Huang Family Newsletter, February 2013

 Jada had friend and family birthday parties this month.  She continues
to do ballet, while Aaron finished up soccer and will be starting
swimming next month.  They both got good marks at their most recent
report card conferences.  They both continue to have special needs, as
confirmed by our annual visit to the developmental pediatrician, so
there is another wave of appointments and paperwork that follow from
that.  Amy and Lee are trying frantically to keep up with everything
with the kids and house, while juggling increasing responsibilities at their jobs.

Humility, Narcissism, and Self-Awareness in the Age of Social Media

One of the ways social media has disrupted our cultural norms is in upending the usual differences between celebs and normal shmoes like you and me.  It used to be that it was only athletes, actors, and starlets whose every life detail was laid bare for all the world to see, while the rest of us operated in anonymity and privacy.  But it turns out that celebs really are not much different than we are: it's just that they got more coverage than us.

Social media inverts this dynamic.  Facebook and Twitter allow us to post the minutiae of our lives for our friends to follow.  How many of us have shared something with a friend in person, and they say, "Oh yeah, I saw that the other day on Facebook."  It's like we're curating our own little Entertainment Tonight or USA Today, starring us, and our friends and family can follow along from a distance so that by the time we actually see them in the flesh, they already know half the story or more.

On the other hand, Facebook and Twitter enable celebs to connect directly with their fans, and in the process many demonstrate just how...normal they are.  No longer are they sequestered from us by the media, who previously were our only conduit to our idols.  We ourselves can see a pic of Kobe playing Beethoven, DM LeBron, or receive an encouraging word from Gaga.  It's dizzying and kind of wonderful.

But enough about stars.  Back to us.  We like to bash on famous people who are jerks in real life, as if it's surprising that the trappings of fame and fortune should make them less likely to be mean and egotistical.  Be careful to judge, though.  I can't speak for others, but if I was as powerful, accomplished, or beloved as fill-in-the-blank-jerky-celeb, I'd probably be twice as unbearable. 

Even though I am not as powerful, accomplished, or beloved, I still get a little sliver of star treatment, thanks to social media.  I curate my own online presence, starring me, and people follow along; just as my friends curate their own online presence, starring themselves, and I follow along.  And so we experience just a little bit of what it is like to be a celeb.

And I gotta tell you, sometimes it feels really good.  But it is a feeling that is fraught with danger.  Because, at least for the Christian (and perhaps others share this in their world view), pride is a sinful act.  And it is easy to become prideful when the spotlight is on you.  A social media presence that is self-focused is, over time, soul-deteriorating.

Of course, just as in the real world, a virtual-world approach that is self-deprecating or invisible isn't necessarily the antidote, since false humility is no less a form of pride.  Nor necessarily, as in the real world, is an active pointing to something greater than us, like service or inspiration or the Almighty, since these things can also become sources of pride.

Pride, in the virtual world and in the real world, is hard to escape.  It takes a searing self-awareness few of us are courageous enough to get to, and a constant humbling of ourselves before our Creator who promises to humble those who exalt themselves and exalt those who humble themselves.  Let's hope that as social media becomes ever more pervasive in our lives, and as it upends the normal social conventions we have grown accustomed to, it becomes a milieu for us to vanquish pride in our lives, rather than letting pride vanquish us. 

Lazy Linking, 88th in an Occasional Series

Things I liked lately on the Internets:

88.1 How pastors should take care of businesspeople http://bit.ly/X2V658 @9marksonline


88.2 Michael Jordan: an example of "gaining the whole world and losing your soul"? http://bit.ly/X2yPD0 @tgc


88.3 A pen that "writes" in 3-D...this is awesome http://bit.ly/WhvqOo @colossal

88.4 Myers Briggs typology of Disney characters? Yes please http://bit.ly/X2U3C2 myersbriggs.tumblr.com

88.5 Parents waiting in line in the cold for scarce educational resources for their kids (sounds familiar) http://nyti.ms/YL6qk6 @nytimes

