What did we do?

As my service with Peace Corps closes and I transition fully back to IBM, I thought I'd overview what the team did.  Though I return to IBM fully, I will resume my usual IBM travel rigor pretty quickly...well over 100,000 air miles per year...  So maybe this can help answer common questions people would ask if they were actually able to find me or happened to sit next to me on a flight.

Our team of 12 split into two teams.  I was a member of both.  Half the team worked with the Ghana Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in addition to the Ghana Education Service's Girls' Education Unit, GES GEU.  The other half worked with a social enterprise called, TECHAiDE.

The Ministry of Gender has run girls Science, Technology, Math and Innovation (STMI) camps for over 25 years.  STMI basically equates to STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, in other countries.  The Director of Gender encountered a former camper who is now a doctor.  The woman raved about the camp's positive impact upon her.  Her enthusiasm touched and inspired the Director of Gender and sparked the idea to create a national mentoring network based upon past beneficiaries.

Since the STMI program began before computers were prevalent in Ghana, there were few contact details about previous campers.  The team worked with the Ministry and GES using WhatsApp groups to organically grow the previous beneficiary list: a core group of 10 past beneficiaries added their friends' contact details, who then added their friends' until the network grew to about 100 past beneficiaries in a short time.  A subset of those past beneficiaries completed surveys or were interviewed.  This yielded seed mentors in the network.

The seed mentors were great for a start but represented a small fraction of the thousands of past beneficiaries.  The team created a strategy and plan for growing the mentor network of past beneficiaries from Ministry and other organizations' programs.  In addition, the team architected and prototyped a web-based solutions in which someone can register to be a mentor or request a mentor.  Finally, the team created a set of processes and guidelines for actually running the mentor network program.  All this they did in 30 days.

The team supporting TECHAiDE helped strengthen or create 25 core business processes in addition to architecting, designing and helping prototype a learning device specialized for aiding rural students.  By addressing the business and technical ecosystem, the learning device has higher likelihood of being produced and distributed en masse.

The device delivers learning material in engaging ways such as games or what we call scenario-based stories.  These are animated stories that have different outcomes based upon a user's decisions.  The device also helps teachers improve their teaching skills by providing lesson plans and videos of lessons from top teachers in the country.  This is very important because many teachers are not trained.

The device helps students by providing interactive quizzes that give feedback based upon student responses.  It delivers empowerment education in the form of a Life Skills curriculum, something that can benefit boys, girls, men and women.  Multiple units and lessons are in each of the 7 Life Skills modules: 1. Building Self-confidence, 2. Planning your Future, 3. Keeping your Body and Relationships Healthy, 4. Gender Equity, 5. Travel, 6. Financial Matters, and 7. Legal Rights.

The Life Skills lessons are delivered using a set of characters.  For lack of any better way to explain this, it's a little like Sesame Street, only for adolescents.  We created faces, personalities, relationships and places that will be used and re-used so that users develop a bond with the characters much like I have with Grover and Cookie Monster.

My fellow IBMers on both teams were outstanding.  They did a ton of work and worked insane hours to get so much done in a short amount of time.  I would feel honored and privileged to work with any of them again.  The partners were excellent also: visionary and passionate about making widespread improvement in their country.  It was truly an honor to work side by side with them too.  Peace Corps staff and volunteers were fantastic as well.

What did I do specifically?  Well, some on the team jokingly called me "General," but actually we were a very flat organization.  I participated in the team's activities when they were here, pulling my weight.  However, since I arrived before the rest of the team and remained afterwards, I did do some extra things.  Here's a quick summary of the extra things I did as a Peace Corps Response volunteer:

• Helped write the statement of work for each project.  To do that, I conducted current state assessments of both partners using an IBM tool called the Component Business Model.  
• Working with the Peace Corps, conducted a survey about learning environments that helped prepare the team contextually
• Arranged for the team to visit 4 Peace Corps villages where we interviewed hundreds of students, teachers, administrators and parents
• Planned the Community Outreach Day - a collaboration between IBM, the Peace Corps and Ashesi University
• Our teams used "Design Thinking" which is a methodology for ensuring a human centered, context-based solution.  Before the team arrived, I trained staff from both partners in Design Thinking. 
• Created the definition of an empowered girl and wrote the empowerment curriculum in addition to writing some of the empowerment lessons, and training the empowerment content writer on various empowerment materials
• Created presentations to brief board members, apply for grant funding and approach venture capital firms
• Connected both partners and their projects to the Peace Corps and each other for ongoing sustainability
• Helped define the cast of characters, personalities, relationships and places to use in the empowerment curriculum
• Had regular meetings with IBM headquarters to discuss the pilot and provide feedback towards shaping this role.  

