Are we ready?
Are you ready?
In my hasty preparations for 2025 I consumed a number of YouTube videos on astrological prophecies.
Responsiveness
Apparently true leaders plan and anticipate and are not left to react to circumstances.
I reacted to a request to address an end of year meeting to an NGO by sharing my inspiration on the prophesies for 2025.
As I navigate social media platforms and mingle with peers and former colleagues, I am preoccupied by feelings of great change and transformation.
History
When I started working at the UN in 2009, some of my colleagues had been working there for thirty years. Their primary tool at the beginning was a pencil for taking shorthand dictation. The computer courses I had eagerly consumed before employment at the IAEA, had no parallel for my working colleagues. The “ECDL” European Computer Driving Licence was introduced to Agency staff a few years after I joined. I was hailed as the pc expert in my office.
What is it like for those people now retiring from the UN with zero or little “real world” experience? I had ten years work experience in Austria and another ten years supporting my husband from home.
Baby Boomer
I see myself as a life-longer learner and also teacher/trainer. As a communication trainer, who then became a Data Assistant, I recognize that not all of my peers are interested in keeping up with modern technological developments.
Intergenerational
However, I see a big challenge now to bridge the gap, not only for those now leaving the work force to stay in touch, but also for those entering the workforce, to appreciate the historical developments. Each time my mobile phone forces a software update and changes my basic settings, I am just as frustrated as when Facebook changes its conditions.
I often read the terms and conditions, the changes and notifications.
I know that generation xyz/millennials are not necessarily on my social networks. Yet I also note that many of my own generation are not on any networks and often isolated.
Next Time
I’d like to tell you about all the side events my NGO hosted at the United Nations during 2024.
I’d also like to tell you how valuable the Toastmaster meetings were and what a privilege it was for me to support hybrid meetings on both counts.
I was particularly interested to get back to the NGO Committee on Aging which I had visited in my pre UN Staff days, as an NGO Representative. It was also inspiring to see the Peace Committee host its first major conference at the VIC.