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My mom in her first career as a high school English teacher

I spoke on “Writing for On-Screen Consumption: Tips, Tools & Techniques”  at the Original Equipment Suppliers Association – Automotive Public Relations Council meeting on February 28, 2012. Quick summary here: APRC Meeting Teaches Not So Old Dogs Some New Tricks.

I used the career changes my mom has had in her lifetime and her passion for learning to illustrate the nimbleness required to keep current. I also mentioned a few free tools helpful for writing to be read on screen and to be found online. Longer descriptions and the motivation for these tools can be found in our book!

Writing for On-Screen Reading

Techniques

write to be skimmed – people read only about 20% of the words on a web page (source)

Tools

• Google reading level tutorial on Pure Visibility’s blog
• A tutorial on checking Readability within Microsoft Word from Washington State government
• Online Reading Level checker

Pro Tip: Examine the grade level of your competition’s materials and aim one grade level easier to read.

Writing to be Found Online through Search

Tools

• Google Insights for Search
• Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Pro Tip: Insights for Search provides a quick visual to support keyword choices, the AdWords tool provides deeper insight and more alternatives.

Upcoming Events

Wednesday March 14, 2012, I will emcee the Princeton University and Michigan All-Ivy Club “Global Net Night” event where regional associations all around the world will meet to network with other local Princetonians (and other Ivy Leaguers) and hear a presentation by Mark Gilman of MCCI on Personal Branding.

On March 15, 2012, I will participate in a Roundtable Career Exploration discussion at the Rackham Graduate School of the University of Michigan. This event celebrates Rackham Graduate School’s Centennial and Ph.D. alumni who have crafted innovative careers outside of academia.

Her classes will be hosted by the Michigan Yoga Association in Kalamazoo. The workshop details are in a PDF on their website. I thought I’d republish them here in HTML to make them easier to share.

Workshop Dates & Descriptions

Friday April 20, 2012 6-8PM – Yoga for Scoliosis

Saturday April 21, 2012 10AM-12:30PM, 2PM-5PM Yoga for Back Care – Saturday
This session will address different back issues and injuries resulting in poor posture, lower back pain, chronic neck and shoulder pain, scoliosis and other back conditions. Elise will address how to adapt certain yoga poses for a wide variety of back conditions including scoliosis and give a series of therapeutic yoga poses for those back conditions. Appropriate for those dealing with their own back related issues as well as yoga teachers and those who treat these conditions in others.

Sunday April 22, 2012 9AM-noon Heart Opening through Backbends
Elise will lead students through standing poses to prepare for an uplifting backbend practice. Elise will pace the class so that students will feel secure enough to work with a variety of backbend poses. Students should be familiar with standing poses and beginning backbends.

Sunday April 22, 2012 1PM-3PM Forward Bends and Twists: Freedom or Frustration?
Many students with spinal and hip joint challenges struggle with forward bends and twists. Elise will cover how to practice and teach these important categories of poses safely and effectively.

Costs & Registration

Friday Yoga for Scoliosis class $65 separately

Saturday and Sunday classes $150

Registration form PDF including more details from the Michigan Yoga Association.

Location: Transformations Center, 3427 Gull Road, Kalamazoo, MI

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I have been to two of Elise’s workshops before, the last one in 2007 in Cleveland. I have used her DVDs (especially her Yoga for Scoliosis DVD (Amazon affiliate link)) and books in my home practice. The Chicago event, at the lovely Yoga Circle, was a teacher training as well as a “Part II” class.

Elise taught some familiar poses and I learned some good tweaks and some advanced poses not in the DVD. We also enjoyed a wonderful teacher:student ratio as Elise instructed the instructors who helped us students. Three items came to be my most important learnings:

1. Elise emphasizes lengthening and derotation for scoliosis, and from the corrections she gave me throughout the workshop, I seem to have been better at lengthening and needed coaching on the derotation. My current theme in my home practice is derotation.
2. The workshop helped me notice I was not breathing equally into my lungs and ribs. With coaching I brought attention to the lower left of my back, and I expanded my intercostal muscles where my scoliosis compresses my ribcage. Doing so, I could take deeper breaths and experience greater well-being in each breath.
3. The biggest take-home lesson for me was how I felt each day of the workshop. My lingering lower back twinges and aches were simply gone. I wanted that feeling to last.

