Category: putting yourself out there

professional anecdotal

I have been observing the subtle art of the professional anecdote. As someone pointed out to me recently, LinkedIn and other similar networks, along with individual websites like this very site, a professional-ish blog, are rife with people wearing masks. Professional masks, of course. People post on sites and blogs like LinkedIn and their own…
genuine

The temptation felt by the potential of a blank page as I sit down to type these words each time I post is sometimes bigger than I can explain. We all want to be more than we are, don’t we? I see this blank page in front of me and I yearn to manifest some…
discomfort

I was in class this past weekend, continuing the work on my Business Analysis Certification, and the topic we were discussing was “solution design.” One thing led to another and we were going round the table talking about interfaces and user experience and people-centric innovation. This all came to me bringing up my current desktop…
business analysis

It’s only been a few months, but I’ve been putting in a tremendous amount of time and effort this year to work towards my Business Analysis Certification. Previously, I spent twenty-plus years working in non-profit, non-governmental agencies, and then municipal government doing a lot of work implementing and running projects, products, and programs. And so…
gossip

Realizing that someone is talking about you behind your back can be a jarring experience. Realizing that two strangers are talking about you through the trees more difficult to categorize. I had gone for a walk in the sweltering heat. The last few days have been marked by temperatures that are neither unexpected nor unseasonable,…
on entropy

There is an inbuilt and inherent temporary-ness to everything, which means that everything, eventually turns back into it’s sub-atomic components of atoms and energy. You and I, our homes, our cars, our cell phones, our refrigerators, beds, toothbrushs, shoe laces, those television shows we stream over the internet, the film we watched last weekend and…
audio drama

In 2001, having recently finished university and found my first “real job” I packed up and moved to the west coast of Canada to a city called Vancouver. I had no car. I had few friends. I had a lot of free time. And I had the hulking desktop computer that had seen me through…
public spaces

Last summer we took a three week vacation to Europe. We went to London, Paris, Rome and a lot of places in between. It had been nearly a quarter of a century since I’d last been there. So long ago that my camera still used film (and I’d only taken five rolls with me at…
confidence

As I stood at the edge of a chilly park, the winter air biting at my fingertips as the dog tugged at her leash to just-keep-walking-already, I replied to my neighbor’s query with a tentative explanation of an intangible future. “Have you started looking for a job yet?” She had asked, and by it she…
expertise

What happens when you find yourself surrounded by people who are better at something than you? It happens all the time to people who are just getting started. You post, share, and show, but then someone else comes along and their art is amazing. Their writing is stellar. They can sing, dance, perform, or engage…