88.6 The Onion for the win: seagull with diarrhea barely makes it to crowded beach in time http://onion.com/WLNcv4 @theonion

88.7 I have seen the future and it is Google Glass http://bit.ly/Yrnk54 @verge

88.8 A business turnaround consultant's approach to fixing the Catholic Church http://nyti.ms/Za1aHr @nytimes


88.9 Dad 2.0 Summit helps advertisers better market to them rather than insulting them http://nyti.ms/136FaSZ @nytimes

88.10 14 things successful people do on the weekends (surprise: most of it involves resting) http://onforb.es/Xqg2T8 @forbes

Fight Club

This past week, Aaron got into a tussle with another kid in the playground at school.  Shoving led to more shoving, tempers flared…and then the other kid popped Aaron in the mouth.  Because Aaron had a really loose tooth right in the middle, it flew out and there was blood, so it looked a lot worse than it actually was.  Still, it’s never fun to get punched in the face.

One of the ironies of this incident is that I was just telling my friend, over coffee, about how much we have liked Aaron’s school and that it is a good school (I was saying this with particular emphasis, since it sometimes gets a bad rap in the media and within our neighborhood).  Just as I was making this point, my phone rang, and I picked it up even though I don’t usually do that when I’m with someone, since I recognized the number as being from Aaron’s school.  Imagine the scene:

Uh huh, OK, thanks for calling.  (Hanging up, and then returning to my conversation with my friend.) That was Aaron’s school.  He just got punched in the face and lost a tooth.  Now where was I?  Oh yes, I was saying: Aaron’s school is a good school!

As a parent (or at least this was the reaction from Amy and me), you want to make sure your kid is OK, and give him some extra TLC to make up for an ugly incident; but at the same time, you also want to use this as a teaching moment.  But what to teach? 

For some parents, perhaps there is no confusion, but for Amy and me, it’s tricky.  On the one hand, you want to make sure that your kids know that fighting doesn’t solve anything.  You also want to teach your kids to avoid situations that can escalate quickly and become dangerous; to paraphrase from a book by social activist Geoffrey Canada, a fist can become a stick can become a knife can become a gun in a hurry in the city. 

On the other hand, you want to teach your kids to stand up for themselves, to not get pushed around, and to push back (whether figuratively or literally) when it is appropriate.  Some may argue it is never right to push back.  I am less convinced that is so.  On one level, it can be a matter of survival for boys (and, increasingly, girls), in terms of navigating what prominent sociologist Elijah Anderson termed “the code of the street.”  On another level, in life, there are some times when we accept what we’ve been given and there are some times when we rise up and say, “no more.”

The kindergarten playground may seem early for such profound life lessons.  But this is where it starts, our children’s education.  It’s not just in the classrooms, gaining skills in reading and writing and math so they can excel in the more complicated stuff that high school and college will throw them.  It’s also in the hallways and play yards, where complex social nuances and power dynamics are learned. 

Thankfully, Aaron is OK physically.  The playground monitor even salvaged the tooth so we could do Tooth Fairy.  But the punch in the face is also a wake-up call to Amy and me to do what we can to help guide and prepare Aaron during his childhood for a healthy and productive adulthood. 

Going to Our Happy Place

Earlier this month, I found this picture in a travel magazine, ripped it out, and showed it to Amy.  I told her this is where I want to take her when the kids get older and we can both get away from them and our jobs for a week.  Her eyes widened and we went for a moment in our heads to a place of beautiful scenery, clear and warm water, and utter silence/solitude. 

The image continues to linger in our minds.  After a long day of working two demanding jobs, slogging with our kids through their issues, and juggling all the other things that make up our lives, I'll come up to a weary and defeated Amy and say, "Hold on until Tahiti!"  It works for her.

Look, we love our jobs and our kids.  We live a charmed life.  The stresses we bear are nothing compared to that of others we know.  But as introverts juggling a never-ending cycle of challenging work and young children, we long for a break from it all, and for space to spend just the two of us.  Looking forward to going to our new happy place is a wonderful motivator to hang in there, not to mention to make sure we are taking care of ourselves physically, emotionally, and financially so that we can actually enjoy such a luxury at some point in our lives. 

