I work for the Federal government and I spend a LOT of time in meetings. I’m tempted to replace the “and” in that sentence with “therefore,” but I had just as many meetings when I was part of big industry, too.
Meetings can be frustrating and often have a pretty low productivity-per-minute, but the answer is […]

Here’s something that virtually no one will ever tell you. I don’t think anyone ever told me this, either, but I’ve found time and again that when I make real progress I’m following this rule: don’t do everything on your list. My rule of thumb is that 85% of all the things I have to […]

Since we just finished a piece related to everyone’s number one fear, I wanted to point you to an excellent resource I found could be helpful to you as you develop your own speaking skills.
I got an email from TJ Walker over at The Speaking Channel with a pointer to his new show, “Bully Pulpits: […]

We’ve talked a bit on this web site about having a balanced life and the role that plays in keeping you creative and in preparing you for challenges and failure.
Reader Karen M. sent me a note pointing to a batch of new supporting scientific evidence in favor of balance. One form of it anyway: taking […]

I like giving presentations. (Go ahead, get it out of your system…done yet? Good.)
The Lessig Style
From time to time I look up and see if anyone is doing anything new. About 9 months ago I looked up and saw several folks talking about the “Lessig Style” of presentation. I watched a couple of sample presentations, […]

I spend a lot of time focused on trying to get people—especially people just starting their careers—to think about their career over long term and to identify ways that they can do something meaningful with their time. It’s fun, but I realize I’m leaving out a small but important part of the workplace: those who […]

My organization, like lots of large companies and government agencies, has a required regimen of courses and training that I am required to complete as the career clock ticks. To say that these are usually unremarkable is being pretty generous, but hey, spring is in the air.
But I got lucky and did an exercise in […]

Ok, so let’s say you are already a team leader, or even a senior level manager in an HPC company or center somewhere. You’re interested in this leadership thing, but you recognize that you’re going to have to do a lot of culture changing to enable leadership to grow at all levels of your organization. […]

The fine folks at InfoWorld have invited me to host a blog on leadership and career development skills for IT. It’s called “Leading from the Trenches”, and you can find it at http://weblog.infoworld.com/leadtrenches/ or from the link in the press section of the sidebar.
From the first post:
Throughout the week I’ll point to articles around the […]