Making Room for Women with Effective Strategic Communication

You know me. I'm all about the progress. And now it's for the women out there. I'm sharing the presentation I put together in my first graduate level course in Strategic Communication. As we all know, women have been major contributors in the workforce for decades and we still manage to fly under the radar when it comes to being recognized for our talents and potential in leading others, especially in male dominated fields such as science and engineering.

Please feel free to share my work as a reminder to organizations that women have made tremendous progress, and we are ready for some recognition.

Thanks, and enjoy.

You "knocked it out of the park" with your slide design and your delivery. Very well done. One of the best. -- Dr. Chupp

My next class is Crisis Communication. That will be fun. Stay tuned!

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Sparky Sweets, PhD - Thug Notes

I found Sparky Sweets, PhD when I followed a link posted on Facebook. That's how I discovered #ThugNotes. Sparky summarizes and provides analysis on some of the top literature of all time. Classics like To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, and my favorite, 1984, are some of the books he features on his hit YouTube series, Thug Notes.

Check him out. You'll find him entertaining for sure. He uses some mature language, but in the context of his message, I find it appropriate and non-offensive.

You'll learn so much more about the classic tales he shares and how these great authors wove amazing stories with the underlying truth of reality. I never had an English teacher who could break it down quite like this. These short clips are golden!

If you care to Tweet this, please include a shout out to Mr. Sweets @SparkySweetsPhD and show the brother some love.

Sneak Peek - To Kill A Mockingbird.

If you had a chance to view his other videos, which was your favorite? I think I've watched them all. I'm waiting for him to give an analysis of The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. Okay, maybe it's not up there with these classics, but hey.

PEACE, y'all.

My First Photoshop Projects

We've been doing a lot of traveling lately, so I thought I'd share some of what I've been doing on my Christmas break. These are images I created in my online Photoshop class. Tim purchased the course for me as a Christmas gift.

I've always enjoyed working with photography and digital images, even though I don't get an opportunity to do so as much anymore. I'm more involved in my writing these days, so this bit of distraction has been a lot of fun.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed creating them. Remember though, I'm a newbie and have never used Photoshop in my life, so when I tell you this class is easy, I would know. You can register for any number of courses. They are all video based. What better way to teach than to show, right?

This is what I created in my first lesson. The lesson provides instruction on how to create shapes and move things around. I used a few different layers to create this image. The background was provided, I didn't do that part. This is a bit embarrassing to look at. It's like the equivalent of writing program code which prints out "hello world".

The second lesson on changing eye color was a little tricky, but this is where you start to duplicate some instructions and things start to sink in. I think I want to change my eyes to red! Mwahahaha.

I had to concentrate a little more in this third lesson, because more Photoshop features were introduced. The videos are perfect for this sort of learning, because if the video gets ahead of you, you can rewind it!

Transfixing a tattoo on a person was the easiest project so far. Doesn't it look real?

This project had me working with textures. I had no idea you could do these things in Photoshop. I'm so excited about learning Photoshop right now.

This project was a bit weird, but fun. My husband asked me why I created a winged elephant standing in nuclear waste. Okay, it wasn't my idea to put these elements together. It was part of the course materials.

Anyway, this has been part one in sharing my Photoshop projects with you. I'm looking forward to sharing more!

All About My 5th Grade Bully

by Diane Carlisle

I commented about school lunches on April Plummer's blog this past week and it got me thinking about childhood traumas, or what I call childhood dramas today. This led me to thinking about an issue which has become a huge problem today, and not only amongst children either. Bullying is becoming so widespread, or is it just getting more visibility because of social media and technological advances?

I remember the girl who bullied me when we were in 5th grade. I can envision her face as I'm writing this. When I see her, this child who must have been lashing out, but at what I couldn't begin to tell you, she is just that, a small child.

Her name was Ellen Mathews (name changed to protect her in case she’s a changed person today). She always wore a dress. She didn't wear new dresses. They were old and two sizes too big. Her hair wasn't glistening and shiny like the other black girls whose moms had obviously taken care to comb, braid and polish their hair before sending them off to school.

Ellen's hair was scary. I can only imagine that she had to do her own hair. Her braids were loosely twisted together like the hairy legs of a tarantula spider and they looked like they had a fine layer of volcanic ash dusted over them. Her skin wasn't golden, chocolaty or brown, it was an ashy black and her eyes the same. She knew I was afraid of her and I think that made things worse.

Why do I remember her so vividly? Because up until that point, I'd never been bullied in my life. Sure I'd been in arguments and fights with other kids, but being bullied is a whole different issue. I'd never felt so alone as I did when I was bullied, and that face and her demeanor, mannerisms and all, will never go away.

