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It’s always good to go into an event like SXSW with a plan, otherwise you might get swallowed up in sheer potential of all the possibilities. As this year I wasn’t doing a full presentation, I decided to focus on networking. There are tens of thousands of people that attend SXSWinteractive each year, so who…

Personally I don’t like having difficult conversations. In fact I can’t think of anyone I know who ‘likes’ having difficult conversations. But life is full of them and it’s up to you how you choose to deal with that. I was talking to a friend recently who was complaining that for years, two family members…

Earlier this month I went to a tech conference in the Bay Area and found myself watching a stream of men on stage talking about how they had been mentored throughout their journey as well as the opportunities that had presented themselves. This admittedly left me a bit dispirited because looking at them, I couldn’t…

When I attended & presented at SXSW for the first time in 2013 it was overwhelming due to the sheer size and ‘newness’ of the experience. This year, I felt quite a bit more prepared and that made it an even more powerful event than before. Hands down my favorite session was Amy Cuddy talking…

Do you think that “That’s just the way it is” is an adequate excuse when one group of people is taking advantage of another group of people? Yeah. Me neither. Last week I attended a tech/start-up event called the Growth Hacking Conference. I was impressed that of the 4 speakers offered 2 of them were…

Habits became a big deal in 1989 when Stephen Covey published his still-widely-selling-27-years-later book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Proving my point about the continued relevance of this work, in the news just yesterday there were articles titled “7 Habits of Highly Engaged Organizations,” and “7 Habits of Highly Effective Developers.” In fact, before 1989 the word…

I’ve thought about doing a podcast for quite awhile, but have been struggling with where to put my focus (and on how best to incorporate it into my already jam packed scheduled.) So when I saw Podcast Movement, a 2 day conference dedicated to the art and passion of podcasting, I figured that would be…

As I stepped up to the baggage claim to find my hot-pink suitcase and saw the chipper “Welcome” sign along with an announcement of the 109 degree day waiting for me outside I thought, “Yikes, that’s a boiling hot ‘Hello!’ from Phoenix, Arizona!” For the last three years I’ve attended the annual National Speakers Association……

We are often told to keep our personal lives distant from work, to not allow overlapping and distracting emotional influences on any realm of the workforce. Expressing emotions in any business and professional setting has often been eschewed. Yet, an increasing acceptance of allowing vulnerability in our workplaces is helping to create a more productive,…

There is a great deal of debate as to what constitutes inappropriate aggression within various professional fields in America. The sad fact remains that women continue to be in the majority when on the receiving end of violent rhetoric even from behind the safety of a computer screen. Even beyond the common usage of gendered language, women within…