Buddy & Me: If You’re Going to Fight

Posted on 07 September 2020 by Isabel Gibson

Working with other people means encountering behaviours formed by (or reinforced by) backgrounds different from our own. Sometimes that’s hard; sometimes it’s just funny. It’s usually mutual.

Buddy & Me: If You're Going to Fight

 

Posted in Book Videos, Laughing Frequently | Tagged , | 2 Comments

The Bug Days of Summer

Posted on 06 September 2020 by Isabel Gibson

As we edge into September, it seems the dog days of summer may be behind us. In Ottawa, this is when I start to get edgy. For someone with seasonal instincts honed in Alberta, the trees are still too green, the flowers still too flowery. It isn’t that I want autumn to be upon us, exactly, but it feels like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Fauna, Photos of Flora | Tagged , | 6 Comments

The Philosophers’ Stone

Posted on 05 September 2020 by Isabel Gibson

Drat. Now I have to go back to Walmart.

I was printing some photos — I know, very 20th century of me — and while I waited for the magic machine to spit them out, I wandered off to buy furnace filters. I know, I do know how to have a good time.

On my way back, I stopped dead in my tracks. I mean, who expects a philosophical moment at Walmart? And in Home Decor?

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Posted in Laughing Frequently, Quotations | Tagged | 7 Comments

All or Nothing

Posted on 04 September 2020 by Isabel Gibson

How did they do it, I wonder? Provide news coverage of WWII, I mean. I’m not confused about how they got the news stories, I’m confused about how they sustained coverage of an event that lasted almost six years from a Canadian perspective.

1939 Sep 10 – Canada declares war on Germany after invasion of Poland.
1941 Dec 8 – Canada declares war on Japan after attack on Pearl Harbor.
1945 May 7 – Germany surrenders to the Allies.
1945 Aug 14 – Japan surrenders to the Allies.
– Veterans Affairs and Richard Langworth

Today, if we were faced with an actual shooting war killing tens of thousands of Canadians and wounding as many more, I swear our current news model would melt down in the first six months . . .

We’re at war!
OMG OMG OMG

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Posted in New Perspectives, Thinking Broadly | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Buddy & Me: If We Colour-code the Tabs

Posted on 03 September 2020 by Isabel Gibson

Does the subconscious ever sleep? I dunno: Just one of many unanswered questions from my life. I do know that sometimes she works while *I* sleep. Bless her heart.

Even today, when I’m not in the proposal fray, I find that a wee break from a situation or problem might be just what I need to let my subconscious do her thing.

Buddy & Me: If We Colour-code the Tabs

 

Posted in Book Videos, Management and Work | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Buddy & Me: What Else Can We Put in a Table?

Posted on 01 September 2020 by Isabel Gibson

The specifics of this story might not resonate for anyone who’s never had to shoehorn 10 pages of content provided by the author into the 5 pages allowed by the client. But there are, perhaps, other points of contact:

  • A regrettable tendency in some of us (cough, cough) to put our heads down and work, rather than holding off for a few minutes to see if there’s an easier and a better way
  • A happy realization that others around us have great ideas – different ones than we do

Yes, Virginia, diversity of what’s between our ears really can be our greatest strength.

Buddy & Me: What Else Can We Put in a Table?

 

Posted in Book Videos, Management and Work | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Buddy & Me: We Can’t Bid on This Thing

Posted on 29 August 2020 by Isabel Gibson

On a proposal, sales guys want us to sound like we’re promising everything; contracts guys want us to clearly specify the limits of the offer. Somewhere in that tension a winning and yet feasible proposal is born. Sometimes.

And sometimes, the tension starts even before we get to the stage of planning the work . . .

Thanks to everyone who has bought the book.
This week, I ask everyone to consider sharing the information about it
on your social media or in your network.

Buddy & Me: We can't bid on this thing
Posted in Book Videos, Laughing Frequently, Management and Work | Tagged , | 2 Comments

The First Step. And the Second.

Posted on 28 August 2020 by Isabel Gibson

In the COVID-19 spring, parents of school-age children — especially grade-school kids — were understandably beside themselves, trying to supervise jury-rigged online learning with no training and few resources. While working from home on the kitchen table or in a corner of the living room, elbow to elbow with a partner doing the same thing. While enforcing socially isolating public-health guidelines on increasingly unhappy kids. And that was the good scenario: two parents in the home, both still with jobs.

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Posted in New Perspectives, Politics and Policy, Relationships and Behaviour, Thinking Broadly | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Buddy & Me: Please Submit . . .

Posted on 27 August 2020 by Isabel Gibson

One of the harder things to communicate effectively to non-Proposal-Landers is the intensity of always working in a deadline-driven environment. It wears you down. Well, it wore me down. Maybe that deadline pressure — on a daily basis! —  explains the hard-drinking stereotype of the ink-stained wretch.

It’s only in retrospect that I can see that some (ahem) of my reactions were, perhaps, not entirely reasonable.

Buddy & Me: Please Submit . . .
Posted in Book Videos, Feeling Clearly, Laughing Frequently | Tagged , | 2 Comments