This one’s subtitled: An essay on learning (and trying not to drown). Once upon a time, I decided I wanted to experience the excitement and anxiety of learning something new – the art of whitewater kayaking. Ever since my first rafting trip as a teenager, I knew I wanted to paddle my own boat. The [...]

I found this clip of Jeff Jarvis via Johnnie Moore’s blog. Contained within it are some rather provocative ideas. A few of them are spot on (like how our educational system still operates as if it’s an industrial world). A few of them might be bullshit but I’m still debating internally. The awesomeness comes in [...]

There’s a rather lively conversation taking place at Olivier Blanchard’s The BrandBuilder blog about social media “certification” being promoted by the International Social Media Association (ISMA). I put certification in quotations because I question the very idea of whatever this organization is pushing as true certification. I’ve been on the professional association side of things [...]

A little over a month ago, I was inspired by Alex, my business partner at BaileyHill Media, to start running again. Way (way, way) back in the day, I used to be fairly in shape. In college, I could run a decent eight minute mile but through the intervening years I stopped running regularly. Oh, I tried to pick it up again every so often, but I'd find an excuse to stop and let myself get out of shape again. As with all men who find themselves getting older, we begin to see our friends cope with health issues and weight problems. And then we wake up one day, look in the mirror and say (or curse), "Oh crap, when did I start to get fat? And why I am tired so often? And why is my doctor (plus wife and parents) nagging my about my cholesterol?" For the longest time, I heard all of this from my internal voice but chose to ignore it. So one day in early September, I decided it was time to stop ignoring my health and do something about it. I decided to commit to the Couch-to-5K running program which is tailor-made for my slug-like self and also downloaded the C25K app for my iPod Touch (which turns out to be the best $3-4 dollars I've ever spent on myself). And as the cherry-on-top, I learned a few things about persistence and motivation.

Recently, I've come across some interesting thoughts on the nature and necessity of talent. This morning, Zig Ziglar at Great Management asked Does talent always prevail? And the answer is, "No." In his article, Zig tells the story of Peter Vidmar, Olympic gold medalist, and why he succeeded when other athletes were more talented. Here's a quote from Vidmar's coach: Peter is not particularly talented. I’ve had boys who were more gifted physically, with more kinetic awareness, strength and flexibility. But Peter surpassed them all because of his singular determination.

So what did I learn at the Online Community Unconference 2009? Here are four learnings.

Managers, when it comes to your employees where does professional development rank in your list of priorities? A. It’s vitally important and I discuss it frequently B. It’s important but don’t talk about it much C. It’s not important – or – there are more important things to focus on If you answered ‘A’ above…congratulations! [...]

Steve Roesler published a great post (then again, has he ever written a bad post?) titled Talent: Accurate Self-Awareness or Karaoke Feedback?. The main focus is feedback and he offers suggestions on how to give it as well as how to receive it. For me, I find the hardest thing to remember about feedback is [...]

As I vaguely mentioned in my last post, after a few months of hustling to get all of my application items together, I’ve finally been accepted to the business anthropology master’s degree program at the University of North Texas. Along with my background in workplace coaching, organizational management, and leadership development, I’m excited at the [...]

Steve Roesler applied the tag to me last week for a book reading meme. I’m kind of a sucker for anything book related so here she goes…  The object of this meme’s game is to share what I’m currently reading and sentences 6-8 of page 123 of that book. I’m actually reading three books right [...]