From A Gardener’s Notebook: A collection of essays
What is there about a garden?
Gardens can be beautiful or productive and are often both at the same time. Every gardener brings their own energies, their own attitudes, their own wants, needs and desires to their garden, making each one a unique statement on their creators. Whether you are growing vegetables, flowers for cutting or the world’s largest pumpkin, gardens can hold a special place in your heart.
Gardens can tell us a lot about ourselves, but we also end up communicating who we are to others through our gardens. One visit to my garden and you will see that I like things a little wild and not too tidy. You’ll notice that I garden with benign neglect — reveling in those things that survive and not worrying too much about those that don’t. My garden is a window into the very core of who I am. Sure there will be more to learn, but sometimes I think my garden is the best introduction anyone can have of me.
Join me in my garden!
The High-Tech Career Handbook: The Best of Career Opportunities 1998-2003
30,000 Words
Navigating the special difficulties of a high-tech career can be troublesome for workers, young and old. Career Opportunities, a weekly column for ComputorEdge Magazine in San Diego, California and Colorado Springs, Colorado, has addressed these issues for almost 13 years. While simultaneously developing his own high-tech career, author Douglas E. Welch has shared his insights, trials, setbacks and successes with his readers. The High-Tech Career Handbook collects the best columns from 1997-2003 into a book for all high-tech careerists, whether they are just starting out, building their career or looking for a new career in the high-tech world. Topics covered in the columns include getting your career started, ethics, fairness and the benefits of doing honest business, personal development, professional development, and the tips and tricks for transitioning into a mature career.
Cultivating Your Career Reputations
11,000 Words
While we often talk about one, monolithic, Reputation – with a capital R — I believe that there are a series of reputations that make up the whole. This book will focus on the combination of reputations that make up your one, overarching, Reputation. By examining each of these reputations in detail, I hope you will find specific areas where you can improve your work, your actions and your thoughts so that your overall professional reputation grows. Why break your Reputation down into its constituent parts? It is often said that you can’t “do” projects, you can only do the individual tasks that make up the project and achieve the desired result. The same can be said for reputation. You don’t build your reputation as a whole, you cultivate the smaller reputations that create it. Each individual action builds your reputation in unique ways and each requires some thought as to how they relate to the whole. Table of Contents
- Introduction
- The Reputations
- A Reputation for Fairness
- A Reputation for Honesty
- A Reputation for Trustworthiness
- A Reputation for Decision-making
- A Reputation for Empathy
- A Reputation for Helpfulness
- A Reputation for Compromise
- A Reputation for Clarity
- A Reputation for the Big Picture…and the small
- A Reputation for Balancing Work and Self
- A Reputation for Creativity and Innovation
- Conclusion
- About the Author
Career Compass: Finding Your Career North
5,100 Words
Imagine if when you were born you were given a magical compass to lead you through your life. It would always show you the way. It would show you the right answers on tests, lead you to the right college and to the right course of study at that college. It would lead to your first job, your first (and maybe last) love and always show the path ahead. This isn’t some idle fantasy. We each have a compass to show us the way, if only we would take it out of our pocket and use it. This compass, of course, is our desire. Instead of a needle, it is a feeling, a pull, a tension — in some cases, an overwhelming flood of feeling that says “Yes, this is the way — this is the one — this is where you need to go!”
“I am deeply convinced of the importance and effectiveness of social media. Like the Internet itself, which made social media possible, social media allows you to expose your talents, your products, your creativity to a huge number of people all over the world. The “loose contacts” we make online are the beginning of what I call our own global family. This isn’t one unwieldy global online community, but rather our own personalized family made up of those that bring value into our lives. Our communities might overlap in some ways, but they will never be the same. They can’t be. We are all unique individuals so therefore our communities will reflect this uniqueness In fact, when our communities are too alike, we might be just following the crowd instead of building our own community.”
Social Media Self Preservation is now available in the Amazon Kindle Bookstore.
An Audio Book version of Social Media Self Preservation is also available
*Amazon Prime members can “borrow” the book for free.
* Kindle books can be read on nearly any computer or mobile platform including, Mac, Windows, iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, and Android phones and tablets. Download Free Kindle Reader Software