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Glimpses of Seattle

November 9, 2012 •

Yes­ter­day was a grey Novem­ber day in Seat­tle. I spent a chunk of the day in the down­town finan­cial dis­trict, attend­ing an angel net­work meet­ing. Sev­eral com­pa­nies I’d coached last week were pitch­ing invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties to a group of women angel investors. I wanted to see how the founders had evolved their pre­sen­ta­tions in response to the coach­ing.

Foundations and Blue Sky Thinking

After the meet­ing I was reminded of some of the things I love about Seat­tle: its funky sky­line, the moun­tains, the har­bor views and reminders of the city’s mar­itime past. Here are two sim­ple exam­ples. The har­bor and ferry view was taken from the 17th floor of the Nor­ton Build­ing; the shot of the brick build­ing was taken moments later from the 6th floor of a nearby park­ing garage. (Although not cap­tured by the iPhone, yes­ter­day fea­tured sun breaks, a Seat­tle con­cept that implies glimpses of blue sky and hints of sun­shine on an oth­er­wise cloudy day.)

seattle-harbor-peek

seattle-heavy-lifting-smaller

What charmed me about the brick build­ing, with its over­size pul­leys and block-and-tackle mech­a­nisms, is the visual metaphor about “heavy lift­ing.” This might serve as a cau­tion­ary tale about soci­ety’s assump­tions about per­ma­nence, and what works.

Even these seem­ingly sturdy brick build­ings are built on land­fill close to the water’s edge. Worse yet, this is a known earth­quake zone with sig­nif­i­cant seis­mic risk; the aged masonry would be highly vul­ner­a­ble to col­lapse in a bad quake.

As a soci­ety we invest in things we think will have endur­ing value, yet time passes, and tastes or require­ments change.  Or we find we have built on unsta­ble foun­da­tions, as the case here.

Glimps­ing these scenes just moments after leav­ing the starry-eyed pitches by three entre­pre­neurs, I was reminded about the fac­tors that go into a per­son or a soci­ety’s choices about where to invest and why. And the wis­dom that comes with 20/20 hind­sight.

If only fore­sight were that clear.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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