We’re going to have a meeting devoted to cybersecurity in 2016, but did you see the news of the recent RAND report about cyberwar (Eric Haseltine, John Negroponte, Herbert Lin, and Joel Brenner,  Washington, D.C., May 2010)? The New York Times headline says it all: “Report Stresses Importance of Agreement to Avoid Cyber Conflict.” In the end, it all comes down to collaboration — hence our meeting next week in Washington D.C.

In two-and-a-half weeks the TTI/Vanguard community will be gathering in Washington, D.C., for our conference on Collaboration and the Workplace of the Future. One look at the agenda will make clear why you will want to be there. Since the conference’s theme will extend through the field trip to TTI/V member MITRE Corporation’s McLean facility, be sure to include that additional half-day event in your plans.

A few months ago, with enthusiasm tinged with skepticism, we devoted an entire newsletter to the Apple Watch. The skepticism isn’t shared by Salesforce (Steve Fisher, San Diego, Feb 2009), which has been promoting its Salesforce Wear “as a tool for developers to create apps for the device that also sync with the Salesforce Cloud” according to Wearable Tech Insider. Compensating for Salesforce’s lack of skepticism is usability guru Don Norman (San Jose, February 2003), who recently wrote a post on his company website entitled “Apple's products are getting harder to use because they ignore principles of design.”

TTI/Vanguard staffer Robin Lockett took last week off to volunteer at the Special Olympics held in Los Angeles. As Festival Manager, she worked tirelessly to give participants a magical, well-organized, once-in-a-lifetime experience. With 6,500 athletes and 2,000 coaches from 165 countries, Robin participated in the largest sports and humanitarian event of 2015.  Our hats are off to you, Robin!