Thoughts on how to Job Search in the time of COVID

If you are one of the many people faced with finding a new job I hope that this blog will provide you with some information and help as you determine what comes next for you. I hope that at least some of what I am going to cover here – both my advice and some quotes that show the thoughts of others – will be helpful to you or someone you know. 

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/melodywilding/2020/04/27/how-to-job-search-in-the-age-of-covid-19-according-to-a-career-coach/#3e6ba6655e33

“Aries: Well, gone are the days of coffee meetings and networking events.  Welcome to the age of online networking. I am such a big believer in networking your way to your next job, that it’s imperative you continue to grow and activate your network even while practicing social distancing. 

So what does that look like? Sending lots of initial outreach emails – to former colleagues, mentors, friends, and friends of friends – and asking for a virtual meeting, preferably over video chat. Then, make the most of your meeting by sharing your story and asking about theirs. What’s motivated their past career decisions? What are the trends they’re seeing in the industry? What do they enjoy most about their current workplace? 

Try to identify common values and shared experiences to foster connection. And then ask outright for their advice. Be specific about what kind of support you need most like getting resume feedback or making an email-introduction to another contact, or putting in an internal referral with HR.

Finally, you cannot drop the ball when it comes to the follow-up game. That’s where you have the chance to show your contact that you’re the reliable, gracious professional you say you are. Send a timely (read: within 24 hour) thank you note and send along anything else they might need to help you – like a pre-written brief blurb they can use when making email introductions on your behalf”

A lot may have changed since you last put yourself out there. If you haven’t looked for a new position recently much has changed, even in addition to COVID.

 

What I recommend you need to do

 

• Answers questions to yourself about yourself
  • What do you see as your strengths?

    Write your answers down. As you search go back and look at what you have written. While these are notes for you it is still important to have them written down. That way, if anything needs to be added, updated or revised you will be able to see what you have already documented.

  • What do you enjoy doing in a work setting?
  • What have you done in a job role that you don’t want to do anymore?

    This is important, your resume is not a detailed list of everything you have done, but rather an introduction to you and what you can do, and what you want to do.

  • Which of your strengths will allow you to be successful in working remotely?

    Have you worked on anything remotely even if it is not job related? Identify the competencies you used that were successful. For example how you explained the purpose of what you were doing and why you were contacting them.

• Identify areas, job roles and other places where you have used and demonstrated your strong capabilities. Write a brief description that will showcase how you used your strong capabilities.
• Briefly write up situations, whether at work, volunteer work or elsewhere where a problem or an opportunity came your way
  • What was it?
  • What did you do?
  • What was the result of what you did?
  • Benefits (dollars, organizational, other)
• Prepare to tell your experience as a story. Be short and concise but hit the key points about the situation, what you did, and the end result

 

• Do not use non-observable words to describe what you accomplished such as ‘understand’ or ‘know’
   
  • Turn all understand or know statements into observable statements – statements that describe what someone can see – how did you do what you did, what did you know or understand and how did this information contribute to the successful outcome

 

• Techniques for uncovering descriptions of what might be needed for a job role
  • Review job postings, locally and all over the country using the same key words, identify additional key words that show up during your search
  • Find people on LinkedIn who have titles like the position you want. See what they list, do you have some of it? What do you need to gain to be more hirable?

 

Social Media

• Google yourself – What ever you find the hiring team will also find. You should know what they are going to see. Find every place you appear on-line. What is helpful and what is not. Identify how you want to address issues that might come up.
• Spend a few minutes each day reading about things that relate to the job you want. What is new, who has published something you need to read. Send questions to people who have published articles questions or comments. Get yourself known. Include an identifying signature where possible.
  • Networking – ask questions, follow individuals and groups, comment on posts
• Check company web sites for companies where you think you would like to work learn about the culture as well as the products and services they offer.

