Workplace cycles vary, of course, but it is certain that in offices and plants across the US and beyond, the impending holidays impact the pace one way or another.
If by chance you inhabit one of the many workplaces in which the phone rings less and less in the days surrounding Christmas and New Year's Day, and your email yields mostly retail shopping offers and spam, do not become disheartened! (If you were feeling disheartened, that is.) A faster pace will resume soon enough.
Instead, if you are a part of one of the quiet-for-Christmas offices, take a moment to breathe. Then ponder all the things you wish you had time to do during the year. If you are like many of us, those things may completely escape your mind when you actually have time to do them. (Energy begets energy; slow times can dull the brain.) If business gets quiet in the next couple of weeks, and you are in the office anyway, consider...
-Thinking the big thoughts. Visioning (here's Inc's nice summary of the process). Start by asking yourself about your goals for next year or for the next five years, then listing the steps you may need to take to achieve them.
-Reading. Some of my favorite recent books that are either about business or relevant to business include:
Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work – Chip Heath, Dan Heath
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard – Chip Heath, Dan Heath
Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success – Adam M. Grant
To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others – Daniel H. Pink
Leading Change – John P. Kotter
-Getting unstuck. One business consultant whom I admire employs Einstein's quote, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Could you benefit from some fresh perspective or support? Consider a business or life coach, CPA, advisory board, or friends who are in business or who understand your goals. You deserve this, even if it costs money or involves seeking a type of support you've never before used. Now may be a good time to start the process, while you have the time and space to think clearly.
-Taking a break. It's too easy to forget to take sufficient time with family or friends, or just to get away from it all.
All of us at vSA wish you refreshing, rejuvenating holidays.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Monday, November 11, 2013
A Test of My Emergency Broadcast System
This blog is only a test. No, that's not true. In fact, this blog is a
joyous attempt to put to use some of the many stories, untrue and
a-little-bit true, that jump up and down in my head.
In my real life, in addition to fishing lost objects from between the seat and the center console of the car and scraping old pizza off the living room carpet, I run a successful business. The business, while challenging in the conventional sense, is a breeze compared to the personal water-treading that seems to be the heart of life.
Intellectual, analytical and financial matters - for me, at least, that's the easy stuff. Relationships, love, aging, bikinis - that is where challenges and emotional ravines await. Not to mention diets and exercise programs.
Too, this blog is written in tribute to all the women of generations past who had big ideas, including both my paternal and maternal grandmothers.
My paternal grandmother, who, with ten or more children in the house at any given time and no formal art training whatsoever, would sit and paint beautiful, primitive watercolors for hours while the water boiled dry in the potato pot. "When you smelled that burning odor," my father told me, "You knew dinner was ready."
My maternal grandmother was widowed young and raised her three children on her own. When I asked her why she had never accepted any of the half-dozen marriage proposals she had received post-widowhood, she said, "I wasn't going to have anybody else bossing me around." One entire wall of her living room illustrated a terrible storm at sea, a mural she painted (again, no formal art training) after talking with my parents about sailing.
Here's to all of us with ideas, passion and potatoes. Including Grace Paley.
©2013 Michelle van Schouwen, Longmeadow, MA
All rights reserved.
In my real life, in addition to fishing lost objects from between the seat and the center console of the car and scraping old pizza off the living room carpet, I run a successful business. The business, while challenging in the conventional sense, is a breeze compared to the personal water-treading that seems to be the heart of life.
Intellectual, analytical and financial matters - for me, at least, that's the easy stuff. Relationships, love, aging, bikinis - that is where challenges and emotional ravines await. Not to mention diets and exercise programs.
Too, this blog is written in tribute to all the women of generations past who had big ideas, including both my paternal and maternal grandmothers.
My paternal grandmother, who, with ten or more children in the house at any given time and no formal art training whatsoever, would sit and paint beautiful, primitive watercolors for hours while the water boiled dry in the potato pot. "When you smelled that burning odor," my father told me, "You knew dinner was ready."
My maternal grandmother was widowed young and raised her three children on her own. When I asked her why she had never accepted any of the half-dozen marriage proposals she had received post-widowhood, she said, "I wasn't going to have anybody else bossing me around." One entire wall of her living room illustrated a terrible storm at sea, a mural she painted (again, no formal art training) after talking with my parents about sailing.
