I wish I would have said something in a meeting while sitting across from a blabbering mouth that didn’t know when to stop flapping.  Instead, I missed speaking up at the meeting intelligently because I was preoccupied with why I was even there.  I spent the next 10 minutes trying to come up with a clever one-liner that would set the world straight.

In a previous article, I outlined the troubles companies have with employees who share their personal lives on social media. Each day brings new stories about social media faux pas, creating scandals for individuals and companies alike. According to a 2012 survey by PayScale, a salary and benefits information company, only half of the companies surveyed had a social media policy and 42% said they forbid all forms of social media activity at work. 

When I was a new teacher in the 1970s, each new school year came with the excitement and anticipation of new beginnings. I would go to school a couple of weeks before the official start date to check my new student lists, begin classroom preparation, look over any new texts or equipment, and chat with staff and office personnel who might also be in early. I also tried to discover that year’s “fix-all.” There was always a new panacea to “ensure” successful teaching/learning, better readers, increased graduation rate, improved standardized test scores, or whatever issue was the current media and public concern. After my first year, I learned to steel myself for the opening meetings, so I could hold on to the joy I felt about getting back to what I loved best—teaching.

While becoming a CNA requires the completion of a formal program that typically involves both classroom work and clinical experience, becoming an outstanding nursing assistant requires much more.

As I approached a friend’s house the other day, I noticed a “No Soliciting” sign on the door. It got me thinking about how marketing is changing. The internet’s impact on marketing cannot be overstated; it has leveled the playing field and allowed anyone with a connection to selling their wares to the world.

A year ago, while attending a conference in a major city, I would either walk several blocks from my hotel to the conference or ride the subway each day.  Traveling through the city, I noticed that the majority of the people wore earbuds (small in-ear headphones) and were somewhat oblivious to what was going on around them.  People walked down the street silently, heads down, avoiding people and traffic by means of peripheral vision, never making eye contact with passers-by, and never engaging those around them.

In America, we like things fast – fast cars, fast horses, and fast food– and the drive to be first compels us to find new ways to be fast. The typical newscast from Fox or CNN is an example of fast. Historically, we had to wait until six or ten p.m. to get the nightly news. When the news came on, we saw a Walter Cronkite clone in front of the camera delivering one story at a time, most important to least, slowly and deliberately.