Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin - Quite a read!!

This book is about Abraham Lincoln as a leader, a manager and a politician.

Once elected to the presidency, one of the first things Abraham Lincoln did was to select his cabinet. He selected the very three men that he beat out for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination to hold three important positions in his administration:

1. William H. Seward, a former governor and senator of New York, became Secretary of State.
2. Salmon P. Chase, a former governor and senator from Ohio, became Treasury Secretary.
3. Edward Bates, an elder statesman and former Missouri congressman, became Attorney General.

Lincoln selected a fourth political competitor, Edwin M. Stanton, as his Secretary of War.
Lincoln's reasoning was that with the slave crisis threatening the country, he needed the strongest men surrounding him.

"Every member of his administration was better known, better educated, and had more experience in public life than Lincoln. Their presence in the cabinet might have threatened to eclipse the obscure prairie lawyer from Springfield. It soon became clear, however, that Abraham Lincoln, would emerge the undisputed captain of this most unusual cabinet, truly a team of rivals." (Doris Kearns Goodwin)

I find it amazing that Lincoln was able to choose some of his fiercest rivals to work so closely with him during his presidency. But more amazing still is that these very men became some of his closest friends and strongest supporters. When Lincoln was assassinated, John Hay, Lincoln's personal secretary, reported that their grief was uncontrollable.

What an amazing book this is. Not only did I find the book historically interesting and informative, I think it is has some good lessons for people that work together as a team.

Communicating with Skype and CamTwist

This morning my teammates and I spent some quality time using 4 programs: CamTwist, Skype, UStream TV, and YugmaSkype. Today I will show what CamTwist and Skype can do. Later this week, I will discuss UStreamTV and YugmaSkype.

CamTwist is a software package that lets you add special effects to your video chats. It's also possible to stream your desktop and still images. I like the picture in picture (PIP) as well. With CamTwist, you can also use multiple video chat programs at the same time. Some fun effects we tried are: halo, thought bubble, comic book, and N-Square. In this image my colleague PJ is shown using the effect N-Square full screen while I am in PIP with a thought bubble in the bottom left corner.

Skype allows you to make calls from your computer — free to other people on Skype and cheap to landlines and cell phones around the world.

When using CamTwist and Skype together, Open CamTwist first then follow these steps:
In Step 1, click on "Desktop" as your video source, click "Select" at the bottom of the video source list. Next in Step 1, click on "Webcam" as another video source, and then click "PIP" (which stands for picture in picture) at the bottom of the video source list.

In Step 2, have some fun by adding an effect or two. To see a preview of how CamTwist will look. Go up to the menu and choose "Preview". Check out these cool effects: Cube, Fire, Halo, and Snow.Step 3 allows you to adjust your settings. Lastly, in the last box, settings, adjusting the scale slider allows the viewer to see either more of you or more of your desktop. Nudging the PIP black box will position where the PIP will be located on your screen.
Let's take a look at what the viewer sees. My colleague is seeing my desktop with a small streaming video of me in the upper right hand corner. This is a very cool way to chat and show your screen simultaneously.


Check back soon to see how we used these two programs along with UStreamTV and YugmaSkype.

Thanks to Darren Draper for teaching me these programs!