 

 

https://www.fastcompany.com/90481374/3-ways-to-keep-your-job-search-active-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

 

“Post ideas, articles, and other content that will attract and engage your target audience—specifically recruiters. You can also introduce yourself to recruiters at companies you admire via [LinkedIn] InMail or email. But do your research first. Spend time on their career site to learn what they’re about and if they’re currently hiring.”

…

“Personalize your message to not only showcase your talents but to demonstrate a working knowledge about their company and recent initiatives. Revealing how you will fit into the culture and contribute to their needs during this unprecedented time will set you apart from the competition.”

 

Although you are going to be spending a lot of your time searching for your next position there is another activity you might consider. I strongly recommend that you look for organizations that need volunteers. Find organizations that will allow you to use what you know and perhaps learn some of what you need to know.

However, even if what you know and need to know isn’t what a volunteer organization needs, volunteering is something that will allow you to work with people. You can meet people (likely remotely) and help people. It will be something you can add to your resume. In many cases you can specify the hours and days that you will be available. It may be something that you can do remotely from your home or it may be something that provides a safe environment.

 

All that I have covered here is not easy. But I recommend that you now consider your job search your job. Work at these activities as if they are your job, because they are your job. Like any job some of these activities will be easier than others for you, but not everything you do as part of a job is equal in difficulty or reward.

 

As a job seeker I hope that you will identify your strengths, capabilities and passions so that you can develop a resume to showcases what you offer to perform the job role you seek.

 

Wishing you the best of luck!

 

Learning Styles

For several years learning professionals were writing and reading about different learning styles. The talk was about how different people learn more effectively from different styles of content presentation. In more recent years some educators are saying that learning styles are not a factor. They are saying that all learners can learn from good presentations regardless of the modality.

In a January 9, 2019 Inside Higher Ed article Greg Toppo, a senior editor at Inside Higher Ed., discusses the topic of learning styles.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/09/learning-styles-debate-its-instructors-vs-psychologists

“But Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist and professor at the University of Virginia, said the categories themselves ‘haven’t been shown to mean anything.’ Nonetheless, recent surveys have found that about 90 percent of Virginia students believe in them.”

In this article Toppo also says there are learning professionals who very much support the concept of different learning styles.

“Richard Felder, a professor emeritus of chemical engineering at North Carolina State University who has written in support of learning styles, said psychologists have spent decades working to debunk the theory. ‘On the other side are literally millions of people who have used learning styles to design instruction’ and to help students become better learners, he said.”

A quick search of scholarly articles about learning styles produces a host of articles. In recent years there have been many learning professionals who have written to deride the concept of learning styles. At the same time there are many others who have written scholarly articles based on the theory that different people learn differently.

A good number of learning professionals continue to develop and deliver learning products designed to deliver instruction geared to different learning styles. I am not sure there is any harm in doing so, even if it is true that the learning styles theory is invalid. I also believe that the learning style theory is a comfortable concept. We believe we understand what needs to go into content for each type of learner. We can include graphics and pictures and so forth for the visual learner, audio for the auditory learner, and materials that can be handled for the kinesthetic learner.

However, I believe that a good learning professional, using whatever methodology works for them, will provide what is needed for learning to occur. It is the design of the learning product as well as the instructor’s delivery of the content that will provide the learner with what they need to grasp the content not the learner’s perceived learning modality.

I am perplexed at how much time and effort is being put into arguments for and against the concept of learning styles. I understand that the research that has been reported is that learning styles do not have merit. I think it is time for researchers to design some new studies. Learning events that make use of different modalities to deliver the same instruction should be developed. In addition instruction covering the same content using various modalities should also use different instructors’ preferred delivery styles.

Each of these instructional units should administer the same evaluation instruments to each group of learners. Comparisons of the outcomes should be informative and might help us to understand if there are indeed differences, or if all well designed and well delivered modalities lead to effective learning outcomes.

Life

My friend D. passed away yesterday. It wasn’t unexpected, as a matter of fact she lived many months longer than the doctors thought she would. But even though expected, it was still a jolt. I have two relatives, unrelated, who both had stage 4 cancer and beat it. D. also had stage 4 cancer and I was so hopeful that she too would beat it, but she didn’t.

