Archive for the ‘Business/Work’ Category

h1

“You’ve come a long way, baby!” Really?

December 22, 2009

A slight deviation from my normal blog posts…

I’ve read some disturbing articles and blog posts recently, and as a result, I’m wondering just how far women have come in gaining parity with men in many aspects of the working world — at least in the so-called developed, democratic countries like the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and the like.

Each of these articles has made me question how much of this ‘equality’ is just lip service. There seem to be some deeper, underlying prejudices (even hatreds), beliefs and values at play here that thwart women from being equal members of society — even without us (women AND men) realizing it or being aware that it’s occurring.

I had thought that many of the barriers to women in the workplace had disappeared over the past three or four decades, but now I’m starting to question whether that’s case. I’m not sure we’ve come very far at all.

The articles and events that have led to this post are:

  • http://www.copyblogger.com/james-chartrand-underpants/: James Chartrand has gained an enviable reputation as an excellent copy writer and is one of the people behind ‘Men With Pens’ (http://www.menwithpens.ca), a Canadian web design and copywriting company with an international reputation. Recently, James revealed that he is really a ’she’. She had to take on a male name in order to be taken seriously and to earn a decent wage to support her family. The comments on this blog post are also worth reading, but there are hundreds of them, so grab a cup of coffee before you start!
  • http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_female_veterans_finding_a_place: This article opens with: ‘Even near military bases, female veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t often offered a drink on the house as a welcome home.’ and goes on to describe what life is like for women returning from the frontline to a society that doesn’t acknowledge what they’ve done and gone through.
  • http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/11/24/spectacle_at_we.html: What happened to Danah Boyd when she spoke at a Web conference. This Twitter ‘backchannel’ issue is not just relevant to female presenters; however, female speakers may be subject to more sexual innuendo and outright sexual harassment in the remarks than men might be. After reading about Danah’s experiences, I wrote about this disturbing ‘backchannel’ phenomena here: http://cybertext.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/conferences-and-twitter-backchannels/
  • Death threats against Kathy Sierra in 2007, which resulted in her canceling all speaking engagements for a few years, and meant that she stopped sharing her brilliance by ceasing to write any more articles on her ‘Creating Passionate Users’ blog (http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/). These threats put fear into her and her family that no-one should have to experience. You can read a little about this in the ‘Controversy’ and ‘References’ sections of this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra
  • http://www.theonion.com/content/news/woman_domesticated: Finally, this article came out in the same week as the first two, and I read it a day or so after those others. It  appears to be a ‘tongue in cheek’ article — but perhaps not. Normally, I would have found it funny. But after the events described in the earlier articles, I found this article quite sad, and just a little disturbing. I suspect it was written in good humor, and, under normal circumstances, I’d have taken it that way. But not after reading the earlier articles and remembering the Danah Boyd and Kathy Sierra incidents.

[Links last  checked December 2009]

h1

Wow! Great advice for new college/uni students

December 18, 2009

If you have a son or daughter about to start college or university, point them in the direction of Derek Sivers’ advice to newly enrolled Berklee College of Music students. His blog post details his speech, and he includes a 10-minute video of his ‘6 things I wish I knew the day I started at Berklee’.

In summary, his advice is to:

  • Be one of the few that is clever enough to make money making music instead of pretending it doesn’t matter.
  • Be one of the few that has the guts to do something shocking.
  • Be one of the few that takes your lessons here as a starting point, and pushes yourself to do more with what you learn.
  • Be one of the few that knows how to help yourself, instead of expecting for others to do it for you.
  • Be one of the few that does much more than is required.
  • And most importantly, be one of the few that stays in the shed to practice, while everyone else is surfing the net, flirting on MySpace, and watching TV.

[Link last checked December 2009; thanks to @KathySierra whose Tweet led me to this article]

h1

Only in Australia

December 12, 2009

How’s this for a safety incident notification:

Watch out for those pesky bandicoots!

And for the non-Australians, this is a bandicoot:

Bandicoot

It’s a small marsupial, which looks a bit like a rat — similar size, similar coloring, similar tail…

Cute, huh?