All in all, this has been a terrific assignment - a lot of work but worth the effort.  Yes, we have some things to tweak to continue improving this hybrid IBM/Peace Corps Response role, but I think with these projects, we demonstrated this was a partnership worth creating.  Hats off to Gina and Jeff for pouring a few years into forging this unique partnership!

Hats off to Agne, Akiko, Cheryl, Gus, Jacob, Jack, Kim, Nazmin, Nishant, Peter, and Tony...an outstanding Corporate Service Corps team who made my job really, really easy...or at least really really enjoyable when it wasn't easy.

Hats off to Mdm L, Mrs M, George, Mr. Q, Vivian, Kafui, FJ, Selassie, Edith, Freda, Mary and Musah.  Ghana's future is bright with such talented, dedicated people.

Thanks to PYXERA Global, especially Barbara and Gavin for their tireless efforts.

Thanks to Ghana's best tour guide: Bismark.

Thanks to Angela for hosting us in Ghana.

Thanks to City Escape and its awesome staff, housing me for the last 3 months.

 

Why focus on girls?

The remainder of the IBM Corporate Service Corps (CSC) team arrived around February 18 and left March 19.  Their time here seemed to fly and somehow my best intentions to write weekly fell by the wayside.  Now, I remain as the only CSC team member still in Ghana.

Our team worked on girls' education and empowerment with a social enterprise called TECHAiDE as well as the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Ghana Education Service's Girls' Education Unit.  During our projects with these partners, a question I heard many times from various demographic groups was, "Why focus on girls?"

My response is always the same.  Girls' empowerment and education are not "female" issues.  They are societal issues of interest to men and women for the following two reasons. 

1.  Research tells us that the poverty or prosperity of a family, community and country follows the poverty or prosperity of its women.  If men desire a prosperous family, community or country, it is in their best interest to raise the status of women around them. 

2.  Research also tells us that males and females often approach problem solving differently but when both approaches are employed, stronger solutions arise.  So if men desire better solutions to their family's, community's or country's challenges, it is in their best interest to help women develop and contribute their voices, especially associated with problem solving.

Many statistics support these two claims but here are a few from a USAID study, "Learning out of Poverty."  https://www.usaid.gov/infographics/50th/learning-out-of-poverty and from the Organization for Economic Co-operative Development (OECD) global school ranking http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32608772.

Economic Benefits

•38X: Ghana’s estimated GDP increase if all 15 year olds achieved basic math and science proficiency

•10%: potential future earning increase per extra year of a girl’s education

•10-30%: higher productivity per extra year of a girl’s education

•90%: percentage of income educated woman invests in her family (vs 40% for educated man)

Social Benefits

•2X: chance a child born to an educated mother has of surviving to age 5

•50%: higher likelihood an educated mother immunizes her children

•3X: reduced chances a girl completing basic education has for contracting HIV/AIDS

Empowering girls does not dis-empower boys.  It helps empower them too, to participate in stronger community building and problem solving.

I write this blog with the primary intention of helping introduce people of different cultural backgrounds to Ghana.  So, I'll take a moment to overview the typical girls' learning environment, some of the work already done in Ghana and highlight what further work might be needed.  A few statistics might be helpful here too.  

• Teen pregnancy is a problem as is early marriage with 27% of Ghanaian girls marrying before age 18 - though national policy has been enacted to prevent taking child brides.
• 17% of Ghanaian girls aged 15-19 experience sexual violence though laws exist to deter this.
• 32% of Ghanaian girls over age 15 experience physical violence though laws exist to deter this
• 95% of Ghanaian girls in upper Primary and Junior High School levels miss about one week of school per month due to lack of resources and facilities to manage their menstrual cycle needs at school.  Great strides have been made providing toilet facilities at Senior High Schools but now the same facilities are needed at all schools since many girls begin menstruating in Primary school.  