As I sit here and think about D’s. life I know that she lived life to the fullest. But none-the-less her life was cut short much too early. She and her husband skied and hiked all over the world. She was extremely active in her church. She taught Sunday school and was always one of the first to volunteer whenever help was needed. I could go on and on. I know that many, many people besides me – and of course – her family will greatly miss her.

I have another friend, B. who many years ago lost her father unexpectedly at a much too young an age. B. decided that rather than wait until she got older or retired, she would do what she knew she would enjoy while she was still relatively young. She began to think about the things she wanted to do now and how she wanted to spend the rest of her life.

Once B. made her decision she told me and her other friends that she felt that it was important for her to complete her search for where she wanted to live before she was near retirement. Her career had provided her the opportunity to live in many different areas of the country. But, she knew that retirement life would be different than her professional life. She decided that one of the first things she needed to investigate would be where she wanted to live based on the criteria she developed.

While she did her own research she did reach out to her friends for recommendations based on her list of wants and needs. She knew that she wanted to live near water in an area that had lots of opportunities for learning, entertainment, and socializing. She also wanted to live where people were actively engaged in the community. She also wanted to live where people knew their neighbors regardless of age differences or family differences or other differences.

She began her quest on weekends exploring different nearby communities in an effort to find a community that met most of the criteria for where she wanted to live. B. also researched other areas where she thought she might like to live. She took her vacations in some of these places. It took her two years but she decided that she knew where she wanted to live.

She then rented week-end and vacation times in different parts of the community to better get to know the area she had chosen to spend her retirement years. While this was a process that worked for her as a single working woman it might not work for someone with a family. It also might not work for someone on a more limited budget. But, in this day and age we are very lucky in that we can do much of our research using a computer.

Other people I know are very much tied to their jobs and their every day lives and don’t want to think about what might come next. I have talked to some of them about what they want to do now and later in life. I’ve also shared my thoughts about my life and what I want to do now and what I want to do next. I have to admit my future plans are not yet fully formed. But, I know it is time for me to think about where I am in life and where I want to go and do before my time runs out.

Different Methods for Different Learners

People are different; at every age they have different responsibilities, goals, knowledge and skills, financial resources, and families. And that is to say nothing of all the other aspects of the human race that are different. I believe we are definitely heading in the right direction as we customize learning opportunities for the populations we serve. However, in some cases we are hampering learning. Some organizations want people to learn on their own time at home. Homes and home responsibilities are not the same and handicap some learners.

Public Schools in Massachusetts, where I live, are following the “common core” concept.

http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/

“The Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy (ELA). These learning goals outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade.”

This makes me worry. While there are good aspects to this practice there are likely as many bad results that will impact students both now, while they are in school and later, as they enter a world that doesn’t have a common training algorithm. I also know of many smart students who are getting bored and tuning out.

However, I’m hopeful that people who do the planning for students will recognize that different people learn differently. For example this Forbes post talks to the importance of focusing on the individual rather than the one-size concept.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2018/09/24/seven-learning-and-development-trends-to-adopt-in-2019/#547d336e104b

“Training in the past that focused solely on content was “one size fits all,” which made it difficult to engage with the learner. Today, we must zero in on the learner, including his or her experience, work environment, performance and technological fluency, to create a training program. Any effective training program is one developed for the individual and offers social activities to share their experiences.”

I think the key concept that will bring new and interesting results is the importance of meeting the needs of each individual. However, we need to be careful in how we implement our programs. If we aren’t careful, we could find that although we are getting good results, the financial impact could derail the good work.

Like with any other learning event, it is important to begin by identifying all the end results. End results are all of the things that any individual will need to be able to do on the job related to the training needed. Once you have listed all of the activities needed then, as with any other learning event, identify all the things they will need to know. It is very important to identify what they will need to do before you identify what they will need to know. The “doing” informs the knowing.