 

 

h1

What makes you a professional?

November 13, 2009

The article — The 12 Qualities of True Business Professionals — spells it out… literally!

  • Proactive
  • Respect
  • Opportunities
  • Follow-up
  • Empathy
  • Self-confident
  • Sustainable
  • Integrity
  • Optimize all interactions
  • Nimble
  • Aware
  • Leadership

Read the full article for the context around each of these letters and words (http://www.businesspundit.com/the-12-qualities-of-true-business-professionals/).

[Link last checked July 2009]

h1

Safety moment: Watch out for those office plants!

November 8, 2009

safety_plants

h1

Euphemism for the sack

November 6, 2009

Yesterday I was editing an annual report for a small company, and came across these sentences in the “People” section:

Some business restructuring also occurred across [the organization] to manage costs in response to the economic recession leading to an increased proportion of non-voluntary turnover on previous years. Management is closely monitoring turnover in line with our objective to maximise commitment and retention of our people.

Um, hello? Isn’t ‘non-voluntary turnover’ a euphemism for the sack?? And if management forced some people to lose their jobs (i.e. sacked them), surely they have a hide to state that their objective is to ‘maximise commitment and retention of our people.’

There’s nothing like a few ‘non-voluntary turnovers’ to make those that remain more committed and more likely to be retained. NOT.

And that paragraph was then followed by this one, which is a nice gobbledegook, ‘weasel word’ one, if ever I saw one:

As [our] systems for capturing employment data improves so too will our ability to monitor and report on voluntary versus non-voluntary turnover and consequentially [sic] to improve management response strategies.

Huh?

h1

Priorities

October 31, 2009

@africankelli tweeted this the other week — I couldn’t agree more!

Our libraries, not our Wal-marts, should be open 24-7.

Canadore College Education Centre Library

Canadore College Education Center Library

h1

Accolades

October 9, 2009

When I was in Perth earlier this week to do some training with Chevron Australia, I received some nice accolades for being part of the HES team that made the Gorgon Project (Australia’s biggest ever resources project) a reality. I was presented with a framed certificate of appreciation, a specially minted gold-plated coin from the Perth Mint, and a silver engraved Cross pen; the rest of the team were presented with theirs at two special functions that I was unable to attend. And I was given personal thanks from my boss, the Environmental Team Lead.

We had some horrendous deadlines in the final few weeks prior to the Final Investment Decision, but we got there. It was an amazing journey and I was (and am) very proud to be part of it.

I also know a lot more about marine turtles, corals, subterranean fauna, geosequestration of carbon dioxide, and liquefied natural gas than I ever thought I would.

One of the joys of being a technical writer and editor is learning about new stuff all the time. Currently it’s environmental, health and safety stuff; on previous contracts, I’ve learned about 3D geological visualisation and modelling, gems and jewellery, satellite delivery of education to outback stations, converting 2D movies into 3D, nickel and cobalt processing etc. I love my job! And I get paid to do something I love — can’t ask for better than that.

h1

Quick currency conversions using Google

October 7, 2009

I’ve used http://www.xe.com for a long time to convert Australian dollars to and from US dollars, and it’s a great little website.

I must’ve been hiding under a rock ‘cos I only recently discovered that Google search does currency conversions on the fly from the Google search box. It’s probably been around for ages, but it was new to me!

Here’s what to do:

In the Google search box, enter the value and currency code you want to convert from (e.g. 39.95 USD), followed by the word ‘in‘ and the currency code you want to convert to (e.g. in AUD). Press Enter to see the result. Done. No need to go to another website to find it out.

google_currency_converter[Links last checked August 2009]

You can buy me a coffee if this tip helped you Has this tip helped you? saved you time? saved your skin? You can thank me by clicking on the cup and buying me a coffee. (An E-Junkie shopping cart page will open where you can pay for my coffee via PayPal.)
h1

Beware the ‘more work for you’ line

October 3, 2009

From the pen/stylus of Brad Colbow:

More work