Tag: My Blog Posts

What Do You Want On Your Tombstone?

Legacies That Matter: Reflections on Life and Loss

Death is a subject we often avoid in conversation, yet it’s the one certainty we all share. Rather than dwelling on its inherent sadness, I find myself reflecting on how our encounters with mortality can unexpectedly enrich our perspective on living.

The Gifts of Goodbye

I’ve been fortunate to have experienced relatively few losses in my life—a blessing I don’t take lightly. Yet, those departures I have witnessed have profoundly shaped my understanding of what matters. My grandfather, one of the gentlest souls I’ve ever known, passed a few years ago. Seeing him in his open casket offered a bittersweet final moment of connection, though it challenged my emotional reserves in ways I hadn’t anticipated. These moments of farewell strip away our daily distractions and remind us with stark clarity how precious and precarious our connections truly are.

The Echo of Kindness

Several months ago, our workplace lost a beloved executive whom I had briefly met at a restaurant about a year before his passing. What struck me most powerfully was the day the news broke—colleagues from every department shared stories of his genuine kindness and the impact of his small, often unnoticed acts of compassion. His absence revealed the profound presence he had maintained in countless lives.

A Measure of a Life Well-Lived

This experience brought to mind a quote that has stayed with me: Those most deeply missed are people who entered this world crying while everyone around them smiled, yet departed with serenity while leaving others in tears. It’s a powerful reminder that our legacy isn’t measured in achievements or possessions, but in the emotional imprints we leave behind.

The Question Worth Asking

Perhaps instead of fearing death, we might use its inevitability as motivation to ask ourselves: When my time comes, will I have lived in such a way that my departure creates a genuine void? Will there be stories of kindness that outlive me? The most meaningful tribute isn’t found in elaborate eulogies, but in the authentic grief of those whose lives were genuinely better because we existed alongside them.

The awareness of our mortality doesn’t have to paralyze us with dread—it can inspire us to live with greater intention, to repair relationships while we can, and to create a legacy of compassion that resonates long after we’re gone.

The Flipflop Generation: How Generation “Y” Will Change the Workforce

How different generations bring their unique perspectives and working styles to the modern workplace

Flip-flops — a symbol of changing workplace norms across generations

As I have mentioned in past posts, I was at a Communications Media Managers Association (CMMA) event last week in Arizona. Before I was a manager I always hated not getting any information about what my bosses got to learn at the events they attended, so I vowed when I became a manager I would communicate everything (as much as possible anyway) that I learned.

CMMA brought a speaker in to talk about the differences of the generations in the workforce, which I thought was interesting being a person from the Generation “X” era. She said her son wears flip-flops to work, and she gives him a hard time for doing so, but he says “oh mom people don’t care what I wear to work.” Each generation is bringing their own style and way of thinking to the workforce. As older generations retire, newer generations are going to greatly change the way we manage people, think, and work.

As you can see from the graph below, times are changing and in 2013 Generation “X” and “Y” are going to make up the majority of the workforce. The speaker started the talk saying that there are lots of stereotypes with each of the generations, and most of the examples below are stereotypes. The speaker had each table list out the traits each generation tends to have for 15 minutes, and below is what all of the tables came up with. Obviously when you look at the traits of your generation I am going to bet they do not completely represent you which is why she said we can’t the work stereotype, but you also need to look at the trends and find ways to manage each generation because they have different outlooks on the world.

Generational Workforce Distribution

GenerationBirth YearsCurrent Workforce2013 Projection
Veterans1901-19434%2%
Boomers1943-196240%32%
Generation “X”1962-198140%39%
Generation “Y”1981-200316%27%

She said many people in each of the generation groups tend to have things happen to them which affect their outlook on life. The list below are stereotypes/traits and events that likely shaped how each generation perceived the world, which in turn changed how they work(ed) in a professional environment.

Veterans Generation (1901-1943)

Veteran generation

Formative Experiences

  • Great Depression
  • Winning World War II
  • Military Service
  • Success of large government programs
  • Development of large companies
  • Communication increases with newspaper, radio and automobile
  • Culture of patriotism and strong “family values”
  • Influenced by their parents and their church
  • Went home and stayed dressed up

Veteran Generation Strengths

  • Experience
  • Loyalty
  • Dependable
  • Respect of authority
  • Structured
  • Frugal

Boomers Generation (1943-1962)

Boomers Generation representative image

Formative Experiences

  • Woodstock
  • Influenced in things other than their parents and church
  • Influenced by television
  • Thought of as the least patriotic group
  • Watergate
  • 2 leaders assassinated
  • Surge of births increased competition for jobseekers
  • Influenced by peers, schools, and media as much as parents
  • Went home and changed into their casual clothes
  • Positive economic expansion
  • Television and rock and roll
  • Culture of disillusionment
  • 55+ is the largest segment of Internet user growth

Boomer Generation Strengths

  • Flexibility
  • Good mentors

Generation “X” (1962-1981)

Generation X representative image

Formative Experiences

  • Friendships
  • Divorce
  • Latch key kids
  • Almost half the number as Boomers
  • Workplace technology
  • Parents downsized from jobs
  • Great unsupervised generation
  • Outsourcing of jobs
  • Computers in every home
  • Online/speed dating
  • Communications by email and the Internet
  • Expect bad things to happen, but know they can work through it
  • Choose their close relationships
  • Immediate access to worldwide information
  • Innovative
  • Flexible
  • Literate

Strengths of GenXers

  • Willing to challenge authority
  • Innovative
  • Independent
  • Able to multitask
  • Results oriented
  • Work-life balance
  • Measure me by my results

Generation “Y” (1981-2003)

Generation Y representative image

Formative Experiences

  • Potentially larger number than Boomers
  • 24/7 technology and media
  • Every milestone a celebration
  • Went through school in teams
  • Parents emphasized self-esteem, lots of praise
  • Lead public lives (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc.)
  • Planned activities and playtimes
  • Open minded, care much less than other generations about biases toward gender, race, sexual orientation
  • Just entering the workforce, so not sure what we are going to do. They are going to potentially mirror the veteran and Genxers

Strengths of Millennial Generation

  • Fresh view
  • No fear of technology
  • Willing to challenge authority
  • Innovative
  • Team players
  • Not as biased (more open-minded) and they may tend to be less judgmental
  • Able to multitask

Final Thoughts

Managing Across Generations

Understanding these generational differences can help managers better engage with their teams. While stereotypes don’t define individuals, recognizing these general tendencies can improve communication and create more effective working relationships across the multi-generational workplace.