When customizing training for specific individuals, I recommend that you develop all the instruction in mini modules. All of the good practices that you have used to develop learning events apply here. The only difference is that you will be developing multiple mini (and perhaps micro) modules that are complete onto themselves so that they can be pulled together in a learning event customized for an individual.

Everything that has worked in full learning events applies here. Use whatever methodology you believe will be appropriate to deliver the learning experience to the individual. It may be that you want to use Gamification for some lessons and some learners. You may find that other techniques will work for other learners. The important concept is that one size does not fit all and you must customize to meet each learners needs. But, stay focused on the end results needed and what needs to be known to achieve those end results.

So yes, different people learn differently and if we want everyone to get as much out of our events as possible, we owe it to them to customize our output. While it can be challenging to constantly adapt and change a learning event to meet individual needs, I believe the resulting learning is well worth it.

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

As I went about my business last week, all of a sudden I lost control of everything. Yep, it was the bug that has been going around, maybe the flu maybe not, don’t know. It was three days before I could get out of bed, but it seemed much longer.

The first day I slept for at least 40 hours. The second day I was able to have a little soup. I am in relatively good shape and general healthy, so I suspect I did better than some people. But boy, was I down for the count.

By the second day, I kept trying to find the door into freedom. I knew it began with getting into that that little cubicle that has water running from the ceiling, but somehow I couldn’t make it in.

Then there was that pesky little thermometer. Mine has lived for years in the medicine chest with no cause for it to come out and jump into my mouth. Yet here I was consulting it. I thought I felt fine, but it kept telling me that I had a fever and I really shouldn’t leave the house.

I thought I would feel better if I could take a shower. And I probably would have, if only my feet would do what I wanted them to do I could get into the cubicle and then I have my freedom to the outside world. Standing up can be very hard when your legs don’t work.

My family made me soup and encouraged me to eat it. But, I said put it into the refrigerator and I’ll go and get it when I get hungry. They kept saying drink water. I said sure I will don’t worry. They did and I didn’t. During the day when I was the only one home I was really sorry I sent the food back down to the refrigerator.

There was just no way I could make it down what seemed like 15 flights of stairs from my bedroom down to the kitchen where the beautiful soup was resting in a bowl in the refrigerator. But I kept trying and I did finally made it down all those flights of stairs and sure enough the bowl of soup was there waiting for me. I put it into the microwave. Then after two spoonfuls I realized I’d had enough.

But then I needed to climb those 15 flights back upstairs to get in bed. That wasn’t easy but I did it and then I went back to sleep for another 12 hours. After that, things looked a bit better. But, that mercurial gatekeeper still wasn’t ready to give me my freedom because the thin tube kept telling me that I couldn’t leave until it said 98.6. But as hard and as often as I tried, it just wasn’t ready to go down that low.

So back to bed I went. The next day I think the gatekeeper was really fed up with dealing with me and gave me my ticket to freedom. So here I am attempting to get back to normal life. I’m far from 100% but at least I’m no longer restricted to the house. I’m taking it easy and will return home early today.

But it sure is nice to have my freedom again. Hopefully my next post will be about real life again. I hope you are all healthy, happy, and free to move around outside.

 

 

 

Before You Interview

I believe you should have only one version of your resume. I recommend using your cover letter to present any additional information you want a potential employer to consider. This is my viewpoint and others think differently. It isn’t wrong to construct multiple versions of your resume. But, if you do I recommend that you ensure you submit the correct version when applying for a position.

In this blog I am going to cover a few things that I think are important and may not always be covered in posts about conducting a job search. In addition to the recommendations below I recommend that you search for “2019 Job Interview Prep.” In these articles you will find a lot of information to help you in your preparation and in the search itself. While there is much that is common among these posts there are also many variations and conflicting recommendations. Focus on those that you are comfortable with as you may not be successful if you try to do something that doesn’t feel right to you.

