Paying Cash
My husband is the financial genius of the family We have a nice split in responsibilities. I make the money and he makes sure that it grows, like tomato plants in the hot summer sun, instead of slipping away, like...
Thank God for Sisters and Nordstroms
As I emerge from a period of burnout, I've really begun to appreciate my sister, whose house is a five minute walk from my home. She called me up to go to Nordstrom's anniversary sale this morning. We went for...
The Essence of ABV
Just as we need to capture the essence of what our clients are about, we need to do the same for ABV. At the core, what is ABV about? It's something that I've been pondering for awhile. While working with...
Love Is In the Air, Or At Least in the Water
I noticed recently that a large number of my clients have gotten married or will get married this year. One in January, one in June, one this Friday, one in August, and one in September. For all but one, this...
ABV Pilot Update
This week, the ABV team had wrap-up meetings with each of the pilot clients. It's been rewarding to see how far each client has come, in different ways. And there are some common results that I'm observing: Cohesiveness. We asked...
Burnout: Symptoms and Antidotes
I've been missing in action on all of my blogs over the last week. I realized over the weekend that I was on the edge of burnout. Small things were bringing me to tears. I was having trouble getting out...
How Blogging Created a Vision for the GOP
Rising talent for established institutions used to come from those who could gain favor from the top of the hierarchy. New media bypasses that and allows developing stars to find their voice and their audience without being validated or confirmed...
Tourist in My Own Town
My sons have tired of summer vacations consisting of long road trips. We've seen most of the interesting sights within a day's drive over the last ten years. And having taken a true vacation to paradise in February, a more...
The Secret Sauce for All Successful Communities
An interview with boundary crosser, Karen Stephenson, reminds me that all the technology, networking, marketing, and wisdom in the world is useless in building a community if one thing is lacking: Trust. Stephenson calls herself a corporate anthropologist (she has...