It begs the question, though: how is it that parenting is one of our greatest joys, and yet one of our greatest joys within that is dreaming about being thousands of miles away from our kids?  I trust that other parents are nodding their heads.

Bacon for Sale

Greg Heller, one of my firm's senior advisors, is happy to report that his biography of famed city planner Ed Bacon is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com.  If you are at all interested in Philadelphia past and present, or more broadly how cities change over time, this is a must-read. 

Jobs Report

For the last several months, I had the pleasure of working under the Philadelphia Jobs Commission, which was tasked by City Council to look at what the City can do to create and retain private sector jobs for Philadelphians.  Earlier this year, the Commission finalized its report of findings and recommendations.  Yesterday, it briefed the Mayor and City Council and then there was a press conference to officially release the report to the public.  You can link to this report by going here.

Thoughts on Penn Alexander

As you may know, our neighborhood school has been in the news a lot, due to the recent decision to change kindergarten registration from first-come, first-served to a lottery.  Many of my fellow parents and community association board members have been hard at work, out in public and behind the scenes, to figure out a better way forward and to engage all of the stakeholders - the school, the district, Penn, the unions, et al - towards an open and collaborative way to that way forward.

I personally have been involved a little, not nearly as much as others, whose tireless service and thoughtful insights I have admired and appreciated.  But despite my relative lack of involvement, the issue has been on my mind a lot.  When our community association's education committee (of which I am a member) recently tried to schedule a meeting to figure out what to do next, I said none of the proposed dates worked but I would type up some thoughts and send them in so I could make my contribution that way.

I finally got to that on Saturday morning.  Four single-spaced pages later, I sent my thoughts in.  I guess I had a lot to say! At some point, I'll post what I wrote or some edited version of it.  Keep an eye out.

Pray for Woodland

Found out yesterday that our pastor and her family will be moving to Florida later this calendar year; she's taking a position at a university there.  Pray for our church as we try to figure out what's next. 

People come and go - we live in a very transient neighborhood, after all.  And, as you may know, we've had particular turnover in our senior pastor position: since 2002, we've had numerous interims and temporaries.

It is normal to seek and find stability in a head person who is at the helm for a long time.  It's good when that happens, because it's not bad to have that kind of sameness over many seasons.

But let it be remembered that what is truly consistent about a church - and let it be said that what is truly consistent about Woodland - is that God dwells there, and His leaders lead with wisdom and power from Him, and His people serve and care as He wills for them to. 

At any church, who those leaders are and who those people are change over time.  At Woodland, this is particularly true.  At any church, who that God is and what He is like does not change over time.  At Woodland, may we know that this is particularly true.

Night, Life

This may not make any sense to anyone but it adds up in my head: I like that my city is full of people having fun at night, even if I'm not up with them.

Let me explain.  Last night, Amy and I had dinner downtown with friends.  We left the house at an hour normally associated with getting into pajamas and mellowing out around the house, and got home well past the hour we're usually asleep by.

On the bus rides there and back, and walking around downtown, there were people everywhere.  I mean, Philly's a big city with lots of people in it.  Still, since we were awake at an unusual hour for us and since we aren't usually out painting the town red, it was jarring to see: coffee shops with live performances filled to the gills, sidewalks filled to the gills, McDonald's filled to the gills, bars and restaurants on the Penn campus filled to the gills.  Everywhere we looked, there were people having fun.

It made me happy.   Not jealous that I couldn't be out there with them more often.  Because while I like the occasional night out, Amy and I are both more than happy to just be homebodies.  But I'm glad I live in a big city full of people out late at night having fun.  It makes me feel like I'm part of this vast organism that is full of vitality. 

Quadrant II Activities

I've written before about how work has complicated since I've become a principal.  But today I want to further explore one facet of this.