I wanted to learn how to make myself feel that good, that whole, that comfortable in my body on my own. Of course, I already knew exactly what to do – what I had been doing in her previous workshops and with her DVD. Nothing secret or mysterious, just requires the actual doing rather than mental understanding. The answer was obvious: commit to a daily home practice.

I had long wanted to do this and then felt guilty about not doing this….and also resistant, all at the same time. I groused that too many things wanted my daily attention including meditation and other exercise.

I knew from  my experience commiting to a daily meditation practice that I had to commit to adding daily yoga in the morning. If I let myself plan for it to be later, I’d stress about it and/or worm out of it somehow. Putting meditation first thing in the morning short-circuited my avoidance mechanisms.

Clock in the Basement of the First National Building

But, I did not think I could wake early enough to do both yoga and meditation each morning before work. So I decided to make an experiment: move my established meditation practice to the evening and start each day with yoga.

I told two friends, one of whom shared her experience that confirmed mine, the other just egged me on (and I knew if I told more people, I’d be committed).

I worried about the earlier alarm in the morning (even with moving the meditation, I still needed to get up earlier). And I’ve never been a happy-wakey person. I’m grumpy and slow and resistant in the morning.

Yet, four days in, I’ve had no trouble whatsoever. I even wake up more easily than before (so far) and I’m finding I have more energy throughout the day.

I look forward to Elise’s return to Michigan April 21-22, to teach Yoga for Back Care, Heart Opening Through Backbends, Forward bends and Twists. Her visit will be hosted by the Michigan Yoga Association. Location and details TBD at this writing.

Well, this sometimes painful, usually stiff lower back thing has been bothering me the last two summers and the fall, winter, and spring in between. It would come on especially after exertion (cycling, weeding, planting, lifting) to the point where I started doing less and less just to avoid twinging it. I fear sneezing, because it can to cause a mirrored spasm in my lower back. Boo.

What didn’t work

Waiting for it to go away

It sounds silly to say now, but waiting until the “edge came off” didn’t work. Cycling did seem to exacerbate it, I’d be doubled over in pain about 24-36 hours after a ride, so I hung my bike up in the garage and haven’t ridden it in over a year. But, I shunned other exercise (personal training, going to the Y) because it wasn’t helping me get better either.

I kept hoping I would finally eliminate the “thing” that was causing the stiffness/soreness. I kept waiting for the twingey pain to stop. But it didn’t. So my ultimate discovery was rest did not solve the problem. Now I need to rebuild without hurting my back.

Palliative care

I resist taking too much ibuprofen, figuring I’d rather treat the cause than the symptom. I also feared increasing the injury by feeling better than I actually was.
I also worked with my massage therapist on it. But, while she unknotted me, it didn’t change the situation fundamentally.
I worked with a chiropractor, which did seem to help a little, and I was able to extend the time between sessions before I felt locked up again. Yet, whatever it is/was remained. Going to see someone once a month didn’t change the situation.

What did work

I decided after 16 or 18 months of chronic pain I had to make a drastic change.

Changing my work ergonomics

I moved to a stand-up desk at work.  And I heard my uncle and my mother discussing how they’d both used a stand-up desk at their place of work for decades. I realized I have a very similar body to theirs, so I should pay attention to how they care for their backs! My work was happy to let me experiment with the furniture, and we rigged up a standing desk that works well for me. I switched to it full time after Labor Day.

I felt good in the position and it was an easier adjustment than I expected, tho I’m someone who spends a fair bit of her day in conference rooms so do get lots of sitting/movement breaks. My back seemed a little more loose after the transition, like it was recovering.

