Every year since 2014, I’ve deliberately set aside some time in late December or early January to evaluate the past year and set my theme for the year ahead. For the past 6 of those years, I’ve shared my theme for the year in a blog post. My theme in 2014 was change and resiliency. In 2015, it was vulnerability. In 2016 it was mindfulness. In 2017, it was honey over vinegar. In...
Empathy is the Ultimate Superpower
I’m always grateful when someone takes the time to give me advice or constructive criticism as that’s where the real growth lies. A lot of the advice is stuff that is helpful and I end up following. On rare occasions, the advice, while well-meaning, ends up being wrong for us. In this post, I talk about a particular piece of advice I received early on in my career from a PR pro. I...
What I’ve Been Reading: January Top Picks
On the last Sunday of every month, I share recommendations to 4 thought-provoking things I read – or in some cases – listened to in the last month. Here’s some of my recent faves. 1. “We come for the benefit, and stay for the community.” I can’t stop thinking about this quote from this Meetup post. A must-read for any community builders. 2. Practice makes...
What I’ve Been Reading: November Top Picks
I love when people send me reading recommendations. Whether it is a book, a blog post or a podcast episode, I devour them all. As you can imagine, I read a lot. I love sharing the best or most thought-provoking things I read even more. Here’s my top 4 picks. 1. Confession – I’ve been on a Brene Brown kick recently. I read her newest book, Braving the Wilderness in 2 days. It...
What I’ve Been Reading: 8 Books That I Recommend Checking Out
“Take a look, it is in a book” If you grew up in the 80s or 90s, I bet you are now singing the Reading Rainbow theme song in your head. You’re welcome. 😀 The point of this blog post isn’t to get you to reminisce about how awesome the PBS show, Reading Rainbow was, although it was an awesome show. The real reason is that song lyric still rings true today. One of the best...
What I’ve Learned From My First 2 Years Working Remotely
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about working remotely. I did so after my first three months and then again last year. While I love it, I wouldn’t feel right only talking about the “epic stuff.” The highs and lows are so much more extreme and intense. That was something that caught me off guard. I got into remote work because I was drawn to the FREEDOM and uncharted...
The Myth of Work-Life Balance and Why Chasing It is Making You Miserable
I have a tendency to think through and play around with big concepts. I can also be a rebel at times, as I like to turn common ideas that most people hold dear upside. The common belief I’ve been thinking more about lately is the nature of work and life. And, the single most played-out and written about concept – the elusive work/life balance. This idea that we all should strive for...
Breaking “the glass ceiling” in the community industry
Is there a glass ceiling in the community industry? That’s a loaded question that gets asked a lot in community manager forums, Facebook groups – like the CMX group (highly recommend joining btw) and podcasts like this Community Signal podcast episode with Patrick O’Keefe and Alexandra Dao, of Vimeo. If you look at our industry, there’s a growing number of director, VP and...
What I’ve Been Reading: My 11 Favorite Blog Posts From 2016
For the past few years, I wrote a post about my favorite things I’ve read over the last year. This is something I do leading up to my personal review of everything that happened over the last year. The good, the bad and the things that I want to change for the year ahead. It sums up everything – personal, professional, relationships, travel, health, etc, and helps me set my theme and...
13 Lessons Learned From My First Year as a Remote Community Manager
About 9.5 months ago, I wrote a post reflecting on my first three months of working remotely. I realized I have learned a lot since writing it. I’m going to share what I’ve learned about myself and working remotely in the last year in this post. In many ways, I still feel like I am brand new to this. Probably for good reason because I am still really new to this compared to many...