Tuning into NPR in drive time yesterday, I heard bloggers Zach Patton and Clay Dunn, the couple behind the food blog The BItten Word, recap food trends for the Great American Food Holiday, Thanksgiving. "The two surveyed 11 food magazines... Continue reading

The October issue of Inc has a brief and powerful article entitiled, The Re-Education of Jim Collins, synthesizing leadership lessons he learned in his seven visits over the last two years to West Point. http://bit.ly/1cu1knS How can so few words... Continue reading

Greg Fuson made a wonderful idea happen last week as project manager for Uncharted, an Ideas Festival. Thanks to Greg, I attended this two-day event with my husband Bill and co-conspirator of too much fun, Susan Kamei. Felt like we... Continue reading

Which actor in the economy is most responsible for making radical innovation happen? Mariana Mazzucato comes up with a surprising answer: the state. Are you creating as much value as the undervalued Federal government? You wish. Continue reading

Excellent advice via Marymount University's Leadership and Management Insights newsletter: http://bit.ly/1hZyhWt Leading in Stressful Times Dr. Cynthia Roman, Assistant Professor Management and Human Resources School of Business Administration Marymount University Thanks to a sluggish economy and rampant technology changes, today’s leaders are under more stress than ever. Managing multiple projects... Continue reading

Annie Leonard's back with another animated video, six years after the Story of Stuff came out, and after eight other short films. This time, she's talking about what we need to do to solve problems—and how we really need to... Continue reading

At the heart of engagement is an engaged person--YOU. In our session, Greg and I not only explored how to create events with meaning and heart, we asked participants to discover their own purpose, that intersection of passion and cause,... Continue reading

Amber Rae interviewed the people behind Holstee.com and recaps Six Simple Mindfulness Practices to Reframe Your Perspective for Fast Company's blog series, How to Be a Success at Everything. It starts with being present. For example, "when in conversation, give... Continue reading

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Beth Belle Cooper provides a quick summary of how to be happier in ten simple steps based on current science for Fast Company: 1. Exercise more 2. Sleep more 3. Commute less 4. More friends 5. Go outside 6. Help others 7. Smile more 8. Plan a trip 9. Meditate... Continue reading

Want to engage members? Fully engage. Make an association. These fortune cookie adages are from Darlene Price, cited in Forbes and Fast Company on how to remember the names of people you meet. And isn't that the best way to... Continue reading

Catching up on my reading, I stumbled on the following advice in the current issue of Patterns from IDEO. The issue topic is reviving old brands (your association?) by leveraging old school values and character. The following list sounds like... Continue reading

Check out the free webinar from the Ken Blanchard Companies on engaging learning design being served up on Thursday, September 12, at 12 noon EDT: "Today's learning designs need to engage learners quickly, offer extensive opportunities to build and practice... Continue reading

Earlier this week, Greg Fuson and I hosted a session at ASAE2013 on connecting people and ideas with meaning and heart, The Art of Engagement: Members, Meetings and Communities #ASAE13 LF56 We are grateful to all the amazing people who... Continue reading

Ernest Hemingway won a bet, crafting an entire story in six words For sale: baby shoes, never worn and inspired the editors of Smith Magazine to collect other stories, publishing a book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word... Continue reading

From the PsyBlog, a great practice, Mindful Photography, capturing images of what you are grateful for. "Since camera phones are so ubiquitous now, people have the tendency to take photos of anything and everything. Choosing about five things, though, will help you resist that impulse and focus in on what's... Continue reading

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the women and men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. Antoine de Saint-Exupery Nic Askew creates... Continue reading

What if you freed professional development from its department silo and viewed your entire organization as the means to support members' development? What if you applied the 70-20-10 Rule* to all your activiites? So, for every way you engage members,... Continue reading

Consulting, like learning, is a process of discovery and capacity. Sensing a client's strengths and capacity for change is as critical as surfacing the issues to be resolved. "Any discovery begins with a conversation about concern," notes Peter Block, a... Continue reading

Does meditation increase compassion? Psychology professor David DeSteno reports findings of a recent study in the New York Times that demonstrates the compassion dividend after only eight weeks. "So take heart. The next time you meditate, know that you’re not just benefiting yourself, you’re also benefiting your neighbors, community members... Continue reading

What skills do your members need to be in demand going forward? The Institute for the Future identifies and defines the top ten Future Work Skills that will be in short-supply in 2020 (my translation are in parentheses).Love this stuff:... Continue reading

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Text Is Beautiful goes beyond creating "word clouds" by filtering source text through analytics software to distill "concept clouds." To try it out, I pasted in the text of an essay I wrote, Associations as Engines of Change, my manfesto... Continue reading