Ordinary Life, Extraordinary Living

Life Lessons

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Traverse City on Sept 18

I'll be in Traverse City, Michigan on September 18 to lead a discussion about social entrepreneurship. My hosts will be Marguerite Cotto, from Northwest Michigan College and Elaine Wood, from the Northwest Michigan Council of Governments. Both of these women...

Jet Lag

I use a prep form with my clients that helps them summarize what's happened since we last met. It also helps them focus the conversation for our coaching session. I use the form myself, when meeting with my coach. One...

The Grace of Tony’s Mom

Yesterday was the start of a three-day weekend, yet my 13-year old son was glum. My husband had asked me to talk to our son, after getting a face that was ready to burst into tears when discussing of all...
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A Cause Without a Community Means…?

Our first guest blog posting comes from Dave Murphy, who I first collaborated with on the Conscious Living, Conscious Leaving project. Dave has been a sounding board for A Bigger Voice since I started fleshing out the idea late in...
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Obama, Eco-Systems and Communities

A topic of discussion with the ABV team has been eco-systems. Simon first introduced us to the concept of eco-systems for communications. Simon defines it this way: "All the options to communicate with your community." Visually, such an eco-system might...

Do You Clean Up As You Go?

Last week, I was feeling trapped, overwhelmed and underwater. I had piles of to-do's near by laptop, on my desk, on the kitchen table. I had flashes of that I Love Lucy episode where the conveyor belt moves faster and...

In Praise of Joe

This week, I was in the car, listening to the radio, and just happened to catch Garrison Keillor hosting The Writer's Almanac. He always reads a poem, in addition to giving tidbits about writer's lives. Sometimes I find that I...
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Why Monetizing Before Community-Building Doesn’t Work for Books

I'm reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson and this paragraph got my attention: "In 2004, 950,000 books out of the 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen BookScan sold fewer than ninety-nine copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies. Only...

A Job Post I Can Get Excited About

A friend pointed me to a job post that says as much about the company as who they are looking for. The text of the job post is in italics, with my reactions in bold. "We are looking for talented...

Never Eat Alone

I discovered the book, Never Eat Alone, when I listened to an interview with the author, Keith Ferrazzi. I originally wanted to blog about the book because it has so much good advice on networking. And after doing a bit...