Being an HR professional seems to bring a number of questions from friends, family, and new acquaintances. These questions cover the gamut of all things that fall in the broad spectrum of HR responsibilities and often involve actual scenarios from workplace situations in which the asker is questioning the handling of the situation by the HR department or manager involved within. A common response to those specific questions is, "well, it depends

This is not my greatest strength, e-learning was not a part of my education and what I have learned is from my own research, however since this type of adult learning approach is becoming such an intrinsic part of human performance I feel I should help point out a few items that have crossed my …

A quick show of hands: Who knows what an Editorial Calendar is? Thought so. Nearly every magazine and many business newspapers produce an editorial calendar each year, targeting subjects that they will cover generally in any given week or month for the entire year— from regularly scheduled standing features and shorter stories to columns and …

Typically no single source provides all of the information necessary for writing a good marketing plan for your business. This means gathering information from several sources. You may need to gather information on demographics, industry trends and competition, to name just a few.

The donor pool can be (and has been!) sliced and diced in a variety of ways. My preferred method of grouping donors is by motivation: The” Social Donor” uses charitable contributions to attract personal visibility and social prestige. Although no one admits is, there are plenty of major gift donors who engage in philanthropy as …

Had a call, today, from a non-profit organization that has never before done a “major” event, but they’ve decided that they really want to do one now. I could probably have transcribed the conversation before we began talking, as it seems like there’s not a week that goes by that I don’t get a similar …

I attended a program a few months ago by a professor sharing his latest research on virtual learning. He shared a fascinating application of technology for creating more enriched learning experiences for students. One comment he made really struck me. The project he had designed was for students to work in pairs to determine the …

There are growing numbers of competency models and such that attempt to identify the key skills required or suited to the role of being a successful project manager. As with many topics relating to project management, there is a great diversity of opinions as to the skills that are most valuable to the role. My …

The principles of strategy are timeless. The following notes on the essentials of strategy are drawn from the great works of strategy… Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Napoleon’s Maxims, Clausewitz’ On War. Though dating up to 2,500 years ago, the advice of these strategists is helpful today no matter your competitive landscape, from high …

When Boards have recurring problems, such as poor attendance, low participation, high turnover of members, or increasing conflicts, here’s a quick process that I’ve used successfully to “jump start” recovery. Sure, the steps aren’t all of those needed for complete Board development — those steps would produce a blog post about 25 pages long. But …