Inspiration is the fuel for your ideas. Plan activties to learn from multiple perspectives and to explore unfamiliar contexts. --Design Thinking Toolkit Over the course of the next few weeks, I'm showing you how to apply design thinking and principles to your career planning and development. The series of posts so far is here. Today we enter the Discovery phase and talk about gathering inspiration to work on the career... Read more →


Design Your Career: Defining the Challenge

"Every design problem begins with a specific and intentional problem to address; this is called a design challenge."--Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit Over the course of the next few weeks, I'm showing you how to apply design thinking and principles to your career planning and development. Here's the initial post. In today's post, we look at setting yourself up for success by defining the challenge. All design starts with defining... Read more →


"Design thinking is about believing we can make a difference and having an intentional process in order to get to new, relevant solutions that create positive impact. Design thinking gives you faith in your creative abilities and a process for transforming challenges into opportunities for design. . . . . . design thinking is the confidence that new, better things are possible and that you can make them happen." --Design... Read more →


I've been doing a lot of work lately with people who are changing their identity. They are moving from being dutiful employees who followed the rules and did what their employers wanted them to, into self-employment where they are the boss and there are no clear rules or a supervisor to please. This shift is proving more daunting than they--or I--had realized. I've been providing them with structure and help... Read more →


No matter where you're at in your career trajectory, stop what you're doing right now and ask yourself these 10 question. Can you answer a resounding "yes" to all of these statements? (h/t to The Muse for the link) If my current employer let me go, it would be relatively easy to find a similar role in another organization for equivalent compensation. If I lost my job today, I am... Read more →


"How They Do It" Entrepreneur Interview with Dhairya Pujara, Founder/CEO of Y-Center

Yesterday I had the opportunity to do another in my ongoing series of interviews with everyday entrepreneurs called "How They Do It." This time I spoke with Dhairya Pujara, Founder/CEO of Y-Center, a a Philadelphia-based social enterprise that connects university students with a unique study abroad program where they get to participate in solving global challenges and creating social impact. Dhairya--or "D" as he's known around here, shared some great... Read more →


"How They Do It" Interview Series with Everyday Entrepreneurs--Melissa A. Rowe

Yesterday I posted about two projects I'm working on that promote entrepreneurship and developing multiple income streams as part of your career resilience strategy. To help people get a better picture of what it means to be an entrepreneur in today's economy and to help them understand all of the different ways you can be more entrepreneurial in your career, I'm doing a series of interviews with everyday entrepreneurs called... Read more →


A Career Link Round-Up

Some articles I've been bookmarking but just haven't found the time to reflect on: 10 Reasons You Have to Quit Your Job in 2014--A must-read! This pretty much sums up everything I'm seeing. How Careers Have Changed (And How to Manage Yours Accordingly)--Lily is right on in this post and she links to an excellent video from Mark Savickas that should be required viewing for all adults. Is it Time... Read more →


Baratunde Thurston has a fantastic video on how we need to think differently about our careers. We have to move beyond thinking about specific jobs or the skill sets we use at Company/Organization A and think of ourselves much more broadly than we do. A great quote: I don’t think we’re ever going to reset to a new plateau or a new normal of any significant length. By the time... Read more →


Side Gigs for Security

Longtime readers know that I'm a huge fan of multiple income streams as a way to build your career resilience and create greater financial security and stability for yourself in an uncertain world. Kim Palmer has an excellent essay in the New York Times on her personal experience of creating a side business to supplement her day job As a reporter working in a struggling industry, I always knew unexpected... Read more →