Drinking from the Garden Hose

The past few days I had a staycation paid vacation! I changed companies and started a new job back in May so I've been very focused on my on-boarding, building my book of business and fostering creativity at work. The primary reason I took vacation was because my parents and sister were flying in front Atlanta to visit. Since I've really been in the swing of things at work lately, I had to be very mindful of switching gears, being super present and winding down to enjoy time with my family. Over the years I've built pretty strict habits around my digital availability when I am out of the office. On Friday afternoon I made my Slack status "palm tree emoji", turned my auto-reply email on and went off the professional grid! I made sure to submit my PTO request weeks in advance, had my calendar blocked off and also had a free meeting calendar block I sent to my team as a reminder I’m out of the office. Luckily we had no customer issues arise and I took a few days off

As each day passes, digital communication becomes more integrated into our daily lives. In order to be highly productive, you need to have excellent digital skills. With remote working, we may have become more casual in our personal lives, but our professional lives are still more or less strictly business. I used to have daily lunch, coffee, happy hour chats with numerous colleagues and customers throughout the day. Now, I have scheduled meetings with agenda items and time limits. So how do we continue to be highly productive and effective employees without turning into robots? One important way is through sharpening our digital communication skills. For me, typing is easier than talking, maybe because I have been using computers for as long as I can remember. This is true for most Millennials and absolutely for Gen Z. However comfortable we are typing, we do have a reputation and blind spots for over communicating and vocalizing problems with no solutions.  How do we all improve our

  Milestones are a big deal at Amazon and I've hit an exciting one! Five years under my belt working for Amazon Web Services! That means I got this beautiful yellow tenure border around my employee badge, la de da. My employment has been in two strides, so I am what some refer to as a 'boomerang'. I joined AWS in August of 2014, decided to take a personal sabbatical in April 2019, then worked for a healthcare tech startup in 2020, then made my return to AWS in May 2021. AMZN stock was worth around $300 a share back in late summer 2014 when I moved to Seattle with no friends or family, to take a job in this new cloud business the technology world was buzzing about. Back in those days I put in A LOT of hours at conference booths, all over the United States representing AWS in front of tech conference attendees, who largely were still more familiar with Amazon.com. It was a lot of fun engaging with people who would do a double take of the Amazon Web Services booth and approac

I'm super Goop-y - if that statement doesn't make sense to you, you need to CLICK HERE NOW! No but seriously, I do love Gwyneth Paltrow and the business she has built at Goop - valued at $250 million USD. Goop was one of the first holistic feeling wellness brands that actually had a platform aligned with a lot of my values and interests. Longevity is important to me, I think it's quite possible for my generation to be centenarians so I fully plan to live into my 100s. This is a great motivation to live a healthy lifestyle. I've had my new Oura Ring for three nights now, and I'm really into it! The features, data and UX are all pretty fantastic. I love the Readiness feature - Readiness is an overall measure of your recovery that signals your capacity to perform at your mental, emotional, and physical best. Oura monitors signals from your body and picks up on daily habits to determine how well rested you are and whether or not you're ready for a challenge. T

Giving is such a wonderful topic! I wish news channels dedicated more time to sharing stories of people giving and changing lives. Whenever my feeds are filled with non-profit work my friends are devoting time to or I receive messages asking for donations to fund causes they are passionate about, I am filled with joy! My first exposure to corporate giving was during my internship program at VMware - we did so many service projects! The office held a backpack drive where we collected school supplies for children in need, we worked at animal rescue shelters and the company encouraged every team to dedicate a few days each year volunteering in the community together. A 2013 U nitedHealth Group study found that employee volunteer programs increased engagement and productivity. The study found 75% of employees who volunteered felt healthier and reported experiencing less stress. More than 90% said volunteering had put them in a better mood. Over the past 18 months, giving has made a digita

Having a presence on the internet is a part of modern life. Personally and professionally, the internet is a place where we spend large amounts of time - shopping on Amazon to save time running errands, checking emails in Outlook and posting pictures on social channels. Having lived in 4 different cities in the past 8 years, I especially love how social media allows me to post and receive updates from friends and family as special moments happen. However, I do not love all the inauthentic content created for the sake of 'brand building'. I think a lot of people really do want to be authentic and vulnerable on social media but as my girl Brene Brown describes vulnerability - "uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure" - a lot of us would rather continue to post what we know is received well. Brene Brown also is a big advocate for finding your core values and operating against those. My three core values are health, peace and faith - if I post or write about one of my t

The topic of privacy is not talked about enough, especially in the world of high tech where it should be a primary focus. Growing up in the 90s and 2000s, using the internet is second nature and a big part of my life. My dad used to let me practice code instead of doing house chores, I've always loved computers and been interested in technology. When I entered high school in 2005, Facebook just became available to users outside of the original college email domain gate, so everyone at my metro Atlanta high school had a profile. It's strange to look back and realize the reason a lot of Facebook policy has changed over the years is because of things I was a victim of - a teenage girl tagged in humiliating photographs I didn't give permission to be on the internet, tagged to my name and my profile by bullies, for instance - clearly a lot of room for improvement on that feature. If Chief Privacy Officers were mandatory executive positions required by all company boards, that wo