I haven’t thought much about this lately as the offices I have been visiting the last few months seem to have little if any “blue” language. However, in the Parade Magazine in our newspaper this week there was a short piece on “Gordon Ramsay, Meanest Man on TV?” For those of you that might not know this TV personality, his shows are all blue language. I don’t watch his show, however, on one of our recent visits to a hospital emergency room, his show was on. I was surprised and offended. There were a number of children present and felt that it was certainly inappropriate viewing for these young people.
Managing Change
When I do a presentation on change I like to compare change we choose to change inflicted upon us. If you choose to go buy yourself a new cell phone, it is likely that there will be no complaining. You will embrace the new technology and learn to do new things. In my presentation I talk about the resistance that many companies face when implementing change. My example here is implementing a new agency management system. The agency staff is busy doing what they do best, sell and service insurance, so many see having to learn and begin to use a new system as a big headache. There are even obstacles encountered when a vendor makes a major change in a process within their system. I had a narrow vision which limited me to thinking of only two types of change. But in the last year my vision of the types of change has been widened.
Where Has Pat Been?
A number of my friends have asked that I blog about what happens when you are 1,000 miles from home and you are injured. My husband, Gene & I were on vacation when he injured himself. Here is our experience. I always buy travel insurance when we go out of the country so that we can get back home incase of accident or illness. I have never done this for domestic travel, but I am reconsidering. Today’s airline flights are so full that you are only flying on the plane you are scheduled on in many cases. The proper travel insurance would have allowed us to return home a few days earlier.
My plan was to take a short break from blogging and social media. I knew that during the first part of our vacation in Yellowstone National Park we would not have access to the internet. I thought this would be a great time to clear my mind and do some planning. Well, all of that part went as planned. However, the afternoon of June 18, 2010, my husband slipped and fell and tore the quad muscles on both of his legs. This rendered him immediately unable to walk. We were in the Badlands National Park and 1,000 miles from home.
Who Is On Your Agency’s Team?
Last week there were several news reports about ladies in their 90s receiving Master Degrees. One such lady is Helen Small show graduated from University of Texas Dallas. Here is an article on this amazing lady. http://tinyurl.com/29rrbhb. So what do people like this have that others don’t? Why do they keep learning when they could be doing leisurely things all day? When working with agencies I hear a number of excuses related to learning.
Me and My Mac – TAAR January 2010
In this article I relate how I evaluated the type of new laptop I chose and how that relates to evaluating your technology needs in your agency. In looking back to what I said in the article there is only one item that I no longer agree with. I said I really like the blogging software better than what I was using before.
A few weeks ago I helped an agency set up Microsoft Windows Live Writer for their blogging. This is the software I was using when I changed to my Mac. After testing 4 different Mac blogging software I am going back to the Windows Live Writer software.
I am enjoying the best of both worlds.
Best Practices Documentation and Management – TAAR – November 2009
A conversation at an industry event centered around the use of wikis. My colleagues agreed that an agency’s best practices should be posted in a wiki and editable by the staff. I expressed my concerns about this and my colleagues told me my concerns were old-fashioned and out-of-date. Well, of course that set me to thinking they might be right. So I checked with insurance agents’ errors and omissions underwriters. This article discusses this issue in depth.
Best Practices Documentation and Management – TAAR – November 2009
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