Here's to all of us with ideas, passion and potatoes. Including Grace Paley.
©2013 Michelle van Schouwen, Longmeadow, MA
All rights reserved.
Cranky Season
Middle age
 |
| Photo copyright 2006 van Schouwen Associates, LLC |
Maybe
that is part of what makes me cranky this summer. After all, summer is supposed
to be my favorite season, and the things that are bothering me have the ring of
being just a little too similar to the things that bother, shall we say, a
person just BEYOND middle age, a person who is just sick and tired of…
whatever.
Children
Children
at the pool, putting their legs in the water during the Adult Swim ("I'm
not swimming, am I?") or smartly shouting to one another, "I'm going
to bang your mother!"
These are kids whose heads are not even full-grown.
As you may have guessed, they are also boys.
Auto
exhaust
I mean
REALLY. Can't they see what is coming out of the back of their cars?
Other
I could
go on. Dust. Green beans that go liquid. Having to pee.
But it's
not about the green beans, is it? Cranky Season is about the blindingly fast pace of days
wasted, days squandered on being grumpy, on working, on driving vast miles in
the car.
It's a
season I can flip the page on, and maybe I will. Maybe.
Just don't
push me.
©2013 Michelle van Schouwen, Longmeadow, MA
All rights reserved.
©2013 Michelle van Schouwen, Longmeadow, MA
All rights reserved.
Summer
 |
| Illustration copyright 2006 van Schouwen Associates, LLC |
My
husband looks forward to having his kids at the house. Fresh from their
mother’s, his ex-wife’s, arms and passionate goodbyes, they arrive. The
youngest, a boy, age nine, is particularly revved up.
“Why
don’t you have air conditioning?” he begins.
“We do.”
Central
air, which we have, apparently doesn’t qualify.
“You need
a BOX. Window air conditioning is better. You can cool one room,” he sniffs.
The same
goes for the food (too healthy) the club pool (nothing to do but swim) and the house
(not a mansion).
“Has my
mother been to your house?”
“No,” I
say uncertainly. Has she? Have the bigger kids let her in when she last sailed
through town?
“Hmmm,”
says the child.
It has
been five years now and I haven’t made a dent, haven’t left a trace of myself
or my step-motherly value in their sturdy little hearts. Reports of
no-ice-cream-five-minutes-before-dinner are texted home to Mom to become fodder
for a protracted tween-rant about unsated appetite, and their school-assigned
summer reading becomes a suggestion so vile that it could have come only from,
well, me. The volume on the video game system creeps up as August approaches.
Finally, I
begin to claim the territory of scorn. So now there will be only whole wheat
bread. Educational movies. Does anyone recognize that I have planted my flag in
the quinoa?
©2013 Michelle van Schouwen, Longmeadow, MA
All rights reserved.
©2013 Michelle van Schouwen, Longmeadow, MA
All rights reserved.
You Like Sailing
"You
said you liked sailing," he reminded me.
The boat
was in fact not sailing, but moored, if you could call it that. We were going
around in circles at the mooring, with occasional variations in movement just
to keep it fresh.
North wind
in Vermont during what the rest of the country calls "early
September" feels as though it could carry Santa effortlessly with it,
frost gleaming from his beard. I wished I had a beard, which would be warmer
than my bare skin. I wished I had fur.
The New
Wife generally tries to be pleasant and amiable, so as not to appear too much
like the Old Wife. I was having trouble doing so today. I was very cold and the
boat lacked toilet paper. Since I was the only woman on board, this appeared to
matter more to me than to anyone else. I tried eating for comfort, but a diet
of corn chips and cheese does not agree with me. Still morning, it seemed a
little early for wine and I was dizzy anyway.
I had
indeed stated that I liked sailing. But I should have been more specific,
numerically speaking. I like sailing when the wind blows no more than eight (8)
miles per hour, when the temperature is between 75 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit. I
like to sail for as little as one and as much as four hours, and to be off the
sailboat by 8 pm. If necessary to stay on the boat for an extended period
of time (24-plus hours), I like there to be no less than one (1) roll of toilet
tissue available. 1/8 roll is not acceptable.
Accuracy
and precision are important tools in communication. As a New Wife, I will take
that under advisement in future declarations about Things I Like.
©2013 Michelle van Schouwen, Longmeadow, MA
All rights reserved.