Heat

I was feeling tight and uncomfortable at my mom’s house after a recent bout of enthusiastic gardening knocked me over. She slipped me a ThermaCare heat wrap, and honestly, I’m completely in love with them now (no I have no relationship with them other than as a consumer). Eight or so hours of mild heat really seemed to sink in and relax my back. A hot water bottle was kind of awkward, a microwaved pack was first too hot and then quickly too cold. The ThermaCare wrap was specifically for the lower back, held itself in the right place with a waistband,  and hid mostly under clothes (not bulky).

Specific strengthening and lengthening exercises

I did try stretches throughout the experience and of course I continued my yoga classes. But my yoga class only seemed to make me aware of where I was stiff and limited. I didn’t break through it.

As for stretches to reduce the pain, when it was in spasm, I couldn’t find anything to release it. And when I wasn’t in pain, it was hard to tell whether any routine mattered.  And some of the stretching routines I tried were long and annoying and I wasn’t sure they made a difference. So, I never got very serious about them.

Yoga: Anytime, Anywhere

I had Carol Blackman and Elise Browning Miller’s book Yoga: Anytime, Anywhere (Amazon affiliate link) for a couple of years before I engaged with it seriously. I’ve benefitted from Elise’s workshops and her yoga for scoliosis DVD. And I took it up north with me this summer and dug into her chapter on “Strengthening and Lengthening Your Lower Back”. These simple exercises helped me wash the creakiness out and give me a better range of motion and fewer twinges of pain.  Better yet, their benefit persisted long enough to make me want to commit to a routine.

Yet, I still resist the routine of doing it. I currently do them in the evenings, but I expect that soon I’ll end up moving them into my morning routine, since I seem to accept routine more in the mornings! To ease my annoyance with looking up what to do next in the book all the time, I recently recorded my voice on to my phone narrating the instructions for the sequence.

Next Steps

Now that I think about the timespan, I suspect that my back twinginess is more caused by inactivity than solved by it. I just realized I have been living in our new home for a little over two years, and I know my activity has decreased since moving from a neighborhood where I walked everywhere to one where a car is required. It’s hard to get motivated for exercise when you fear worsening a chronic condition, yet that must be a way out, especially now I am armed with a set of exercises that take the edge off.

So, with cautious optimism I am committing to the strengthening routine and will add back in more vigorous exercise as I heal my back.

I’m definitely an introvert, recharged in time alone or with close friends and not necessarily a great conversationalist, especially not with new folks. And I usually saw this as a fault, something shameful. It went beyond a reticence to speak, there was a blankness on social settings that I fought against but could not overcome.

The Backstory – my Introvert confession

As a child, when I was lost in thought and a well-meaning relative offered a penny for my thoughts, the interruption rubbed out my thoughts and I had nothing to share.

When I was young, especially in my teenage years, but really into my 30s, I was essentially struck dumb in bigger social groups and with new people. Something about a large group interaction just left me speechless. I knew that I needed to show up to participate, but honestly, the harder I tried, the blanker my brain.

Being noticed as silent in a group was painful, because of course at the moment someone pointed out how quiet I was, everyone would look at me and I’d have to respond about my quietness, participate in some way, and the attention erased my brain even more than it already was and I’d be dumb and embarrassed, shocked and stressed, and just want to run.

In college, wanted to go to parties, to meet people, have fun, and fit in. I’d hear nearby parties from my dorm room and fret, fearing I was missing out, but when I got there, I was inept and uncomfortable. I kept on trying, thinking I’d get better or less uncomfortable. I am sure I radiated discomfort and unease and was not someone anyone would want to seek out. I never met anyone I became close to in that setting. Instead, I became close to people I met through activities and got to know over a longer contact (such as the hiking camping group at college, or in classes).