Here are the few things that I think are important. Begin by finding multiple postings for the role(s) you are interested in. Look at both local postings as well as ones from across the US. More information is always better. Take note of the role responsibilities listed. Also take note of the educational requirements for the position, and any other information that is consistently mentioned.

Compare your knowledge, skills and experience with what they are looking for. You want to find as much information as you can, but don’t spend too much time on this. Your goal should be to stop when you begin to see the same information over and over. If there are too many requirements that you don’t have, you may want to look at different positions. At this point it is likely that you are seeing enough to move forward to the next step.

Next, research the companies listing the position(s) you are interested in. Do research for each company in general. Also see if you can find any information about the role(s) for which you want to apply. If the company is private this step may not provide a great deal of information, but there may be information available in articles about the company.

Hiring managers frequently look for applicants on LinkedIn. If you are not a member I strongly recommend that you join. Because you have completed your resume it is mostly just a matter of transferring the resume information to LinkedIn. There are other sections to complete, but, even if you aren’t ready to do that, begin by posting your resume content. Once you join LinkedIn, you can search the site for the positions you are interested in, as well as searching the companies looking to fill your desired role.

Look for people who are in or have held the role(s) you are looking at. Read the comments people have made about why people have done well in the roles. For what areas are they commended? Perhaps you have done something similar that you can include in your cover letter. Be sure to mention it if you think it might be appropriate for the specific role for which you are applying.

Not all people who conduct interviews are trained and know what questions to ask or how to get the information they need. I recommend that you make a list of the information that you want to communicate about yourself to the hiring team. You want to let them know as much about your qualifications as you can.

Prepare descriptions of what you have done related to what a person in the job role needs to do. Then if the interviewer doesn’t ask you for this type of information. Integrate what you want to communicate into a response to a question the interviewer asks. Say a bit and then ask the interviewer if this is information that they would like to hear. If they say “no” don’t be afraid to ask for more specifics about what they want to know about your background and experience.

Different interviewers may approach the interview process differently. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you need more information or you need clarification in order to answer a question. If you don’t know anything about a topic you can say something like “that is an area that I hope to learn more about, I hope I have the opportunity to learn about it here in this company”.

It will really be worth your while to do the research before you interview. Again check out the job interview articles. The more you know the better you will be able to prepare for presenting yourself to potential employers. Good Luck!

It’s Not Too Early

Now is the time that some people in their senior year of college are beginning to think about applying for jobs. These are the people who are likely to do better than their fellow students who haven’t yet thought about what comes next. While some college students have a resume that they have been maintaining and updating, others have not. If you are a college student and don’t have a resume I hope you will consider developing one, regardless of where you are in your college career.

Some college students have held jobs, paid or otherwise, and can talk to their accomplishments on those jobs. Others have not been employed. However, as a college student, you have many opportunities to demonstrate your capabilities and you can document them in your notes for your resume.

Think about the classes you have taken and the assignments that you have completed. Have you done research and presented your findings? Have you worked with others on a class project? Have you done other things while in school that you would like to do more of? And perhaps get paid for? Whether you have an idea of what you would like to do once you graduate or not, you have accomplished some things that showcase who you are and what you can do for a potential employer.

Getting started doesn’t have to be difficult. Begin by making notes on what you enjoy doing. You may want to include activities unrelated to school. You may want to do this over a period of time. But don’t take too long before you start.

As you begin your list remember it is not a resume so make it as long as you want. You may decide that something you listed earlier no longer interests you. That is fine, you can delete it from your list.

The next step after you list things that you enjoy doing is to list what you have accomplished that is related to those activities you have listed. For example, maybe you did a research paper on a topic that you found interesting. List that you wrote the paper and also list any positive comments the instructor made about what you wrote. Perhaps you participated in a team activity? Here is where you can document the specific things that you did that contributed to the successful outcome of the project.

