In the mid-1990’s, Netscape and Microsoft were working to attain more market share with their respective browsers, adding bells and whistles to attract developers. With no standards in place, each company developed their browsers differently, and deliberately so. Web developers at the time had to develop identical sites that worked with the two browsers, or choose one browser over another, and thus try to force their users into using their browser.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was born out of frustration by website developers. The W3C’s goal was to standardize protocols used by browsers, and to eliminate the need to develop websites specific to any one browser. The W3C presented their findings in the form of recommendations, which were widely ignored for some time.
Over the last decade, web standards have gained widespread acceptance. As a result, more and more websites are intuitively designed, and are accessible for a variety of end-users, whether it be on cell phones or screenreaders. Web standards mean developers can put up one site and have confidence that no matter the browser, the site will be presented as was intended. Everyone’s speaking the same language.
I am a worrier. Cognitively I know how useless worry is, and yet I find myself trapped in it again and again. After reading over Carnegie’s book, the principle that resounded most with me was what Willis H. Carrier developed – Asking myself what the worst possible outcome of a situation could be, to prepare myself mentally to accept that outcome, and then to calmly try to improve upon the worst. Whatever the outcome, then, will be within the realm of what I am already prepared to accept.
I chose this principle to focus on and to work on implementing in my life because I have a tendency to catastrophize situations — to assume catastrophes are on the way and therefore I avoid the situation. I believe if I clarify what the worst possible outcome of a situation would be, it wouldn’t be as scary as the unknown that I’ve been unwilling to face. That alone would make this principle helpful. But then also to get to a place of acceptance, and then trying to make the situation as good as I can, knowing that the outcome is something I can live with, will have a huge impact.
Thanks, Catherine, for this reading assignment. This may be the most helpful thing I’ve done all semester.
My favorite website today is http://www.colbertnation.com.
Structure: The structure makes logical sense, although I don’t like how some of the navigation tabs take me to a different site all together, with no warning.
Content: I rate content very high. It’s all relevant to the show and is updated regularly to keep visitors coming back.
Design: The site is easy to read, without distracting backgrounds. The fonts are san serif, black on white background, very easy to read.
Behavior: The pages are mostly predictable, with the notable exception of ‘Shop,’ which takes you to a totally different site for all of Comedy Central. The ‘Full Episodes’ link takes you to a video site where you have to watch a commercial, and the navigation bars are no longer there, so the only options are to watch or to hit the ‘back’ button.
What I like: Episodes are tagged, which makes them more findable. The features are also organized by date, by guests, and by segments.
What I would change: I would improve the search engine. It never does a very good job in my opinion. Also not everything on the page is available by keyboard only, so it is not accessible. Considering my field, it feels weird that this is the last thing I would say on the site, but this is the heading it would go under, I reckon.
Since taking the MBTI in April, I’ve done quite a bit of reading about the personality types, especially my own, INFJ. What I have read is extremely consistent with what I know about myself. Suggested career paths / interests for INFJs include teacher (check), religious work (check), counselor (check), musician (check), and artist (check). Some of the adjectives used to describe INFJ personalities fit me perfectly: future-oriented, creative, highly principled, idealistic, intense and tightly-wound, empathic, abhor violence, dislike dealing with details unless they promote my vision, thrive on grappling with complex issues, and constantly seeking meaning and purpose in everything.
The person I’ve had the most conflict with turns out to be an ESTJ. This person makes decisions very quickly, gets frustrated with my need to look at issues from all sides before taking action, and he seems to want things to be very black and white, even in situations when that is clearly not realistic. He thrives on order and continuity, and does not adapt to change with grace. It feels like we have absolutely nothing in common most of the time.
Just knowing about our personality types has helped me in working with this person more productively. I wish I could have others in my life take the test (my boss, my parents, my husband). It would be instructive!
I had so much fun developing that presentation! I do presentations quite often, but usually don’t have the freedom to talk about anything I want to.
Looking back, I’m most proud of that opening graphic that was in four quadrants. I’m an extremely visual person, and so laying my agenda in that way worked well for me, and I’ll probably look for ways to incorporate something similar in my future presentations for my job. It was handy to have that slide as the opening agenda slide, and also the closing ‘this is what we covered’ slide.
I’m just delighted to know how to set up custom shows in PowerPoint. It is going to completely change how I do business, and that’s no exaggeration. I’m not a linear thinker as a rule, and so not being tied to a linear presentation is going to be sheer delight for me. Also I do similar presentations all the time, and have to tweak here and there, and so my habit has been to save the PP under a different name and make the changes. With the ability to do a custom show, I envision having one master PP that I can change around based on the needs of my audience. And I just love the way it allows the presentation to be more interactive, going where I want to based on questions I get during the presentation, etc.
I’m proud of the fact that both videos and the audio worked without a hitch.
And I’m proud that I was able to engage the audience, at least minimally.
I spent all my time developing the PP and not even thinking about what I might say, and so I was not able to cover as much as I had anticipated. If I could do something different next time, it would be to shorten the family section so I could get through at least three of the four areas. I should have talked it through to myself at least once before getting up there. I think my comfort level at doing presentations worked against me in that regard.
I have a friendship that has slipped away a bit over the last few years, and I would like to see it strengthened. The principle I’m focusing on for her is “make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.” Often I feel neglected by her, since we started to grow apart after I moved out of Little Rock. I never imagined moving less than 20 miles away would have such a negative impact on this friendship, but it has. The relationship is important to me be because she and I have been friends for over 20 years, and we used to be very, very close. She knows as much about me as anybody except maybe my husband. We’ve invested lots of time in this friendship, and I don’t want it to die from neglect.
I think I’ve been waiting for her to step up and take more of an interest in my life, and I realize now that perhaps she is feeling the same way about me. So I’m going to start being much more intentional about contacting her just to chat, and to invite her out for a girls night out once in a while. Her life is very busy, and so is mine, but maybe even just making the effort will start to turn the tide for our friendship for the better.
Thanks for this assignment, Catherine. I needed that kick in the rear.
Any time I go to Wal-Mart, I park in the row in front of the Food entrance, driving away from the store. It doesn’t matter which WM I go to, or how far away I park, I always know what row my car is on!
Over the years I’ve developed several techniques to help keep me on track with projects and deadlines. For years I used a Daytimer calendar, and used it faithfully. My husband got a Palm Pilot and said I’d love it, but I swore I’d never be able to give up my paper calendar system. Well, I tried his and fell in love! I got an iPAQ and used it for years, got another, and other, and this last go-round switched to an iPhone. I couldn’t ever go back to a paper calendar system! I keep so much information on my iPhone, including my Google calendar, to-do lists, notes, shopping lists, and contacts. Almost all of this is also available on any networked computer through google, so if, God forbid, something were to happen to my iPhone, I wouldn’t be without my information.
I keep a work calendar on Google, as well as a personal calendar, and I keep a third calendar for my son’s schedule. Whenever I schedule a meeting on my work calendar, I copy/paste the details from an email and post it in the notes section of the calendar event, so that as I’m on my way to the meeting, I can see where it will be held, and remind myself of the pressing issues that we are to discuss.
When I have pressing projects to do at work, I will block out chunks of time on my calendar so no appointments will be scheduled for me during those times, and that has proved to be quite helpful. And when I really need to devote my full attention to something, I’ll go work in another office on campus or work from home. Both of those solutions allow me to go interruption-free for the most part, and get lots done in a short period of time.
And finally, I try to spend the last 15 minutes of every day organizing my desk, putting papers away, and getting files out that I know I’ll need the next day. It makes for a brainless activity at a time when I need something simple to do, and it also helps me start out each work day smoothly.