I struggled with this same blank quietness in my undergraduate classes. Thinking back to my Political Theory course, I knew participation in the discussion sections was a contributor to my grades. So, I followed the discussion raptly, looking for a place to contribute, but again…blank brain, no thoughts. Which is odd, because I’m a thoughtful person.

In college, I was outright jealous of those who could prattle on/debate/discuss. I’ve always been amazed by people who can just talk. I have several of them in my family, and honestly, I really have no idea where the river of speech emerges. I can write forever, and I like quiet more.

What was wrong with me? Stage fright, I thought, or maybe I’m just not cut out for social sciences. I ended up majoring in Biology (no discussion sections, we had labs instead) and dabbled a lot in English (where I could write my way out of my poor discussion section participation).

I was uncomfortable and I made others uncomfortable with my spooky silence. I called it shyness, and I thought I had to fix my self-esteem or otherwise change to get over it.

Things I tried that covered, but didn’t fix

Long ago, I decided that the way for me to be a better conversationalist was to cultivate “active listening” where you ask open ended questions, reflect back the other person’s thoughts. I decided the way to be in conversation was to listen. It got me by socially for a while. So I recognized myself in Helgoe’s description of “accessible introvert”. Someone who fakes being a little more open than she actually is. And, Helgoe remarks that this is just playing along, not really participating. Oops. Revealed!

Things that helped

I don’t know what I’d say to my youthful self, except that bullying myself to be more social is a mean choice with a poor chance of success. Instead, I would encourage my youthful self to be gentler and not to fight my nature so hard. Maybe I’d send this book back in time to myself and give myself permission to just be.

I’d tell my college self that I’m not broken. It’s OK not to like parties. Dragging myself to all of those parties and being miserable was no way to attract friends or romance. Instead of judging my lack of animation at these events as a failure, I could reframe it as a lack of fit. I would reassure myself that I would find true love and make wonderful friends in other ways.

Really, a big part of coming out of my shell was love and acceptance from people I valued. I recall in the early days of my relationship with my now husband, when it came time to discuss something important, I’d simply lose my words. I would have such an intensity and need to speak, and I’d be blocked and dithering. And he had the wisdom or motivation to just wait me out, and eventually, with time, I’d speak my truth.

I’m pretty porous, and I absorb whatever’s around me and let it distract from my inner voice. A regular meditation practice helped me inhabit my own body and not wish I was different or elsewhere.

Of course, reading and writing. I found when I was writing the Internet Marketing book, I would start the writing process kind of stressed out from the effort it took to carve out the time from my day to day activities, and yet emerge from a day or two of writing refreshed and restored, happier to return to the work I’d left to write and better at my job. And of course my journal and this blog help me think.

Allow myself to restore rather than expend energy. This comes in many forms, giving myself breaks and engaging in activities that energize me. Mostly I gain energy from something that looks like nothing - just being alone, taking a breather.

Allow myself time to warm up. I know I take longer than some to get started socially. When I have to be present and lead a group, I give myself the time I’ll need to prepare and be confident and ready.

Some of what Helgoe recommends I was happy to see I’d happened upon quite naturally. There were a few ideas, like ‘fessing up and being open about not wanting to engage sometimes, that I’ll try to implement.

Where things are now

Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

I’ve come a long way, and I can be outgoing at work (with familiar colleagues and clients) relatively naturally. But, my introversion manifests as some social aversion or awkwardness in little ways.

This book argues against judging these behaviors, and encourages the reader to find ways to recharge and participate on favorable terms – finding retreats during the week and during the workday, setting up personal space at home, asking for the space I crave in conversations – and the affirmation that it’s worth it to allow myself to really show up and participate.

And now, the book is going to be in my hands…anyday now. And I could not be more excited.

I’ll write more later about the book and what’s in it. Right now I just want to celebrate a little with this announcement.

• For Instructors http://instructors.coursesmart.com/9780132676458
• For regular folk – book version and ebook version available http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789747898
• There’s also a Kindle edition.