As you begin to consider the types of roles you would like to do after graduation you can go online and look at job descriptions for those roles. Review what they want entry-level people to do. Are these things you want to do? Are these things you can do? Remember as an entry-level person it is likely you will learn a lot on the job. But you do need to have certain capabilities and these are listed in job descriptions. You can also find sample resumes of people who are in the roles you are thinking about.

Of course you want to speak to your professors and advisors and get their advice too. However the key point is that isn’t too early to begin thinking about a resume while you are in college. And of course, by beginning to document your accomplishments you will hopefully find it a relatively easy task to complete that job-winning resume.

Good luck and if you have any questions please comment.

 

Another Way

I have found that when technical professionals are tasked with developing instruction, the hardest thing for them to do is learn how to write learning objectives. In this post I suggest a method for communicating what the learner will be able to do without writing those dreaded objectives. Even better, using this method will allow you to translate the end result of this exercise into objectives that are painless to develop.

Rather than beginning with writing statements of objectives, begin by writing questions that you want a person who took your training module to be able to answer. These questions should ask something about every area that you plan to cover in the module. Keep in mind as you do this, that we are now talking about covering small, discrete units of training in an instructional product.

 

https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/numbers-dont-lie-why-bite-sized-learning-is-better-for-your-learners-and-you-too

 

“According to the Journal of Applied Psychology, learning in bite-sized pieces makes the transfer of learning from the classroom to the desk 17% more efficient. Here’s why microlearning is more efficient than traditional longer-duration courses:

When bite-sized learning content is easily and readily accessible, learners can take it at their own pace, wherever they are, and most importantly, when they are “ready.”

Because bite-sized courses are more focused, learners don’t have to clutter their memories with irrelevant information. This makes retention easier.

Learners have to digest only small chunks of information. This makes comprehension easier without spending too much effort.

Because microlearning content addresses only 1-2 learning objectives, courses, on an average, yield 4-5 learned takeaways.”
…….

“Cut to the chase. Do away with the history, the background information, and the theories. Deliver the “how-to” right away. Remember, your learners are looking for just-in-time solutions.”

 

If however, you are not developing a small unit then I suggest you partition out each area that you will be covering and develop questions for each of them. You may want to develop questions for just the first section and proceed as I recommend below before moving to the next segment of your learning product.

Develop a list of all the questions that you want somebody to be able to answer when they complete the training. In some cases your training might require a demonstration rather than an answer. For example if you are training someone in how to drive a car there are many questions that you will want to ask them to answer but you will also want them to demonstrate their ability to drive the car. In this case questions can be developed that say something like show what you will do when you get into the car, show what you will do when you want to turn left, show what you will do if someone darts out into traffic unexpectedly, etc.

The end result of developing these questions will provide you with an outline of what you should include in the learning materials.

You may find as you develop the learning materials that you think of additional questions. That is OK; add them to your list. Keep at this until you believe you have listed all the questions that someone will need to be able to answer and you are ready to begin to develop the instruction. It is at this point that you can stop and translate the questions into objective statements.

Examples:

• Describe how to develop learning objectives from a set of questions designed to cover the content of a learning module
• Explain what needs to be done to make a legal left turn

Hopefully this technique for developing objectives will help both you and your learners.

Welcome 2019!

In the last several years there have been many new discoveries in the field of learning as well as some old ones rediscovered. As I continue to say, this is a very exciting time to be a learning professional.

Below I present some quotes from two posts. However, I would also like to recommend that you read the full text of Josh Bersin’s article below. I often quote his publications, but in this case there is so much in this post that I want to share that I’m suggesting that it be read in full. I believe it would be worth your time to do so.

https://joshbersin.com/2018/06/a-new-paradigm-for-corporate-training-learning-in-the-flow-of-work/

In addition to what Josh Bersin’s article covers; the post below talks to research findings which show that better retention continues to be attributed to learning in small segments. Hopefully during 2019 practice will align to what the research has been telling us for a long time. It is time to move learning out of the classroom. It is time to move learning events from passive to active participation. Let’s forgo asking learners to sit in a classroom, or remotely at their computers, listening to a lecture augmented by multiple slides. We now know that passive participation leads to poor retention.

