Hola and thanks for reading.
FYI I’ve decided to switch up my online identity and therefore, this blog is dying … to be reborn in a remix mashup of all my blogs together at last in one spot. All new posts will live at Sparkplug 9.
Thanks so much for reading, and please join the party at […]

I recently received a promotion, and I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a manager versus a leader, what kind of leadership I want to provide, and what kind of a leader do I want to grow to be …
This is tough stuff, and I’m pretty sure I have a long way to […]

Pickthebrain has a post on selling yourself.
I can personally attest that, after getting the qualifications and knowledge you need to succeed in your chosen field, being able to “sell yourself” is the most critical part of professional success.
The highlights:

Be Sold on Yourself
Have a Saleable Package
Be Positive and Enthusiastic
Be Real and Authentic

I’d have to say the […]

. . . Excel help than Excel.
Every single time I need to find out how to do something in Excel, I try to figure it out from Excel help. Search usually gets me nowhere, but sometimes gives me a clue what I should actually be searching on. But the help I usually get is […]

Today’s quote of the day:
“It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of acting.”
- Michael Pascal
(From the introductory session of a lean “rapid improvement event” that we’re doing in my company. “Lean,” by the way, is a version of the Toyota Production […]

These are the options if you want an Education Week subscription:

As you’ll quickly see, you actually pay more to get the online version than the print+online versions. Probably has a lot to do with advertising revenue and subscription counts.
Major rip-off … and it isn’t doing trees any favors either.
Tags: education week, price, […]

I recently received a note from a colleague on preferred email communication with a new boss. Thought it was worth passing along - minor elements are changed to protect identities and make it flow …

The purpose of this note is to give you a heads up on written communications by email. I have found […]

Getting 6 people together at the same time on the same date at the same place (even if it’s virtual) is like herding cats.
So when a meeting fits in this nicely, it’s like the parting of the Red Sea … especially when our corporate meeting software shows busy times in red:

Tags: work stuff, […]

You never have office politics at your work right? Riiighhht …
There’s a really good article about office politics at BNet. Here’s an excerpt from the intro:

Like it or not, every workplace is a political environment. But operating effectively within it doesn’t have to mean sucking up, lying, or slinging dirt. In its purest form, office […]

Having endured years of chronic neck pain in my life, I know something about the need to intentionally relax your muscles.
I saw a good tip today intended to help prevent near-sightedness, but a major side-benefit (or perhaps the main benefit) is muscle relaxation. I find that I tend to get a little more stressed, hour […]