Month: September 2010

9 Years Later: It’s Still Hard to Believe But Impossible to Forget

This is a repost from September 11, 2007.

It was hard to believe what was unfolding six years ago this morning. In our modern media saturated world, it was presented to us in real-time and then repeated over and over again like a horrific groundhog day. But as difficult as these images are, they are impossible to forget which is probably good because the events of those hours effectively defy words.

The New York maritime community responded to these attacks in heroic fashion which probably surprises no one who reads Sea-Fever. Here is an US Maritime Administration video entitled “Honoring the Living Heroes of the United States Merchant Marine.”

There is a small website called HarborHeroes.org that commemorates the maritime professionals, vessels and companies who responded that fateful day. On it there is a powerful piece by Andrew Greeley from the Chicago Suns Times of September 6, 2002 entitled Media ignored calm amid the 9/11 chaos. This short essay does a remarkable job in capturing the essence of leadership that exists in every individual and society’s ability to face an adaptive challenge of monumental proportions.

Cross posted at Sea-Fever blog and the Center for Leader Development blog.

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FotoFriday: Dive!

Sadly it’s the end of summer! I guess it’s time to “dive” into school and work!

The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture has some inspiring photos that might help. Check out their “Diving In” post which appeared on September 3, 2010.

A boy dives into the Dambovita river to cool off in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010. (AP Photo)

High Seas Rockin’ and Rollin’ on P&O’s Pacific Sun

Well, next time you start dreaming about how relaxing that cruise you’ve been saving and planning for is going to be, think of this high seas nightmare on board P&O’s Pacific Sun.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Passengers hurt as storm rocks New Zealand cruise ship – Telegraph.co.uk – August 1, 2010

Flag Dip to Laughing Squid on Twitter.


True North Leadership and the Portfire 40

Portfire40A little over a month ago I was approached by Ryan Skinner of 59° 56′ N blog about participating in an interesting project called the Portfire40.

Ryan does a great job explaining it on his blog as well as on James Tweed’s Coracle Online Shipping Podcasts which you listen to here:

The USCG podstar Ben Strong from AMVER did a great short video introducing the concept too.

Other founding contributors to the Portfire 40 include my former Messing About In Ships cohost and CEO of gCaptain.com, Captain John Konrad; the always interesting Kennebec Captain;  Bob Couttie’s “tell it like it is” Maritime Accident Casebook and the “help-full” After Office Hours. I’m sure there will be more along the journey.

Most Sea-Fever readers know that I am also the founder and editor of Weekly Leader, a website and podcast dedicated to the latest leadership news, views and best practices and consistently one of the top PostRank leadership and management websites.  I also used to contribute a leadership column to MarineNews; here are a couple old articles I was able to locate quickly: Leadership and the Sea (PDF) and Assuming a New Leadership Role.

So what interested me about the Portfire40 project is that it’s actually about leadership and not necessarily about authority or power.  It’s the people who are passionate about and driven to making a difference, not for money or prestige, but because it’s the right thing to do. To me, it’s reaches back to the best of the old maritime tradition of taking care of the ship and your shipmates, which I also believe is a good foundation on which to build your own leadership, even if you never intend to go to sea.

So I’m looking forward to meeting some new maritime leaders and hearing their sea stories. Maybe we can even get a few of them onto the Weekly Leader podcast. It should be fun.