Last week I wrote an opening rant about “strategists.” In the comments that ensued, I am now inspired to clarify what I mean while I continue to write this series. I am not talking about consultants who are hired to help hone and build out a strategic vision for an organization; nor am I talking [ Read More ]
I’ve had an interesting few weeks. My husband and I have been dealing with a lot of things at home, hence my absence from blogging for much of the past month, and I have started a new project with the New Media (a.k.a. “web”) team at KXAN-TV here in Austin. Between getting settled into the [ Read More ]
People who did not meet me until at or around my 25th birthday would never believe it, but in school, I was the Queen of Slackers. Truly. School was too easy, too routine and I spent too long doing it to be able to breath new life into the experience. I could dodge classes, do [ Read More ]
I had a couple of discussions this week that got me thinking back to the early days of my career. Aside from leaving me feeling older than I care to think about, it did spark a pleasant memory or two that I’ve been mulling over since. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how early career choices [ Read More ]
If there is always one part of the early interview process that is a sticky wicket it is the, “What were you making at your last job?” question. This is a question that, particularly as someone who recently moved from NYC to Austin, Texas, is a problem to answer. The bigger problem is having this [ Read More ]
The hardest thing about leaving JetBlue last year was giving up the travel benefits that helped ease the difficulty of living 3,000 miles away from my family and so many of my friends. One of the things I’ve realized lately is that, even though I am really loving being in Austin, I have been horrendously [ Read More ]
Author, blogger and serial entrepreneur Penelope Trunk sat down with me at SXSW to discuss life as an entrepreneur, building a startup outside of the tech corridor, and what an organization’s technology choices say to potential employees. Penelope is currently building her third business, the Brazen Careerist. In addition to trying to connect Employers with [ Read More ]
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 ]
One of the biggest lessons I learned from working for Dave wasn’t just what I learned from him, but that I came to understand the importance of timing because of him: there were so many things I learned from Dave only because I was at a point in my life where I was open to [ Read More ]
For the past four years, I’ve kept a sign over my desk that reads: “I don’t have time” = “I haven’t made it a priority.” I’ve written about this before, but never to explain the origins of this epiphany. The credit for this lesson goes to a sharp, good-humored, understatedly charismatic man named Robert. As [ Read More ]
WordPress’ database isn’t big enough for me to list off everything I’ve learned from John over the years: about business, about change, about leadership, about being a workaholic, about managing clients, about corporate politics, etc. You name a topic, and I can probably find at least a handful of lessons I learned from him. I [ Read More ]
I have recently gone through a series of interviews/screenings where the net result was, “I’m sorry, but you are just over-qualified for this position.” In response to that highly frustrating designation, I propose the following: Being classified as “over-qualified” is usually less “You cost too much” and more “I’m afraid you’ll be bored and leave [ Read More ]