Various articles cite other challenges facing girls in receiving an education but I will base the following comments on primary research conducted by our team through surveys of about 40 rural communities and interviews with hundreds of people: teachers, administrators, students, parents.

• Many Ghanaian girls are taught within their cultural community to be demure - that educated or outspoken women are seen as less attractive wives.
• Many Ghanaian girls lack female role models who are educated.  Thus, they often aspire to what they are exposed to as female roles.  Building a national female role model mentoring network: its strategy and internet based solution, were our two projects sponsored by the Ministry and Girls' Education Unit of the GES.
• Many Ghanaian girls who do attend schools are subject to harassment from their male counterparts.  For example, at one Junior High School I visited, I interviewed a large group of boys.  When asked if a student who excels academically is teased, they emphatically responded, "No! We respect such a student and want them to succeed!"  When I asked what happens if that bright student is a girl, their faces visibly changed and they said they tease such a girl a lot...that they secretly admire her but they are trying to bring her down because she "thinks she's better than us."  Interesting contrast in opinions: a boy who excels in school is to be encouraged while a girl who excels needs to be torn down.
• Many Ghanaian girls who attend school are sent from school to do chores either for the school or at the teacher's house with the latter being officially prohibited by law.  By chores I mean things like fetching water since most schools do not have a water source on premises, sweeping the grounds, doing laundry for the teacher, cocoa farming, etc...  One group of girls I interviewed at first said they are not sent from class to do chores.  But as the conversation continued, I learned that they leave during the first morning break to go to teachers' houses to do house and farming chores there.  When asked how long the break is, the answer was "30 minutes."  When asked how long it takes them to fetch water, do laundry, etc... for their teacher, the answer was 2 - 2.5 hours.
• Poverty presents itself as a major hurdle that impacts many students but often girls more than boys.  Though Basic education (Kindergarten to Junior High School level 3) in Ghana is free, families still incur costs that are significant when one realizes that the poverty standard in Ghana is the equivalent of about $1.83 USD / day and almost one quarter of the population lives below that modest amount (55% in the rural savannah areas).  Even if above the poverty standard, families need to manage local school levies (taxes), school supplies, uniforms, books, food and the offset of the student being in school instead of helping with the family farm or business.  This impacts girls more than boys because if a family can afford expenses for only one child, the preference is typically given to sending the boy child to school.  Furthermore, boys are allowed more supplemental income earning opportunities than girls.
• To address the poverty situation, girls (or sometimes their families) resort to securing "boyfriends" or "sugar daddies" who will provide them and many times their families with food and funds to meet school expenses in exchange for sex.  I spoke to several girls who were in such a situation...girls ranging in age from 14 to 18 who were sleeping with men many years older than them just so they could afford to go to school.  By the way, the boyfriend/sugar daddy distinction, I'm told, is based upon if the man is old enough to be the girl's father or not.  If you are curious how prevalent this practice is, simply Google "Ghana Sugar Daddy" and see how openly this economy operates.
• The boyfriend/sugar daddy syndrome feeds the teen pregnancy situation for a few reasons.  Girls often do not understand how their body works and find themselves pregnant unexpectedly.  When many girls begin menstruating, they receive instructions on what to do to handle their period but not the biological workings that cause it to happen.  Also, many girls and boys could recite for me how to prevent pregnancy but when I asked what those words meant, they often did not know.  It was a rote memorized response that did not connect to the practicalities of their lives.  One teenaged mother's comments captured the situation, "I did not know that I was pregnant.  I thought I was just getting fat.  My mother told me I was not getting fat but that I was pregnant...My family did this for money but now I have a baby and need money more than ever."

To help with all these challenges, the Girls' Education Unit employs Girls' Education Officers in each school district.  But many girls and their families adhere to a cultural taboo against talking about such challenges.  And, though the sugar daddy/boyfriend situation is generally despised, many people feel they have no other options.  As one woman I interviewed said, "You do not know what it's like to be so hungry that you will resort to this."

Amidst all these challenges, there are shining examples of women succeeding and our team had the opportunity to interview some of them towards establishing the national mentoring network.  This network is vitally important because people usually dream about things they know but a good mentor helps you achieve things you never knew existed or were possible.  By exposing girls to other effective options, these mentors can provide one strong link in the chain pulling girls away from feeling their only option involves exchanging sex for funds to pay educational expenses.

