Life-in-Progress

Life is more than a day job.

Blogging from SXSW – Monday

Posted by Alora Posted on Mar - 16 - 2009

Today seems to be the opposite of my previous two days. After deliberately taking everyone’s advice on taking a ‘go with the flow’ approach to the SXSW experience, somehow today has proven crazy-ass busy. 10:30 panel: Beyond Aggregation This was a great panel where we got to hear wonderful speakers, including blogger Louis Gray, discuss  [ Read More ]

Matt Cutts from the Google Webspam Team announced the launch of Google’s Friend Connect API during his keynote speech this morning at PubCon South in Austin. The official announcement will be posted by Google later this morning, but Matt took took the opportunity to share the good news with the PubCon crowd during his remarks.  [ Read More ]

Categories: Lessons & Epiphanies

While normally the idea of a “fireside chat” in Austin, Texas would be a little warm, today’s unusually chilly weather brought all new appeal to the idea. So, in honor of the rainy weather and the keynote title, Chris Brogan obliged by pulling up a fireplace video on his laptop, and placing it on the  [ Read More ]

This book review was written for Joyful Jubilant Learning‘s March book reviews. I am posting it here for my own personal timeline. Barbara Stanny‘s “Prince Charming Isn’t Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money” is a great story with a problematic title. Unfortunately, it is also billed as a How To book, which is where  [ Read More ]

Categories: Lessons & Epiphanies

Guest Post: Response to "Winners and Windmills"

Posted by Alora Posted on Mar - 03 - 2009

After writing my post last week, Winners and Windmills, I asked my friend, the lovely and talented Tiffany Miley-Parks if she would be willing to write a follow-up piece that addresses what happens when “passion and skill” are not longer aligned with the “opportunity and circumstance” that make a work environment exciting. She graciously complied  [ Read More ]

Winners and Windmills

Posted by Alora Posted on Feb - 23 - 2009

Accomplishment-oriented people often share a very common character trait: we hate to quit. More often than not, this is a combination of our own need to conquer whatever mountain we have set our sights on, and our belief that others are counting on us to succeed. In both cases, those assumptions are frequently over-estimated. Our  [ Read More ]

Sneaking Web 2.0 in the Back Door

Posted by Alora Posted on Feb - 06 - 2009

This post was originally written for and published on Social Computing Magazine. Those of us in the Web 2.0 space who come from a technology background are often a little stunned when we discover that it is frequently our IT cohorts who pose some of the biggest obstacles to prospective enterprise implementations. After all, wouldn’t  [ Read More ]

Does This Dress Make Me Look Insensitive?

Posted by Alora Posted on Jan - 15 - 2009

The words every man dreads hearing from his wife: “Does this dress make me look fat?” I’ll skip past the endless stream of jokes that have arisen regarding this quintessential battle-of-the-sexes cliche, and cut to the chase: what are you looking for when you ask someone for feedback? And, just as importantly, what do you  [ Read More ]

Breaking into Project Management

Posted by Alora Posted on Jan - 13 - 2009

One of the questions I am most frequently asked is, “What do I need to do to make a career change into project management?” That question sometimes comes from people in similar or related fields, like IT Management, or from fields you might not normally expect, like teaching. Most often, though, this question is posed  [ Read More ]

Categories: Career & Professional

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Project Managers!

Posted by Alora Posted on Jan - 06 - 2009

As I look at job postings on Dice and Monster, I have been noticing a disturbing, yet unsurprising, trend emerge: an increase in the number of employers seeking candidates who can function as both project managers and development leads on projects. Naturally, difficult economic conditions demand a re-evaluation of spending habits. And, in cases where  [ Read More ]

A Christmas Card to My Bosses: Thanks to Three Very Wise Men

Posted by Alora Posted on Dec - 21 - 2008

Last week I wrote that we are rarely good about telling the people in our lives how grateful we are, and, realizing that applied to me as well, I figured that this was as good an opportunity as any for me to correct that when it came to three important influences in my life. As  [ Read More ]

Just Called "Boss"

Posted by Alora Posted on Jun - 07 - 2005

Over the years at my old company, I developed the habit of referring to my bosses just that way — “Boss.” That title specifically stuck with one of them, and it evolved into my general term of endearment for him. I have caught myself slipping a couple of times since starting my new job and  [ Read More ]

Categories: Mentors