I'm a believer in what best-selling author and leadership guru Stephen Covey describes as "Quadrant II activities" (things that are important but not urgent).  These become particularly important when you are trying to grow a business and not just work on the business.  It's easy in professional services to just put out fires: there's always a client who needs attention or a report/proposal deadline breathing down on  you.  But what makes for a thriving venture is tending to the things that are not urgent (it always seems it can wait) but that are important (without these things your business eventually shrivels up): continuing education, professional networking, business systems, employee training.  These Quadrant II activities are easy to postpone but important to tend to.  Easier said than done.

This is just within the walls of the business.  Then there's Quadrant II activities for your whole being: getting a good night's sleep, taking up a hobby that rejuvenates you, cultivating your spiritual health, making sure the most important relationships in your life (spouse, kids) are getting the investment they deserve.  Again, it's easy to think you can cheat these things, but ultimately you can't do anything good unless you're making sure to make time for them.

As my work world has complicated, so it seems has my personal world: Amy's job is increasingly demanding and so she requires more rest and more care from me, my kids stumble through their special issues at school and in their relationships, and the roster of potential and actual civic activities seems to grow ever longer (church, community association, et al).  Of course, I haven't been given any more time than before.  And, if anything, as I get older, my body and soul need more refresh time, rather than less.  So it is easy to feel I could be doing more at work and more at home and yet also need more time for myself, and of course there's no way to do all three.

As an INTJ, my response is to plan out my Quadrant II activities, which not only makes me more likely to get to everything that is worth getting to every week but also provides me with a sense of comfort and control over an otherwise chaotic existence.  And, as a Christian, my response is to tend to my most important Quadrant II activity, which is to cultivate my personal relationship with God so that I can find peace about not being able to do everything, trusting that what I can do will be blessed, and believing that what I cannot do will turn out OK.  It is an act of true faith, which I do not often practice, if the quantity and quality of my time on this activity is any indicator.  But it is a way forward nonetheless. 

In This is Love: That Our Perfect Hero Dies

"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:10)

I do not usually quote Scripture verbatim in this space, let alone a stand-alone verse without any context.  And you do not normally see impenetrable Christianese words like "propitiation" in this space either.  But with Valentine's Day being today, I felt the above definition of love, from the first epistle of the apostle John, to be apt.  

Not that there's anything wrong with mushy love, romantic love, passionate love, red hearts, chocolates, or roses.  But let these secular markers of love hearken us back to how God and the Bible define love: 

1. D-Decisive and leaving nothing incomplete or unaccomplished
2. I-Initiating and not waiting to be loved first
3. E-Extravagant and not offering less than the best
4. S-Sacrificial and not without cost

Only in the Christian narrative is love defined in that our perfect hero dies.  For us.  Let us live accordingly.

It Takes a Church

There's a part during the baptism of a child at our children when the congregation is asked, "Do we as a congregation promise to do our part to nurture this child in his/her faith?"  In saying yes, we are saying that we are taking responsibility, along with the parent(s), to look out for this kid.  It's an important component of a healthy church body.

I won't mention her name because she'll be embarrassed, but I want to thank one of my fellow congregants for taking that vow seriously as it relates to my kids.  Earlier this year, as the temperatures started to drop, she came up to me and quietly handed me a bag with two winter hats for my kids.  Having had young kids herself, who are now grown, she knew that a young parent can never have enough winter hats.  And she saw two cute ones while out shopping, thought of us, remembered her promise to help look out for the little ones in her congregation, made the purchase, and passed them on to me next she saw me.

I love how tangibly and generously our church lives out the core truths of our faith.  I am a humbled and grateful recipient of this.  As are my two kids and their heads. 

