Blog
I launched my blog in 2009 when I was wrestling with a midlife crisis. Since then, the digital world has changed so much. I was new to both Facebook and Twitter when I started blogging, and I was still rocking the BlackBerry for email. Instagram hadn’t launched yet. Podcasting and short videos are what the cool kids do these days, blogging is considered old fashioned. But I still find it the best way to share my thoughts and to profile people who inspire me.
I hope you’ll find something here that inspires you, or at least sparks a conversation. Some of my favorite posts are pinned to the top, scroll down a bit more to find the most recent, or check out the categories in the sidebar.
Randy Pausch has gotten about 9 million views on his YouTube “Last Lecture” so there’s a decent chance you’ve already seen this — but in case you haven’t, or it’s been a while since you last watched it, I’m asking you to set aside the hour to do it. C’mon, you watch some TV shows that waste an hour of …
Lara Zielin is my sparkly, cute author friend. I think that’s a big part of why her silly YouTube parody, Editing Letter, has become such a hit — she’s just doggoned likeable. Lara’s first novel, Donut Days, is due out this summer. She worked hard on lengthy revisions to get it ready for publication and poked fun at the writing…
Newvine Growing’s audience is growing each month, but I still have Chuck Close to thank for lot of my visitors. I blogged about artist Chuck Close’s reinvention back in January, just a few weeks after launching this new effort, and that entry continues to lead many people here. Maybe even you? Here’s a sample of some search terms that landed…
The media industry is going through massive transformation, from the long, slow decline of newspaper circulation to the continuing Internet revolution and now the financial crisis of several major media companies and the folding of some large newspapers. If you’re looking for the green shoots of recovery in the media, the recent Bar Camp NewsInnovation in Philadelphia was like a garden…
If you’ve visited Newvine Growing any time in the last few months, you might have noticed I’ve done some redecorating recently. As a birthday gift, my artist husband, John Tebeau, offered to design business cards for my blog. He planned to use moo.com, a nifty site that allows you to add full-color artwork to the back of your card instead…
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival starts today. Jazz Fest runs the last weekend of April and first weekend of May, and we’re excitedly looking forward to being there for the second weekend. I didn’t expect to like Jazz Fest. Several years ago when our friend, Rachel, invited us to join her in a large rental house for the…
So far on this blog, I’ve written a lot about career transformations. Given the economy and the number of people out of work, that’s obviously a theme on a lot of people’s minds but it’s far from the only way you might improve your life. Maybe you’d like to: — improve your relationships? — make time for a hobby or…
Imagine John McCain without the life-changing experience of being a prisoner of war. Imagine John Walsh without the devastating grief of his son, Adam, being murdered by a serial killer. In the news last week was the story of researchers working on a drug to erase certain memories. The spooky story in the Times starts off: Suppose scientists could erase…
I’m a big believer in the silver lining — that what initially looks negative can turn out to be a real positive. You might just need to be willing to accept that disguised gift. The New York Times recently ran a story headlined Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own. Part of the story says: Plenty of other…
I grew up Catholic, and I’m not sure how old I was when I realized everyone wasn’t Catholic. It seemed everyone in my life not only celebrated Christmas and Easter but had a first Communion and knew what Lent was. Turns out lots of people know about Mardi Gras/Carnivale/ paczki day, but don’t necessarily know that the celebration of Fat…
Welcome to all my new visitors. Thanks in large part to Jim Carty’s Paper Tiger No More, I’ve had a huge spike — for me — in blog visitors. Jim gave my interview with Tony Dearing props on his blog last night, and my Monday stats were about four times my previous best day. Since I suspect many of you…
Reincarnation could be described as the ultimate reinvention: in death you leave behind one body and your soul goes on to another life in a new body. Not everyone believes in reincarnation, but it would appear the Newhouse family does, at least in business. Their company, Advance, announced this week that the 174-year-old daily newspaper The Ann Arbor News would…
If you’ve taken even a single management seminar, you’ve heard about how people hate change. You’re warned that no matter how terrible the problem you’re solving, your staff will likely cling to the way we’ve always done things and resist the new way. But we don’t just resist change when it’s imposed from outside. We often put blinders on to…
Apparently I’m not the only one who finds exploring career transformation interesting. Check out MSNBC’s package of stories including individual stories of how people are adapting to a changing economy as well as pointers on reinventing your career. Then pop over to Career Diva to read Eve Tahmincioglu’s reaction to some of the audience comments generated by the MSNBC stories. They’ll give…
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up somewhere else.” ~ Yogi Berra My birthday is Monday. Those of you who know me already know that I seriously love birthdays. Now those of you who don’t know me know that, too. I like to think of my birthday as my own personal New Year. My old roommate, Karen,…
I’ve had a huge spike in traffic to my blog in the last 24 hours or so, and almost all of it seems to have come from people looking up the search term “Chuck Close” or “Chuck Close portrait” and landing here. In case that sounds familiar, and you’re wondering why on earth you landed on a career blog, here’s…
Remember in high school art class, when you learned that two parallel lines like railroad tracks converge in the distance? Joel Zeff’s career path looks like that, with his day jobs as a reporter and PR guy merging with his hobby as a stand up comedian and improv troupe member in his current incarnation as a motivational speaker. The beauty…
This isn’t a change someone has made but one I’m asking you to make: Before it’s too late, think about the businesses you love that are still around and make a short list of the ones you’d be devastated to see shuttered. Then make an effort to throw some support their way.
Previously on Newvine Growing (read that in the Battlestar Galactica opening sequence voice) I’ve profiled people who’ve reinvented themselves by changing jobs and starting down a new career path. That’s all well and good, you think, but when unemployment is hitting double digits in some states, maybe this isn’t the best time to make that big switch. Not only are…
You can always tell when I’ve been traveling — I love reading fluffy fashion magazines when I’m flying, and our trip last weekend was no exception. I brought Glamour and Marie Claire onboard a puddle jumper headed to Pittsburgh when we went for a lovely weekend with friends. I got excited when I saw this article headlined “The Art of…
You might not think of Joel Peterson as a transformation story — he grew up in a wine-loving family, and he started Ravenswood in his 20s then stuck with it until he made millions from a wine that’s become a household name. But I think the way it happened speaks to evolution and passion. And since it’s my blog, I not only get…
After I wrote about transitioning out of newspapers, I emailed a few recovering reporters to ask for their take. Nancy Ross-Flanigan, one of my favorite coworkers at University of Michigan, took the time to craft a thoughtful email on her leaving the Detroit Free Press to take up university PR part-time. She continues to have a thriving freelance business with…