©2013 Michelle van Schouwen, Longmeadow, MA
All rights reserved.
Yugoslavia
George
glanced at the passing parade of pinks and yellows and impossible suntans and
navel rings three feet in front of our sensible camp chairs. It was as crowded
as Coney Island. It was as crowded as Mumbai.
Finally he
said, “You could go to Yugoslavia.” Then, because this seemed unclear, he
added, “They don’t care what they look like there. You should see…”
He trailed
off. Perhaps because another floral tattoo on Amazonian hips has sashayed by on
its woman, the woman dipping her silver-ringed toes into the foamy water near
shore. Her toes missed the floating Kleenex by inches. In any case, George
seemed distracted.
“I could
wear a bikini,” I resumed stubbornly. “But I think you should look great in it
if you’re going to wear it,” and here I sucked my stomach in discreetly, “not
just okay.”
Then,
slowly, I realized. “Fine,” I said nastily, “I’ll go to Yugoslavia.”
“That’s not
what I meant. Is there another sandwich?”
My point
is, it is nice to be a man. Generally speaking, a man does not shave his legs.
His bathing suit does not send squashed wads of flesh blopping out from its
armholes or crotch.
He looks
great. He is certain of it.
©2013 Michelle van Schouwen, Longmeadow, MA
All rights reserved.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Quick mix for B2B social media - taking first, important steps
Social media has become increasingly important in business development and communications. This includes business-to-business, where the trend toward communicating through social channels has arguably been slower than in more broadly recognized consumer products and services.
Now, B2B has clearly entered the fray. If your company is just beginning to get involved in social media, consider becoming active on the following four sites right away: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Here's a quick rationale for each:
LinkedIn: LinkedIn IS business, and having and actively using a company page provides you with ready access to the people, groups, discussions, and community that are your "conversational backyard". We predict that LinkedIn will continue to grow in influence.
Facebook: First, it's just so big and so popular... and so clearly making it big with business. Plus, Facebook is a great and (somewhat) easy way to communicate with your individual customers and to humanize your company and its activities. Remember that being involved in Facebook is much like attending a social gathering. Show interest in others, do not talk solely about yourself and talk about matters that may be of broad or deep interest to others. And did we mention, respond to the conversation-starters promulgated by the other attendees? Oh, and have some appetizers and a drink while you're here.
Twitter: Social media sophisticates, including editors and influentials, like it and use it often. It's brief, informative and to the point. Your company should be here, and should let these influentials know "what's news", from marketing launches to management changes. Again, good communication "manners" dictate that showing interest in what others have to say behooves you.
Google+: Because it's Google, because your active presence positively impacts your SEO and because it is slowly making a play for business involvement, with venues such as hangouts, allowing meaningful discussions. That's why. Some people argue that Google+ can be ignored. We disagree.
There is much more to discuss about best practices, benefits, venues, and tactics for B2B social media, and we will do so in future posts. In the meantime, go forth and socialize!
Now, B2B has clearly entered the fray. If your company is just beginning to get involved in social media, consider becoming active on the following four sites right away: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Here's a quick rationale for each:
LinkedIn: LinkedIn IS business, and having and actively using a company page provides you with ready access to the people, groups, discussions, and community that are your "conversational backyard". We predict that LinkedIn will continue to grow in influence.
Facebook: First, it's just so big and so popular... and so clearly making it big with business. Plus, Facebook is a great and (somewhat) easy way to communicate with your individual customers and to humanize your company and its activities. Remember that being involved in Facebook is much like attending a social gathering. Show interest in others, do not talk solely about yourself and talk about matters that may be of broad or deep interest to others. And did we mention, respond to the conversation-starters promulgated by the other attendees? Oh, and have some appetizers and a drink while you're here.
Twitter: Social media sophisticates, including editors and influentials, like it and use it often. It's brief, informative and to the point. Your company should be here, and should let these influentials know "what's news", from marketing launches to management changes. Again, good communication "manners" dictate that showing interest in what others have to say behooves you.
Google+: Because it's Google, because your active presence positively impacts your SEO and because it is slowly making a play for business involvement, with venues such as hangouts, allowing meaningful discussions. That's why. Some people argue that Google+ can be ignored. We disagree.
There is much more to discuss about best practices, benefits, venues, and tactics for B2B social media, and we will do so in future posts. In the meantime, go forth and socialize!
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