Success in Scary Times

I'm a freelance consultant and for the past 10 years that's meant finding the delicate balance between getting the work done today that needs to get done and finding new work to do once my current projects are finished. People who work for organizations think that their situations are very different from mine, but in reality, the only difference is that I'm always aware of the fact that I have... Read more →


25 (Free) Tools for Professional Development and Productivity

I've been writing this week about Jane Hart's analysis of the technology tools being used by workplace learning professionals vs. those being used by educators, trying to identify why educators seem to be making greater use of social media. One issue may be that workplace learning professionals are not as familiar with social media tools in learning. Fortunately, Jane has created an excellent resource to address this--her 25 Tools Professional... Read more →


Guide to Using Free Tools to Create an Online Portfolio

Last week I ran my Using Free Tools to Create an Online Portfolio webinar. We had a nice mix of different professional backgrounds, although it was all women, which I found kind of interesting. Men, where were you? Anyway, I got lots of good feedback and emails and was happy to hear that several people were already working on pulling together their portfolios. I thought that others could benefit from... Read more →


With Web 2.0, You Can Run, But You Can't Hide: Tools and Resources for Managing Your Online Reputation

In a few weeks I'll be doing a presentation on social media and public relations for the Philadelphia Black Public Relations Society, so this video via Escape from Cubicle Nation is very timely. It's from Gary Vaynerchuck who argues that in the transparent world of Web 2.0 it will be impossible to have multiple identities. "You are who you are online," he says. No more can you be "one person... Read more →


Dump Your Resume--Build a Reputation Instead

For anyone who’s looking for a new job or just wants to keep their options open, this is a little scary. Dan Enthoven, vice president of marketing of job search firm Trovix, recently conducted a study where he sent out 35 fictitious resumes to companies he knew were seeking software engineers: The resumes included all the right credentials and background needed for each specific job posted on company sites, including... Read more →


EPortfolios: A Tool for Organizational and Individual Development

Here's another guest post for the Nonprofit Congress Blog. You can read the entire article here. After reading the recent Ready to Lead report on nurturing the next generation of talent in the nonprofit sector, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the report’s recommendations about what nonprofits and their staff can do to improve the process. One tool that I think could help the process tremendously is online... Read more →


On Being a Reflective Practitioner

Last week, I blogged some reflections on a learning project I started that has stalled, at least for now. Then I blogged about Nancy White's recent experiences in facilitating a class, which led to a great exchange in comments that forced me to reflect further on my own assumptions about facilitation. This led me down a path of thinking more about the practice of reflection and how one of the... Read more →


Shari Starts Her New Job Tomorrow

For those of you following Shari Ward's Job Search 2.0 journey, I'm thrilled to report that she's just been offered a new position that she starts tomorrow! This job search took her only 5 weeks and according to her reflections on the process, her success is at least partially partially due to her use of technology: As I consider the tools I used during my job search this time, you... Read more →


Why You Need to Blog Publicly About Your Mistakes

When most of us make a big mistake, the last thing on our minds is "Oh, I should blog about this and make my embarrassment public." No, I think the normal human reaction is to move far, far away from our screw-ups. Some of us, the more reflective types, may have private discussions with our most trusted confidantes about what happened. Or we may write in our journals and then... Read more →


How Public Should Your Portfolio Be?

Sarah Stewart is continuing to build her online portfolio and in doing so has run smack into an issue that concerns anyone who has information online--how much should she share? As Sarah points out, she's in a bit of a fix, because of course some aspects at least of her portfolio must be public if she's going to use it to build and communicate about her professional identity. But the... Read more →