Our team's other two projects were with TECHAiDE, a social enterprise focused on using educational technology to empower citizens, especially in rural areas.  This is vitally important too because most rural schools and communities in Ghana lack internet access and consequently have fewer information resources readily available.  TECHAiDE, collaborating with the CSC, Peace Corps, Ministry of Gender and the Girls' Education Unit has architected, designed and prototyped a device that can deliver a subset of internet content focused on education as well as localized educational content directly supporting Ghana's school syllabus and girls' empowerment content.  It can provide access to education for girls who periodically miss school, keep girls engaged in studying when unable to attend for extended periods of time such as waiting a term or two to return to school until enough funds are available, and teach boys, girls, men and women valuable skills in empowering themselves and others.

It's truly an honor that IBM CSC was invited to be a part of public and private efforts to continue addressing girls' education and empowerment as Ghana continues its 25+ year history helping the country improve by helping women succeed.

What is an Empowered Female?

This word "empowered" gets used a lot, but last week one of the partners asked me, "What does an empowered girl look like?"  She said, "When do we know we are there...and how do we know we aren't there already?"

What a great question!  It highlighted the confusion that can arise from overusing a term to the point we sometimes forget what it means. 

My team is focused on "empowering girls."  The Peace Corps wants to "empower girls."   The partners all want to "empower girls."  What are we talking about?

An image flashed in my mind contrasting my situation as an executive level engineer with that of some women I've met around the world.  However, the picture of me quickly yielded to echoes from one of the most empowered women I've ever known - an empowered woman before such a term was even popular.  Yes, I heard the voice of my mom with her signature, "What you really need to do is..." mantra, offering advice...in private and public settings. 

My mom could easily be described as a force.  She was a stay-at-home mom.  However, you would be badly mistaken to think she was not an empowered woman.  But, you see, staying at home was her choice - a key facet of empowerment.  And that empowered woman raised several empowered daughters who chose to work outside the home.  And, in turn, we naturally work to empower others because we can never escape our mom's insistence of, "what you really need to do is..." when it comes to helping people achieve their potential.

Thus, armed with images of strong women such as my mom and sisters, I responded to the partner by rattling off distinctive attributes I saw in these strong women.  She began adding to my list and since then others have contributed as well.  Here is what we've arrived at:

An empowered female:

• Is self-confident
• Determines her own future
• Is educated and has equal access to primary through tertiary education
• Is able to choose her course of study
• Is free from sexual harassment and sexual violence
• Chooses when and whom to marry
• Chooses when to become pregnant
• Chooses her career without social bias
• Has equal opportunity for career advancement and executive leadership opportunities
• Earns equal pay to her male counterparts
• Can obtain identification, passport and visa independently
• Can travel domestically and internationally with equal independence as men
• Has earning power
• Has spending power – the ability to make spending decisions or equally participate in spending decisions
• Has the power over her own bank accounts
• Has independent access to credit
• Has a voice in the public forum (elected, business, community and church organizations)
• Has property ownership and inheritance rights
• Has legal rights equal to men and is free from gender-based legal restrictions
• Has access to justice for violations of her legal rights, including sexual harassment and violence

In sharing this list with the Peace Corps' Let Girls Learn Regional Director, she added one more important attribute she wants mentioned when we work with girls and that is, "She can look just like you!"

Think, prepare, rehearse... Linen, laundry and lotions...

Week three flew by working with the partners.  I continue to be honored and humbled to work with such bright, dedicated people.  If I can offer in return even half what I learn from them, I will feel I have contributed a lot.

The statements of work were shared with the full Corporate Services Corps team and the team has been divided and sub-divided and assigned to one of four projects.  Now the team's preparatory work shifts from learning about Ghanaian culture and cross-culture teamwork to learning about their specific partner and their partner's projects.

Meanwhile, I am working with both partners in-person as well as with the Peace Corps staff in Ghana trying to prepare resources and interviews so the team achieves full productive state as quickly upon arrival as possible.  For example, in two days we collaborated to write and distribute a survey to Peace Corps volunteers countrywide that will help us identify overall trends associated with girls' education and also identify specific villages where we might interview community leaders, school teachers and staff, parents and students.

