On my desk are two books to help improve my writing by writing fewer words, better. It takes me 1,000 words to say anything on this blog. I don’t have that kind of time and neither does anyone else. My academic training whispers about APA format, methodology, and conclusions. Hey, whisper! Blogs aren’t journal articles. Back off, you’re getting in my way! Anyway… I love … Continue reading Bringing Beauty Back
Here’s how I did following my own advice for navigating the spectacle of ASAE in Nashville last week. 1. Take time for silence and be mindful. Grade: C On the positive side, I noticed the wonderful music and thoroughly enjoyed the delicious food and drink of Nashville. Staying fully present in each session allowed me to experience ASAE in a new way. It’s amazing … Continue reading Following my own Advice
Have you ever come home from a conference exhausted and wondering what the heck just happened? This happens to me, especially at large conferences like the American Society of Association Executives annual meeting and expo. ASAE is large (5,000 people here, I think) and has more going on than one simple person like me can follow. I am a dust bunny and it’s Spring Cleaning. … Continue reading Six ways to be more intentional and have more fun at a conference
Based on the frequency of posting here it might look as if I’ve decided against this whole blogging thing. I haven’t. Actually, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what I want to put out there in the world, on and off the internet. There’s even a handful of posts waiting for me to click “publish”. I’ve been blogging without blogging and rather focused on … Continue reading A new look
One of the things I love about learning is the way it shifts over time. Thinking about my time in graduate school made me realize how much of that experience I’ve carried with me and applied to my career, often not even realizing it. Here are few lessons I’ve carried with me from my social work training that serve me well as an evaluator … Continue reading Social work and Evaluation- Part 2
It’s Social Work TIG week over on the AEA365 Blog and I hope people have been reading. I’m glad to see Kathy Bolland calling attention today to the common values held by both social workers and evaluators. Those values are what drew me to these fields. What social workers and evaluators do is different, but there is a lot of overlap in why we do … Continue reading Social work, evaluation, and life (or What My MSW Taught me Part 1)
Last week the aea365 blog reposted an intriguing challenge from John LaVelle at Claremont Graduate University. John asked us to develop our own personal statements about evaluation- what it is, how we do it, and what we draw upon to inform our work. Evaluation is dominated by theories of evaluation often linked to the work of marquis names. One of the ways I read John’s … Continue reading What are you doing to help yourself learn?
One of the reasons I started this blog is because I am always finding neat evaluation-related content online that I can’t incorporate easily into my work. I don’t have other evaluators around to discuss things with and I care too much for my colleagues to ask them to pretend to be excited about my online evaluation discoveries. Recently, I found this post on the Education … Continue reading What are you doing to help your clients learn?
evaluatedlife.com 