My father-in-law taught me something years ago that I follow as well. He was chair of the communications department at OBU for years until he recently retired. He said that he starts each work day doing the one task on his list that he least wants to do. Then he won’t have it looming over him all day, and he can move on through his day guilt-free and free to focus on tasks he wants to undertake. Good advice!
I wish I’d blogged about this right after class last week, but it just wasn’t in the cards. I did truly enjoy getting to know more about everyone. It seems like we all come from such different places, but that we’re all similar in may ways. For instance, we all want to improve our skills, learn new technologies, and work on our soft skills. Those are some of the themes I picked up on in last week’s class. I also noticed several people who were very uncomfortable standing in front of the group, and it made me smile inside, a smile of recognition. I am confident that by the end of this semester, all of those nice folks will have fewer nerves and more confidence than they had last week. One of my favorite quotes is Yoda – yes, THAT Yoda. The quote is “There is no try. There is just do.” We all will be doing in this class, and in the doing comes the revelations, the learning, and the growing. I said that my favorite thing about teaching and presenting is the ‘ah-ha’ moment I see on people’s faces. We’ll see many of those in this class, I have no doubt.
First of all, I want to acknowledge that I know I have additional listening challenges that just aren’t on my radar. I hope to delve more into this area of self-exploration as the semester wears on, so I can be making progress in this regard. The biggest listening challenge I have from where I’m standing is in tuning out all the competing noises that vie for my attention almost constantly. Sometimes it feels as though I’m juggling many priorities at once, and that fact makes it more difficult to stop what I’m doing when someone needs my full attention. I have a somewhat easier time with it when working with students. Where I see myself not doing so well is when working with colleagues, and with my son.
Chinese character for 'to listen'
Colleagues:
When I am juggling multiple priorities, which is a lot of the time, and someone on my staff comes in with an issue, I try to always turn off my ringer, put my computer to sleep, and come sit on the couch by them. With my counseling background, I know those are ways for them to not only feel listened to, but for me to do a better job listening. In addition, that’s the behavior I get from my supervisor, which I truly appreciate. But some days that’s the opposite of what all my instincts are telling me to do. What I want to do is keep peeking at email, at instant message, and caller ID while they’re talking to me. And even when I do all the right things, I have competing noise in my head that I can’t easily turn off.
My other challenge with staff is waiting to give them the space to talk through whatever issue they’re dealing with, and not jump ahead to what I think needs to happen. I always tell them how much I appreciate them coming to me with not only a problem, but a suggestion for a solution as well – to have done some critical thinking on their own. And yet when I’m listening to them, everything in me wants to jump to the solution without letting them go through those steps.
Harrison:
More often than not, what Harrison wants to talk to me about is something about which I have no natural interest. I know how awful that sounds, but most women with a boy his age would understand. Eight-year-old boys apparently are only interested in video games, World War II, bomber planes, and Wii games. It’s all too easy for me to zone out when he’s talking to me about such things, and not truly listen to him. I have to force myself to turn away from what I’m doing and make eye contact and try to follow what he says, but I’m not always successful.
What I Can Do About My Listening Challenges:
One thing that helps with staff is to think of myself as a teacher, because that helps me to slow down and let them get to a conclusion with less chance of me interrupting or jumping two steps ahead. With my son, however… I have tried to watch him play ‘Blazing Angels’ and such, but I just can’t stand it! His dad is his buddy for such things, so at least one of us is interested in that stuff. I’ll just tell him, “Sweetie, video games are just not my thing. I’m sure your dad would love to talk to you about strategies you can use on that level.” When we’re talking about school or choir, then I am totally there, and excited about what we’re talking about.
With staff, when I’m feeling particularly bombarded, I’ll offer to meet with them in their own offices. Getting away from my computer and phone is an easy way to give them my full attention.
Coach?
I could ask Ben to observe and give feedback at home with H. At work, I’m not sure. It feels weird to ask people whom I supervise to give me feedback on how well I’m listening to them! I welcome any suggestions.