I would be remiss to not mention the Peace Corps' acceptance of and collaboration with me.  In many ways I feel like I'm working with longtime colleagues and friends, whom I've only recently met.  Perhaps this is a testament to the similarities between the two cultures and affirms the decision to partner.  I think it also reflects the individual staff members, who have received me such that I feel like a peer.  I feel we have hit a productive pace that comes to some organizations only after a long elapse of time, and eludes other organizations completely.

On the professional side, I find myself thinking about a mantra instilled in IBMers minds of late by our current CEO, Ginni Rometty, "Think, prepare, rehearse."  We are asked to think about what needs to be done, prepare to do it and then "rehearse", which in some cases means "practice," or "act."  I try to end each day thinking about what the next steps are and preparing materials so when I arise the next morning, I'm ready to accomplish things for the client. 

That's all well and good and I'll get an A+ for reciting the corporate mantra.  But, there's a reason I prepare the night before versus in the morning. 

I understand that the 90+ degree Fahrenheit weather (32+ degrees Celsius) I have experienced here so far is "cool."  The harmattans currently grace Ghana; that is the dry trade winds blowing from the Sahara towards West Africa bring a pretty steady breeze and abundance of Saharan dust right now.  My body this time of year expects below freezing temperatures and abundant snow...and wind chill factors....that is how I define "cool."  But being as this is the "cooler" time of year here in West Africa, the air-conditioners (if they are available) often sit silent.  Hence, linen has become my ally because it breathes. 

However, the fine coating of dust means every morning I'm washing out yesterday's linen garments.  In addition to my morning laundry, my morning preparations involve a cast of lotions and potions to repel mosquitoes and sand fleas, shield my fair skin from the sun, rehydrate my skin from all the dry dust, countermand the allergies I have associated with dust, and lacquer my hair to my head so the dusty wind does not coiffe my hair with that certain, "I just rolled out of bed." look.

Before coming to Ghana I had read in the book, "No Worries, the Essential Guide to Living in Ghana" that the authors could not emphasize enough the importance of a cotton and linen wardrobe.  I heeded their advice and crafted some cotton and linen skirts and unlined linen jackets for myself before I came.  I am beyond grateful for the advice and that I took it to heart.

I'm also glad my thinking, preparing and rehearsing to come to Ghana conjured up lessons from Girl Scouts...because I also brought my bandana...the one that accompanied me on all scouting trips, and that I just used to wipe off my laptop's screen so I could see through the accumulated patch of dust to write this fine missive.

Think, prepare, rehearse....  Linen, laundry, lotions... and a bandana.

Relationships, relationships, relationships...

I write today whilst enjoying a peanut butter and mango sandwich – my own hillbilly / tropical fusion dish.  It’s Sunday and one of my drivers took me to Mass at a local Catholic Church, a minimum two hour time commitment as opposed to the 45-60 minute standard in the U.S.  This driver is planning my Sunday tour of local Catholic Churches for the next several weeks.  He felt today’s group did not dance and clap nearly enough and believes Ghana can offer me better.

Yesterday a different driver took me to the Volta River Authority where I toured Ghana’s large hydro-electric dam.  He just phoned to thank me for my business.

I am learning the importance of relationships whether with the hotel restaurant wait staff, the housekeeping staff or the drivers who cart me around Ghana.  Everyone is looking out for me and also observing me in ways I never expected.  This light brightly illuminated for me Friday when the hotel driver told me he knows my mood by how I hold my head or my posture when walking.  Though this was our first interaction, I realize he’s been observing me and forming opinions about me since my arrival.

Moving from culture to work, my “Ghana: Week 2” is now in the history books.  With Peace Corps training and swearing-in ceremony behind me, it was a week to focus on the IBM Corporate Services Corps (CSC) “partners”…more relationships.

I probably should offer some background for those unfamiliar with IBM’s CSC and/or its new partnership with the Peace Corps.  IBM employees from around the world apply for and a small percentage of very high performing ones are selected to serve on a CSC team of 10-15 people.  I am an exception in that I was invited to join the team, but that is a pesky detail not worth expanding upon quite yet.  Team members spend a few months preparing for their month in-country: reading, doing homework exercises and holding weekly conference calls.  IBM then sends these teams to a country where they tackle strategic infrastructure projects with in-country “partners.”  These can be non-profits, social enterprises or governmental agencies.

