Twitter & Me
Thank you for clicking on the link in my Twitter profile and welcome to my website!
I appreciate your interest in me. On this page, you will find info about:
- me,
- the books I've written, and
- my approach to Twitter.
l hope you'll also poke around the site and discover the many resources I've provided. They're all free, so please help yourself.
The Basics: I write books, swim daily and play blackjack about once a week. I also give speeches, occasionally consult on a variety of management, leadership and career-related topics, and write a blog called Woman at Work. This is the second phase of my working life. I retired in 2001 from a highly successful 20-year business career, first as a corporate & securities lawyer and then as a financial services senior executive. I lived in Chicago for most of my life, and it remains a city I love. Now I live near Las Vegas, where the mountains, the climate and the convenience of virtually everything being open 24/7 make me happy every day. Oh, and I've been married (to the same person) for 32 years; we have two grown children.
More info: Here's my biography.
What Books Have I Written? (Click on the book's title if you'd like more info & on the book's cover if you'd like to read an excerpt.)
A MERGER OF EQUALS (fiction)
The story of Jane & Charlie, two smart, funny, ambitious 20-somethings, and their climb up the corporate ladder. Along the way, they cope with overloaded schedules, corporate inanity, sexism, power games, work-life balance issues, and all the other hassles that plague 21st-century working people. Ultimately, they discover ... well, you'll have to read the book to find out.
WORKING EASIER (nonfiction)
An easy-to-follow handbook designed to provide arts management professionals with strategies and tactics to increase productivity, eliminate waste, and build a strong, scalable and adaptable foundation for future operations. Informally written and full of tips, examples, checklists, forms, and sample job descriptions that are useful for small businesses as well as nonprofits.
THE PRODUCTIVE CULTURE BLUEPRINT (nonfiction)
A proven blueprint for corporate executives, in-house and outside lawyers and other leaders and managers who want to increase productivity, eliminate waste and build efficient, adaptable organizations with aligned, motivated and satisfied employees. Complete with a real-life case study, explanatory examples, and practical tools, including sample job descriptions, mission and vision statements, and vendor management tactics.
Didn't I say something about free resources?
Yes, I did. Help yourself to:
Hints, Quotes & Other Inspirations
Inspirational Essays - How to Suit Yourself & Succeed
Quotes & Resources Especially for Writers
Great Organizations & Services
Miscellaneous Useful Resources
...along with many more...
(My approach has attracted far more followers than I ever expected to have. I'm gratified and flattered, but also skittish about the growing numbers because my goal was to read most, if not all, of what the people I follow offer. I've had to modify that goal - here's an explanation of what I changed and why.)
These are my personal rules of engagement. I set them out here solely to clarify how I engage. They are intended to be neither prescriptive nor directive. I'm not asking anyone else to follow them, so please don't feel obliged to let me know if you don't like them.
- I follow people I find interesting. My interests are diverse, and I particularly love the opportunity Twitter gives me to look through windows into worlds I know very little about. It's completely OK with me if people I follow do not follow me back.
- I don't automatically follow people who follow me. I'm looking for interesting content and conversation, so I follow people who (a) interact and (b) appear to have at least a couple interests in common with mine. Before I return follow, I review your profile, your website and a couple pages of your most recent tweets. It takes time for me to do this, sometimes up to a week. (I always smile and feel like I've dodged a bullet when I go to check out someone only to discover that he or she has already unfollowed me. Couldn't even wait 3 days? Yeah, you were totally going to read my tweets and converse with me.)
- I don't return follow people with protected tweets and no links. Sorry. I'm sure some of you are perfectly lovely, but I like to know with whom I'm conversing.
- If you really, really want me to follow you, @ reply to something I say or retweet something of mine or something I've RT'd. Once I know you're a real person who wants to interact, I'll happily follow you back.
- I use Tweetdeck, and I've sorted the people I follow into 3 groups. I read virtually every tweet of the people in my Must Reads group, and most of the tweets of the people in my Favorite People group. I also read as many of the linked blog posts and articles as I can from these people, and I often comment. It's probably obvious that I put people in these groups because they offer extremely interesting conversation & content. Everyone else stays in All Friends, a column I skim if I have time and am in the mood.
- I tend to deep-six people who don't acknowledge their @ replies and RTs - whether from me or from others. You lose credibility, attention and my interest in reading your Twitter stream when you show no signs of understanding that you're not a broadcaster living alone in the Twitterverse. Many of us have overlapping circles; the "I always take; I never give" folks are obvious. I try not to take it personally when people don't acknowledge that I've RT'd or otherwise complimented their stuff - but I usually fail. If you offer me deafening silence more than twice in response to my endorsements, I will probably take you out of the Tweetdeck columns I actually read word-for-word. (Only exception: people with content so fabulous that I don't mind being snubbed. So far, 2 people...that's right, 2...have fallen into this category.)
- I roll my eyes and eventually relegate to my All Friends column (or, in extreme cases, unfollow):
- people who routinely RT complimentary things that other people have said about them. Come on - let your fabulousness speak for itself
- people who tweet the exact same thing more than once or twice
- people who carry on lengthy 1:1 conversations with no general appeal (other than to voyeurs of the mundane, I guess) in the public stream
- people whose tweets & blog posts reflect a consistent lack of interest in spelling, grammar & clarity. Can't help it - I'm an instinctive & unapologetic purist about these things & there's a limit to how much cringing I can handle
- people who yak constantly about their follower numbers
- people who tweet about nothing but Twitter itself or social media more generally
If all that sounds like a fair exchange for someone who will actually read and comment on your stuff, by all means please:
