An eclectic IT career: Mayo Takeuchi

A few years ago, I met a director-level gentleman whom I consider to be quite maverick and not too politically correct, from what I'll call "Geography A". He was known for his habit of opening meetings by saying the following, where I've omitted the nationalities: [Geography A], speak up. [Geography B]. shut up and listen up. Although I can't really feel comfortable saying this myself, I did understand his viewpoint. Behaviourally speaking, I have found that one's experience in school influences how one conduct him/herself in the workplace. Personally, I am mainly a product of the Canadian education system, which akin to the American, emphasized in-class participation ("speaking up" in discussions). However, I also have exposure to the Japanese schooling mindset albeit in a distorted fashion: there, as in what my past colleagues (as well as spouse) describe as the Irish system, classrooms remained predominantly silent except for the teacher's v

I've seen my share of enigmatic meeting minutes, which usually consist of enumerating topic headings that may or may not be attributed to the speaker(s) involved. I'd always believed that the purpose of minutes was to accurately and thoroughly capture the proceedings of meetings such that those absent could, at minimum, understand the salient points of what transpired. Thus it surprises me to see examples that read like cue cards where, clearly, one had to be there to even get an inkling (to have the slightest clue) of what the meeting was about. Here are my best practice suggestions, therefore, to create minutes that are indeed useful and worth sending to others: Take notes that will jog your own memory, while others are speaking. Specific techniques would vary by individual; I usually take full sentence quotes because I'm able to type quickly enough. While taking the rough notes, focus on action items, decisions, or points that pertain to any subsequent meeting

I have found  a site  that contained a quote that I agree with:  Search engine optimization is just a means to help distribute your message. Nothing more, nothing less. Calling search engine optimization unethical is similar to calling creating a website or printing a newspaper unethical. When I started in the Web Effectiveness role just over a year ago, the concept of white and black hat practices also became part of my consciousness. The Wikipedia article  on white vs. black hat also mentions the existence of grey hat techniques, which implies that instead of a dichotomy, there in fact exists a continuum of optimizing measures, where web pages can be boosted in SERP (search engine result page) rankings. This leads me to believe that there is no such thing as pure white or black practices in SEO, only shades of grey . Search engine ranking algorithms are not just multi-layered and complicated, but also ever changing. I would describe black hat practices as not so much ways to contr

One of my blog followers was kind enough to mention to me that my inaugural post had helped someone to execute telephone based communication more effectively (in the context of charity fundraising). Which is why I've decided to make a few more observations about communicating with others in a formal setting (be they virtual or in person). While in school, which was now long enough ago that I'm hoping many of my then-teachers have retired and forgotten about me and thus wouldn't seek this blog out, I began to implement a "planted questions" technique. I chose peers who were typically quieter in the classroom, and requested that they ask me pre-defined questions whenever I had a presentation to make. Since I had control over these questions and thus my responses, this technique killed several proverbial birds with one stone: I would seem better prepared to handle the Q&A part of the work, my classmates would speak up and improve their participation rating, a

One of my numerous, albeit fairly minor, peeves concerns when someone who "has the floor" (for the non-native English speakers, this equates to "is in the position to be speaking" or "is commanding the audience's attention") chooses to use interjections in a noticeably frequent way. It's a technique we often use to buy thinking time, rather than pausing long enough to fully formulate sentences prior to delivering them. A couple of common ones in my experience are "at this point in time" instead of just saying "now" and "you know". The second example is one I've used on occasion (much to my chagrin), usually when trying to rephrase a point to be made. In German, it seems that the equivalent phrase I hear most often is a  translation of the Latin "id est" or "i.e."; " das heißt" . Another one I used to hear discomfitingly frequently was "to be perfectly honest with you". Af