Such little things a person can do to terrify another person and she probably didn't realize it. Maybe someone was doing it to her, I don't know. But, how else does a child learn that kind of behavior? I mean to ball up your fist, bug out your eyes with an angry grimace and silently mouth to someone you barely know, “I’m a get you.” That doesn’t just come from a 5th grade little girl.

I remember once we were on our way to the library and she walked up next to me and started teasing me and so I sped up. Then she sped up so that we were neck and neck again. I slowed down and so did she. I was afraid and she knew it. Then she said, "I'm a beat you up when we get out the library."

I didn't say anything back, I just kept walking. My entire session at the library was spent worrying about being beat up. Ten minutes before the bell rang, she looked over and stared at me. I glanced away, but each time I looked up again, she was still staring at me and her face looked angrier and angrier. It was like the first time I'd watched The Wizard of Oz and Miss Gulch rode by on her bike during the tornado and then turned into the wicked witch of the west. I remember all I wanted to do was go home.

I felt claustrophobic. All the other children at my table seemed to be caught up in their own groups, laughing and whispering with each other, and the librarian was busy cataloguing books. It was the loneliest feeling I'd ever experienced. I should have told a teacher, but I didn't want to bother anyone with my little issue. I didn't want anyone to know I was afraid, that this little girl who was smaller than me was making me afraid.

Anyway, she beat me up like she said she would. I was shoved and pushed against another child, who got mad at me for stumbling into them and thus pushed me back into the bully. Of course, they couldn't get mad at the person responsible for pushing me into them, right? The whole time I wanted to apologize to each person I stumbled into in hopes that they'd forgive me and not join the harassment.

Of course, I didn't tell my parents because I didn't get punched in the eye or mouth, no black eye or fat lip. She didn't hit me, just lots of shoving and pushing which sort of injured my pride a bit. Then a teacher got word that there was a "fight" and Ellen and I both had to write "I will not fight in school" five hundred times each. Sad, isn't it?

The next morning I remember going into my parent's bedroom and whispering to my mother, "I don't feel good. Can I stay home from school?" The dreaded hand to my forehead to check my temperature was an indication that I'd be going to school to face my bully yet again.

This sort of thing didn't happen every day. But you just never knew when it was going to happen. How do you prepare yourself to face such a person? There was always that day when I'd show up at school and Ellen didn't. CHA-CHING!! Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, free at last! Well, at least for that one day.

Classroom Introductions Are Stupid

by Diane Carlisle


I've always heard that fear of public speaking is the number one fear for 90% of people, a higher percentage than that of those who fear death. Wow, that's something. But that in itself makes me the more curious about this phenomenon. Let's dissect the very simplest form of public speaking, the classroom introduction.

I hate it when the instructor tells the class about himself, or herself, and then asks each student, when it's their turn, to stand up and tell a little about themselves, starting with their name. UGH!! Again? I just did that in the last class! Why do professors require this sort of thing? Is this a teaching tool that they learn at University to get the classroom under control by elevating themselves and blathering on about their own background and why it is they came to be here before us today?

I'm thinking, "Good, I'm not in the front row this time, so I won't be going first. I'll get to hear what everyone else has to say and then I won't feel so bad after they all reveal how absolutely boring they are in their everyday lives." Of course, it never turns out that way. There's always the Director over some huge operation in the Gulf or a Naval Officer working on his Master's degree while taking a break from his annual hiking expedition.

So what can I say now? My nerves are in a bunch already, but now I have to reveal that I'm a software developer who loves to play online, roleplaying games as well as 1st person shooters, and I like to write about fictional characters who commit heinous crimes, including the dismemberment of a college professor who asked his students to introduce themselves.

I stand, take a deep breath, and clear my throat, "My name is Diane Carlisle and I'm a software developer." I sit down.

< crickets chirping >

You would think I just blurted out that I was an alcoholic. I take out my iPhone and make like I'm busy.

"That's interesting, Ms. Carlisle. Do you have any hobbies?" Ah, the ole you won't get away with that in my classroom tactic.

I look up. "No, I don't." Back to my iPhone.

"So, what do you expect to gain from this class?"

I want to say an "A" but decide that would be rude. See what public speaking does to people? That's not me at all. Why does this happen? Normally, I'm fine with talking in front of a group of people and being the center of attention when I have something which I care to share, like a software product I created. So why is an introduction of myself so off putting? Why do I feel so at odds when asked to tell a little about myself?

I don't like to blather on about who I am (at least not in a public forum such as a classroom) because I'm a rather humble person. Once I'm done with the class, it's time to move on. Nobody is going to care about what I do or who I am 8 weeks from now when this class is over, so why are we wasting time and energy going through it? I hate being redundant. Can't we just exchange business cards? Here, take one...my blog address is printed on there and I wrote a "little" about myself on a page labeled "About Me". Stop by and comment sometime.

So, are you ever anxious about public speaking? If so, why?