Wow! what I time to be in the US

This week has been seriously cool. The election of Obama is one of the best things that has happened in the world - it is not that anything has changed - it is only the promise of what is possible. I really hope some of this promise is realised. Being in San Francisco for this event was amazing. There was partying on the streets, it was like New Years in 1999. 

I loved this visualisation of the magnitude of this change.  Thanks to Patrick Moberg for this great image.

I also love this way of showing how America voted, with Blue being Democrat and red being Republican, with all the shades in between showing the bias either way.

Look here for all of the maps produced by Mark Newman, the author of this map.

What is really incredible is that while there was tremendous energy around Obama leading up to the election, I don't think the many people truly believed it was going to happen. It was such a release for everyone when he was successful. Today Paula Downey, the President of AAA NCNU, presented the strategy statement of the AAA NCNU and while delivering the statement pointed to Obamas election as a source of renewed inspiration and spirit for the company. Patriotic America is awesome to see in action. It is the ultimate in true belief.

In my last blog I mentioned the great things happening at AAA in there People area. One thing that really stood is the great employee volunteer program they run - check out the website www.aaavolunteers.org. They provide all staff 24 hours paid time to attend volunteering events, and if the employee is emergency trained, up to two week paid time to help with major calamities. Over the past couple of years they have helped with several major hurricane disasters, including Katrina. There is a team of two that run the program, which was recognised recently with a national award (presented by ex-president George Bush Senior), and they achieve a participation rate of 65% per annum. What is most impressive about this program is that only one third of the volunteering is done during work hours - so for the most part staff are volunteering there own time, rather than using the paid hour available.

They are also doing some great work on mapping of competencies, including looking at an all of business approach to talent management. Like RAC the biggest challenge is getting the business used to a new way of doing things. We are certainly on the same path here.

Also over the last week I spent some time East Bay, in Walnut Creek, with this regions' Market Executive, Andrea Kastner. This is too be the new site of AAA head office, which they move to in 18 months. Andrea and here team have been working on a concept for a new style of district office, which has strong parallels with the Kiosk theme that was raised at the RAC Summit in August. Great design, and I am absolutely taking what I can from this to share with RAC - and Andrea is kindly sharing freely.

Finding some really great things, but are beginning to sense that my time here is coming to a close, with only six weeks to run. 

Until next time. BTW my wife Deb has gone to bed, so no spelling or grammar checking for this post....