This year’s theme: Balance for Better. My grandmother was a nurse and midwife in pre-World War II London. She delivered babies in conditions worse than what you see in “Call the Midwife.” She was a nurse in Europe leading up to the war. Smart and fierce and ahead of her time. She married late, for… Read More International Women’s Day 2019

True: “A measure of a man is what he does with power.” Plato  Sadly, not always true: “Pulling someone down will never help you reach the top.” – Unknown Most of us have experienced or have read about situations where an individual’s rise to the top is peppered with shoving others aside or down. OK,… Read More Five Costs of Bullying (“Too Nice” Costs as Well)

“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”  Benjamin Franklin, American inventor  I wasn’t a favorite of some teachers in grade school, because I got distracted easily (if there was someone passing notes in class, that was probably me) however I tested quite well. Though… Read More The 2019 Test: Will You Pass?

“Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.” Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric  Let’s be real, for most of us it’s more comfortable to be in the audience than at the podium, clicking through PowerPoint slides and hoping you have cogent answers for the Q&A portion. For those of… Read More Five Ways To Avoid Failure

Tetris is a video game where blocks of various shapes slide down the screen, and you have to shift them left and right as they fall, to fit together and make solid rows. The blocks kept coming faster and faster, so it became more difficult to create complete rows, leading to gaps all over the… Read More Avoiding Bad IT Tetris: Eliminate Gaps, Improve Velocity

I learned my lesson from a microphone. I needed one to support an internal meeting once, and some weeks later I was looking at Planned vs. Actual spend for the month and noticed a $5.00 charge. Because it was unusual to see tiny amounts like that, I asked what it was – and sure enough,… Read More Passing The (Charge)Buck: Tips for Reducing IT Chargeback Complexity

“Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” Joe Biden Peering into a budget will provide insight into an organization’s value system. A good litmus test for the true importance of initiatives and operations, is to measure the relative dollars apportioned. There are programs and functions… Read More The Love Or Money Equation: The Clash of Culture & Cash