:: steve holden ::
Steve delivered a well-received and attended presentation on The Impostor Syndrome, perhaps a syndrome he made up, but then I haven't Googled it yet.
He was using the Wanderers format to best advantage: prototyping a talk he might give someday, and getting behind the scenes, before you go on stage feedback. He took notes as feedback was freely offered.
This being an early morning crowd, buzzed on coffee, we chimed in with a lot of witticisms. I liked Steve's "I was gonna write my paper on the Stockholm Syndrome but I think I'd rather stay with my new friends."
Dave DiNucci of NASA background was present and avidly following the comet landing story. We were in the suspenseful moments before knowing for sure whether the landing module had actually managed to arrive at its surface destination.
Steve naturally traced the syndrome back to childhood first experiences, and recommended what we might do in adulthood to counter some of the more hampering habits of mind.
Steve's track record rivals Terry's in some ways, of being able to deliver public events. That's apples and oranges really as the lecture circuit and conference venues are different sides of the business. Just saying: both have been highly successful, and those are only tips of the iceberg in both cases.
Steve was also a chairman of the Python Software Foundation and continues to teach classes as well as mentor newer teachers in many IT-related topics.
However, as I discovered at Princeton and many other places since, one will continue to be astounded by neighbors and random strangers with skills one doesn't have, like at a circus.
Sometimes the Impostor Syndrome might mean feeling less good at being human than say some role model or super type, some example.
Anyway looking up to others is healthy. I'm not one to say "putting so-and-so on a pedestal" is always a bad idea. I've got people on pedestals everywhere I look; kinda "sepulchral" as Ed Applewhite might have said.