As learning professionals, it isn’t enough to develop and deliver training events. In my opinion, we must also keep up on the research and then apply what has been validated by research findings. In many cases this involves working with management to make them aware of the latest research and how it can be applied within your organization.

https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/15-surprising-discoveries-about-learning/

“A learning technique that maximises the brain’s ability to make and store memories may help future students, say UC Irvine neurobiologists.

Christine Gall, Gary Lynch, and colleagues found that mice trained in three short, repetitious episodes spaced one hour apart performed best on memory tests. The mice performed poorly on memory tests when trained in a single, prolonged session–which is a standard K-12 educational practice in the U.S.

It’s been known since classic 19th century educational psychology studies that people learn better when using multiple, short training episodes rather than one extended session. Two years ago, the Lynch and Gall labs found out why. They discovered a biological mechanism that contributes to the enhancing effect of spaced training: brain synapses encode memories in the hippocampus much better when activated briefly at one-hour intervals.”

https://www.edgepointlearning.com/blog/future-of-corporate-training-2019/

In this blog, the author Corey Bleich, presents 10 emerging trends that he sees for the coming year and beyond. Here are two that are in line with what I have seen in other professional publications.

“Adaptive content delivery

Artificially intelligent content delivery that adapts to your employees’ corporate training needs is also emerging as a way to personalize and individualize training.

This type of training (gamification being a good example of adaptive content delivery) predicts learner behavior to keep training relevant, interesting, and fresh.

……

“Microlearning

Microlearning continues to play a huge part in the future of corporate training, providing employees with easily-digested bites of information or instruction that can be immediately applied to a task or project.

This trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down or going anywhere any time soon.”

I look forward to seeing how these trends play out in the coming year and what other new trends will help us all to learn and grow.

Ups and Downs

It has been an up and down few weeks for me. But, now I am focused on all the holiday cards and messages I have been receiving. Hearing about everyone’s good news and what they have done this past year has helped me to think past the downs and think about the good that goes on all the time.

Yes, I had to have some of the siding on my house replaced. I had a visit from some woodpeckers who let me know I had wet wood which had invited some insects to find a home. This allowed some woodpeckers to find some food and let me know I had a problem.

So looking at things that way helps me to realize a few shingles replaced is not a big deal. Yes, I hit a big pothole and needed to get my car realigned. But I’m OK, my car is OK, and hopefully I’ll see the next pothole before I hit it.

It’s likely that I hit the pothole because I was busy looking out for deer and bears. Some of my neighbors have seen bears (or maybe just one at this time of year?). They have posted videos and still photographs of the bear. Back when the weather was a bit nicer they had even posted videos of bears swimming in their pools.

I have been receiving end of year letters and pictures from friends who live both near and far. I have really enjoyed seeing how much the children have grown and learning about their accomplishments during this past year has been great. Reading about what my friends have done and plan to do is very rewarding for me. I have friends and relatives of all different political persuasions and I believe that we are lucky that we remain friends and continue to respect each other’s different views.

In addition to cards and letters, I have being seeing people in person whom I haven’t seen in several years as they have come home to visit both family and friends. Each of them tells me what has happened in their families since the last time we have seen each other. I also tell them about what is new with my family and me. We all take joy in the good in each other’s lives and we also express our concern and best wishes to those who have or are experiencing difficult situations.

I am looking forward to the New Year and all the experiences that will be waiting for me as I travel through 2019. I also look forward to everything that I will learn next year. Hopefully, I will also be able to share some of those learnings with others. Perhaps my experiences will be of interest to some and maybe even help them to experience rewarding outcomes.

I wish all of you who are reading this post a very happy and healthy New Year and a year full of good experiences and opportunities to learn and grow. And I wish everyone a collection of wonderful friends, new and old as good as my own!