The Future of Education

Free, Digital, and Accessible to All

My First Long Form Blog

I’ve been writing down a few topics in draft form and adding to them as I have time. That may be good news or bad news, depending on if you like to read long posts. Please know with all blog posts that my ideas are just that, ideas. Society tends to want to think the way it has always been taught, but change is inevitable. Bruce Barton said it best with his quote: “when you are through changing, you are through”.

“When you are through changing, you are through.”

– Bruce Barton

My Educational Experiences

It is no secret I love technology, and sometimes you can’t help but wonder how it will continue to change our lives (for better or worse). I look back at my education and the teachers who had the daunting task of trying to teach a dunce like me a thing or two. I never really enjoyed school, in fact, the day I graduated from high school has to be one of the best days of my life.

My wife and I have a son who is fifteen months old at the time of this writing. After talking with a coworker who asked if I had started saving for his college, yet I replied I hadn’t but in the back of my mind I get a “spidey sense” I should. Part of the reason I haven’t saved for my son’s college is because we have other financial priorities at the moment, but part of me also wonders what college will be like for him in another 17 years. By not saving for his education, I am taking a calculated risk that in the future, education will be nothing like it is today. After going through 12 years of public education in 7 schools, I hope it will be very different!

Tuition

Private 4-Year College

$23,712

Average Annual Tuition

Public 4-Year College

$6,185

Average Annual Tuition

As I am writing this post, the average cost of tuition for a private 4-year college is $23,712 and $6,185 for public colleges. I can’t help but think that when my son is ready for college everything will be mostly virtual, which many colleges have already starting to embrace today. Even when I was going to college 8–10 years ago, there were some online courses offered.

My thinking is if households obtain broadband access, what is really stopping the world from offering free admission to any course? Isn’t it just a matter of time before technology completely levels the playing field for developing nations to better compete and have access to the same resources? The US was founded on the premise that we wanted the world to “give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” If the US has always been the pioneer in driving change and helping the willing, should we be leading by example to help provide the world free (or at least very cost affective) education?

Education Should be Free

I am an open-source advocate, so it is probably not a big surprise for you to hear that it is wrong to charge for education. Education should be free to all who are willing to learn. I’d like to see a huge company like Google provide a grassroots effort to have the best professors in the world teach online. The beauty of online lessons is it scales, and traditional institutions are limited to how many students can fit into a classroom or auditorium.

Furthermore, when a professor is finished teaching his/her lecture, why do they teach it time and time again during the day? Additionally, year after year they teach the same thing over the years. With technology, professors should give their best lecture on a topic and have that lecture live on forever for all to consume. TED is a great example of just that, they bring together the brightest and best who can share with the world what they have learned.

Students should never have a “burned out” teacher in the future because just like a machine, the Internet can play their best lecture for all to view billions of times. If a teacher provides a lecture which is used extensively, they can be compensated like how Google AdSense works today.

The Internet is the Modern-Day Calculator

I’m almost wondering if the Internet is the modern-day calculator. For instance, should we teach our students to cram as much knowledge into their heads as possible or teach them how to find the answers using the Internet? Technology, knowledge and the world is constantly changing, so is it better to memorize data or just know where to find it if you need it?

I remember in school wondering why on some tests they wouldn’t let us use our calculators. The teachers would say things like, “well, what if your calculator battery died?” We, of course, replied “I have a solar calculator” which the teacher, of course, replied “what if it is a rainy day” which we replied “turn on a light”. With mobile devices giving us the Internet anywhere we travel, isn’t the Internet really a child’s modern-day tool to leverage, like the calculator (or encyclopedia) was to us?

Textbooks

Textbooks are expensive, heavy, and are outdated as soon as they are published. It seems inevitable that in the very near future textbooks will be electronic documents which are constantly updated by the brightest, the best and the world on a given subject matter. Amazon.com has recently released the Kindle, and paper books just seem to be on their way out.

Teachers of the Future

We will always need teachers, but are they being fully utilized today? For instance, with computers we can now let students take tests on computers and the results can be instantly calculated and rolled up for the teacher in his/her “grade book”.

Let me be very clear, I’m not saying teachers are not valuable, but I think everyone should be able to teach the world, not just those who are certified to teach. For instance, you can learn something from a homeless man/woman, a retail clerk, a CEO, a construction worker, a sanitation worker, a President, a CIO.

At the end of the day, we all need to learn to embrace technology and harness its power to communicate to the world. I would want teachers to be moderators of a technology where knowledge is validated. Let the world teach, and let teachers help validate what is taught. I realize it is no easy task, but teachers don’t scale and in my opinion they are not being fully utilized.

Traditional Education Needs to Change, How Can You Help?

As Forrest Gump famously said: “that is all I have to say about that”.

What do you think?

  • What did I get right?
  • What did I get wrong?
  • What do you think the future holds for the world’s education?

Join the Conversation

How has your educational experience shaped your view of what learning should be? Do you think free, digital education is inevitable?