Lazy Linking, 87th in an Occasional Series

What I liked lately on the Internets:

87.1 Oil co franchise tax hike = more $ for infrastructure in PA http://bit.ly/XoXAWU @newsworkswhyy

87.2 Michelle Obama makes kimchi from the cabbage in her White House garden http://bit.ly/11sQfxV @angryasianman


87.3 In your mail on Feb 14: Valentine's Day cards.  On Feb 15: your new, post-AVI property assessment http://bit.ly/125Zkw3 @phillynews

87.4 Megan McArdle on why Barnes & Noble is getting out of the bookstore business http://thebea.st/14DYW6l @asymmetricinfo

87.5 First Round Capital on how Etsy increased their # of female engineers by 500% http://bit.ly/TL4h9G @firstround

Godly Responses

An important but often overlooked benefit of having good Christian friends is seeing up close how they deal with the vagaries of life.  Recently, I've had deep conversations or series of conversations with three dear brothers.  One just lost his job, one had to take a temporary leave from his job, and one just took a new job that involves moving across the country.  (I've changed a few details and blurred the rest to keep things confidential.)  The humility, faithfulness, and anticipation that each has displayed through these major life events is instructional to me.  I am proud of each of my brothers for being so in tune with good and godly decision-making, for being willing to include me in the process, and for being so honest about their worries throughout.  I am richer for their friendships and for their example. 

When Church is Dangerous

Many people have had negative experiences with church, which flavor their feelings about church and their ability to attend or commit to a church.  Whether it's inauthenticity, cliques, or burnout, there's a lot of stuff that people have encountered in a church setting that sours them on putting themselves back in that setting. 

As sad as that as, I want to talk about something far, far sadder.  Over the holidays several weeks back, I had the opportunity to catch up with an old friend of mine. He had a bad experience with church that had nothing to do with inauthenticity, cliques, or burnout.  Rather, he was, systematically over several years, tortured and abused, in a church, at the hands of church leaders.  Even worse (as if it is possible that there is an "even worse" after that sentence), he was shamed during it all, being led to believe that it was because he was bad that all of these things were being done to him, and being threatened that he would be struck down by God if he ever told anyone.

As much as I feel I have really tried to empathize with my friend through the fallout of his childhood traumas, I cannot begin to understand the confusion, fear, and anxiety he goes through in his adult years.  Nor can I fathom the conflicting feelings he has about God and church, both of which represented utter terror in his childhood, and both of which have represented redemption and salvation since then.  For a religion that values church participation and deep relationships so much, as a part of the faith journey, how my friend is able to intersect with both is, needless to say, charged with much emotion and uncertainty. 

Unfortunately, I know that my friend is far from alone in this world.  I am thankful for my friendship with him, which among other things has taught me to be more aware of the fact that there are many around me for whom church is dangerous.  I am reminded and challenged by our conversations to do what I can to make God and church safe again for these people, whoever they may be.  In doing so, we participate in a very precious aspect of our faith's story, which is God actively and lovingly restoring the broken to Himself.  I can hardly think of a better or more powerful way to think of our faith.

What Am I Working On

As has become my custom every three months, here's what I'm working on now at work. I won't repeat anything from last time that I happen to still be working on, and for confidentiality's sake I have to blur some of the details for some of these studies.


Writing case studies that explore the potential behavioral and economic impact of health legislation that is soon to be implemented in a major northeastern city.

Discussing and quantifying the statewide economic impact of a type of sporting event.

Quantifying the role of a regional visitor center on that region's tourism activity.

Estimating the statewide economic and fiscal impact of a set of streetscape improvements at an important commercial corridor and the ensuing commercial and residential development that is projected to result from those improvements.

Comparing a heartland state's direct investment in startup ventures with the net new tax revenues those startup ventures produce for the state.

Estimating the various economic benefits associated with a multi-state trail outside a major southern city and with its intended expansion.

Estimating the employment impact of the construction phase of a major infrastructure project.

Estimating the local economic and fiscal impact of a series of food market fairs.

Creating a spreadsheet model that simulates the effect on tax bases and tax revenues of various packages of changes on tax rates for a major northeastern city.

Estimating the economic and fiscal impact of rehabilitating a historically significant building in a major midwestern city.