This particular CSC team has two-or-so partners: A social enterprise and a Ministry (and quite possibly a second Ministry…hence the “or-so” element).  In addition to impact analysis of existing programs, the Ghanaian government desires analysis to better understand the most effective ways to encourage girls to pursue STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education.  This all leads towards an ultimate goal of inspiring more Ghanaian girls to enter the workforce as STEM trained problem-solvers.  This is driven by simple research which indicates, in general, boys and girls / men and women approach problem solving differently and when both problem-solving approaches are used, stronger solutions result.

The social enterprise partner exclusively works on projects to improve societal infrastructure, specifically providing educational technology in rural areas…where there might be little to no electricity in the school, and where poverty is typically high.  His clients are often rural, economically challenged schools which must secure funding via non-profit grants.  The hope is to expand his work so as to bring educational technology to more rural students and also to use technology to increase general accessibility to school as well as help empower girls.

This past week involved understanding the partners’ context and business model.   Many organizations are involved – all with similar interests but with different cultures, efforts and approaches.  Reaching mutually agreed upon Statements of Work required building more relationships, a pre-requisite for sincere partnering.

O.K., now it’s probably worth mentioning why I’m an exception to the CSC application process.  Among other objectives, IBM’s CSC provides leadership development opportunities for team members.  Normally, executives are excluded from CSC teams to ensure team members’ leadership development experiences are not diminished.  Instead, executives usually travel in their own herd under a different, similar program. 

So, why the exception for this team?  The Peace Corps / IBM Corporate Services Corps partnership was established to leverage IBM’s strategy and planning capabilities along with the Peace Corps grassroots implementation capabilities.  The hope is that through partnering, the two groups’ efforts will result in impact greater than the sum of the individual parts.  The partnership involves an IBM CSC member actually joining the Peace Corps as a volunteer.  Instead of the typical one month CSC assignment, I am in Ghana for three months ensuring that the IBM CSC strategy and planning work connects soundly with the Peace Corps’ grassroots programs.  Hence, I am both an IBM employee and a Peace Corps Response volunteer.  And, hence, I am building relationships with Peace Corps Ghana staff as this hybrid IBM CSC/Peace Corps Response volunteer.

I was asked to fill this role partially because of my previous relationship with Peace Corps Rwanda collaborating to run technology camps for girls; I already have experience blending the two cultures.  But the other reason ties to the significant investment IBM makes in sending IBM CSC employees on extended assignments in the Peace Corps.  I can look at the role from the eyes of CSC team members but also from the eyes of IBM executives who have to make their numbers.  How do you shape the assignment so that executives will say, “yes” to having one of their top employees unavailable to the team for three months to a year?  This involves growing relationships with IBM and Peace Corps headquarters staffs.

The IBM/Peace Corps partnership focuses on a few categories of projects, one of which involves girls’ education and empowerment.  In the U.S. this is affiliated with Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” initiative.  Approximately 62 million girls in the world lack access to school and “Let Girls Learn” provides visibility and resources to assist in removing barriers to girls’ education.  Despite needing to build relationships with what feels like a zillion different people, I am doubtful the honor of building a relationship with Mrs. Obama will be part of this job, but who knows.   

Anyway, back to the CSC and girls’ empowerment.  Family economics and attitudes, religious beliefs, and access to bathrooms are just a few reasons girls can’t attend school.  To learn the specific current barriers to Ghanaian girls’ education, the CSC team needs to learn from a whole lot of groups: girls, parents, community leaders, government officials, etc…  We have many relationships to build before people will trust us enough to share with us and to listen to our ideas.

There are many reasons the IBM/Peace Corps partnership pilot is happening in Ghana, not the least of which is the fact that Ghana’s government has already invested over 25 years’ efforts on empowering girls through education.  However, they desire partners to help them do more.  The Peace Corps and IBM have long-standing partnerships in Ghana with both organizations sending their first volunteer teams to Ghana, the Peace Corps in 1961 and IBM in 2008.  It’s a great place to try something new. 

But relationships are built person-to person, not institution to institution.  Therefore, off I go to prep for Week Three, building relationships with everyone from government officials and business leaders to the person who brings me juice every morning at breakfast…but most likely not with Michelle.  So to all my friends asking me to get her autograph, I again tell you, “probably not gonna happen…”  But if you’d like my driver’s autograph, I have high confidence that can be arranged.