Internet Marketing Start to Finish: Drive Measurable, Repeatable Online Sales with Search Marketing, Usability, CRM, and Analytics

It has been a rough winter, personally. January was particularly grim. I lost my dear friend and mentor Beverly Rathcke, we lost our long time cat companion Floyd. So it was good to start digging in the garden, always lifts my spirits and grounds me in the present.

We participated in the Global ReLeaf of Michigan tree sale/fundraiser by getting a few bare root trees and shrubs. I got them last weekend and we put them into the ground that very morning. And we sprinkled a little of Floyd’s ashes under each one and urged him to help them grow!

That was last week, and that felt good.

Well today it turned from lovely to perfect. At her death, my friend Beverly had given some statues to me. And today we retrieved her garden Kuan Yin from her back yard and brought it to our garden. Now Kuan Yin sits overlooking the springwater pond that Dave and his dad retouched last spring. The garden is graced by love now with the ashes of a beloved pet and a gift from a beloved friend in the form of the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin.

A blessing.

Kuan Yin, pondside

Social Nation

I love books and am a complete sucker for tests that allow me to measure myself and gain insights into how I might be more effective and happier at work. I’ve taken the Strengthsfinder, Myers-Briggs, DISC, and more. I received an advance copy of Barry Libert’s Social Nation: How to Harness the power of Social Media to attract customers, motivate employees, and grow your business. It seems to encapsulate a fair bit of good thinking/common sense on social media. From my perspective, what makes it interesting is its summary combined with “custom” feedback in the form of its online test.

The Book

Libert starts the book by outlining how the spectrum of necessary skills for business is extending beyond the physical and intellectual into the emotional and social. His argument is mastery of the entire spectrum is becoming necessary, and his book is designed as a primer on entry into social community building.

So, after I received my custom evaluation (see below), I went on to review the 7 principles for building my social nation and 10 pitfalls to avoid.

Both of these are summarized and available from the Social Nation Book website resources section, so I won’t reiterate them fully here. I very much appreciated Principle 3: Mind your Online and Offline Manners, which include behavior guides such as “pretend you’re offline” when thinking of what to share. No one wants to hear me droning on and on about my cat in person, so I probably shouldn’t do it on my facebook page or twitter stream. And, I should refrain from saying something curt or even nasty in email or on a message board just the way I would if that person was sitting across from my at a conference room or dinner table. Good rules to follow.

My Social Quotient

According to the social quotient on SocialNationBook.com, my three top strengths are: transparent, adaptor, and collaborative. I mostly agree. The full descriptions of each of these strengths are available at the end of the test and in the meat of the book. They are well named, so I won’t repeat those definitions here.

I tend to think I’m quite transparent, and I feel like my emotional nature plays immediately across my face, but I am also a quiet person, so sometimes people have a hard time getting to know me. And, I can be socially awkward (shy…) and so retreat to silence when I get overwhelmed instead of opening up. I don’t really have many fears about social sharing websites, though that sentiment is not always shared within my household, so I’ve had to become more thoughtful about what I personally share to respect that I’m not a solo actor.

The adaptor description from the test seems to fit with my Arranger Strengthsfinder theme, someone who enjoys being flexible and responsive to dynamic situations. I’m a project manager at work, and enjoy making plans, and then really enjoy changing them to fit new information. And, I see things from multiple angles simultaneously, empathizing with different people and looking for the best win-win-win outcome. I can vacillate when that way is not clear. For a project manager in particular, I have an uncharacteristic easy-going personality and outlook.

And, I completely agree I’m a collaborator. I found being a solo ecology researcher (my PhD training) to be draining and hard. I very much prefer working in a team and taking advantage of diverse skills and perspectives. And, I sometimes make the mistake of discounting my own wisdom or intuition in favor of the perspective of people around me.

Does the fact I liked the online test best mean I prefer the parts that are ABOUT me? .