At most organizations where I’ve worked, if organizational values were not already a thing, they became a Thing while I worked there. People realized that it’s not enough to have a clear mission; you also need guiding principles on how …
Knowing what you want in a job
In the two years since I left my last full-time organizational job (the two months in May and June of this year at a corporate comms job, I do not count), many, many people have told me that they are …
Going beyond work as identity
I have four nieces and two children and all of them are involved in some early stage of the process known as Real Life: college, jobs, first apartments, etc. Because of my very particular set of skills (channeling Liam Neeson …
When to say something
I once worked with someone who was a well-known expert in her field. Her name frequently came up for advisory committees, invited journal articles, and she had had a federal political appointment job under a previous administration. Our respective jobs …
What I learned from work
I have been thinking about how a résumé captures what one has done or accomplished in previous jobs; but I am hardly ever asked what I learned. Which is, to me, one of the biggest rewards from the effort I …
It’s all in the follow-through
When I was 10 years old, my well-intentioned father came into my room where I was reading a book at the time, I’m sure, because at that age, I was spending approximately every waking minute outside of school and cartoons …
Answering the question
I am always struck by how damn stupid binary our political and social discourse has become, when human beings and our feelings and values and beliefs and even the words we use are not binary at all. Like the hotly …
The need for space
There are many ways to define the word “space.” You can think about space as the realm that exists beyond our planet and its atmosphere; you can also think about space in terms of your own body, and the places …
Communications 2.0: Being human
Sometimes I feel as if the universe is trying to teach me something. Not a spoon-fed chunk of wisdom, no. It’s more of a feeling that as I stumble my way through the different phases of life, I start to …
The Joy and Pain of Communicating (Professionally)
After decades of working at jobs with “communications” in the titles, I am now prepared to put forward some definitions pertaining to the practice of communications (in the professional sense), and some observations (based on a N of one–me) about …
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