Estimating the number of jobs that will be directly or indirectly supported by a proposed adaptive re-use of a historic site into a hotel.

Quantifying the before-and-after effect on various economic indicators of a foundation's charitable investments.

INTJ Christians

I was first introduced to the Myers-Briggs Personality Test in a Christian leadership setting.  It made for a fascinating discussion.  People are unique, and they sort into certain groupings that, once you understand the characteristics of those groupings, makes understanding those people easier.  Not that we don't ever strive to improve, but that we respect that we are fundamentally predilected towards certain tendencies and our awareness of those tendencies helps us to co-exist and cooperate. 

As an INTJ, then, as with any other four-letter combo, there are certain things about me that it helps for others to know about so they know why I am why I am.  Again, not that I shouldn't be called on these things if I need to change - indeed, part of why I'm making this list is to enlist others in helping me be better in these areas - but to provide some context as to where I'm coming from.  In this regard, this post about being an INTJ Christian isn't that different from a post of mine from last year about being an INTJ boss.

1. Thinking internally.  Extroverts think outside their heads; introverts inside.  In a Christian setting, thinking outside can be more helpful, since community is so important.  Processing internally first and externally later (if at all) can seem unsocial and un-Christianly.

2. Needing alone time.  Extroverts draw energy from being with others; introverts from solitude.  Again, Christian community is so paramount that it can seem more spiritual to always be in the company of others, and less spiritual to withdraw from social engagement.  People are easily offended, perhaps rightfully so, when they are energized by spending time with you and you reciprocate by being sapped by spending time with them.

3. No sacred ideas.  INTJs can be good prophets to groups, poking holes in things that have been sacrosanct that do not necessarily deserve to be so.  But it is not hard for an INTJ to do this in an abrasive or matter-of-fact manner that rubs people the wrong way.

4. High pain threshold.  INTJs can also be good prods to groups, calling them out of the comfort-seeking mentality that has poisoned much of American Christianity.  But, again, it is not hard for an INTJ to be oblivious to the very real need for people to seek comfort, and to do so in a dismissive and judgmental way.

5. Grand narratives.  INTJs dig the big story themes that Christianity consists of, but can easily frustrate in the weeds of everyday life.  Authentic Christianity, of course, is about both the big stories and the little aches and pains.

6. Meritocracy.  INTJs are ambivalent if not sneering about artificial hierarchies.  Merit matters most if not exclusively.  So feathers can get ruffled when people who ought to be honored and deferred to are instead not treated thusly. 

7. Let's move on.  The J part of INTJs, combined with all the other parts, makes for a strong desire to come to a decision and then move on.  But Christian community is about journey and process, so it is not uncommon for INTJs to feel like more discussion isn't warranted when it fact it is.

That's all I can think of at this early hour.  Maybe other INTJs can chime in?  Or others who know INTJs can point some things out for us? 

Lazy Linking, 86th in an Occasional Series

What I liked lately on the Internets:

86.1 Mesmerizing time lapse video of Philly http://bit.ly/12dyFgm @westphillylocal

86.2 Tina Fey’s lasting impact on the industry she so ruthlessly and deliciously mocked http://nyti.ms/X1Kl07 @nytimes

86.3 ND literally on fire: now 2^nd largest oil producer in the US http://bit.ly/WDJTH7 @kottke

86.4 Making OJ “1 of the most complex applications of business analytics…1 quintillion decision variables” http://bit.ly/UKEQnV @consumerist

86.5 IMHO thus far the best and fairest coverage of the Penn Alexander lottery decision http://bit.ly/W4TCqz @pkerkstra

Ten Years Blogging

Ten years ago today, I posted my first post at Musings of an Urban Christian: "Share the Love That Knits a Church Together."  From there, I've continued to post whatever came to mind, triggered by world events or my own little piece of it, 2700+ posts and counting.  It's been a lot of fun, especially as things have become more interactive and I've learned so much from folks nice enough to chime in with information, questions, rebukes, and affirmations.  Thank you for your support and readership, and here's to many more years of musing!