The Middles

Questions to ask at networking events I am writing this from an AirBnB in New Orleans, having just attended the inaugural News Leaders Association conference and now staying through the week for the Online News Association conference.  It is a week full of catching up with old friends and colleagues and meeting new folks. It…

Assignment: How do you lead? I mean, really, what drives leadership for you? Why do you want to run that meeting or project or manage that team? How do you do it? With a strong hand? With empathy? Honesty? Firm direction? Many questions? You don’t have to have answers for this, but there are very…

*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|* The big book of lists I have told y’all about my notebooks before, but I recently adopted an idea from Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, a dear friend and Cohort sister (We attended #50WomenCan together). It’s the big book of lists. Juleyka has a single notebook, that is full of notes, but mostly lists. Lists of things…

  Flirt. Flirt. Flirt. A long time ago, I was lamenting the woes of job searching to my friend and ally Robert Hernandez. He stopped my rant and said, “Always flirt.” I’ve elevated this motto to be “Always Be Flirting” and was discussing it in the amazing Journalists of Color slack group. They said writing out the…

Edition 52: The one where I don’t apologize. Not sorry. I was chatting with a sponsor and a friend about this newsletter and how infrequent I am about it. “Sorry.” Don’t apologize, they said, the infrequency means you send it when you need to and when you have something to say. Which is funny, because…

How to be laid off I have been laid off (I think) four times. I stopped counting, clearly. So instead of my usual ramblings or an essay for this week, I decided to start building a resource/wiki of sorts. I’m calling it “How to be laid off” and it’s a collection of things I’ve gathered…

The phrases you lean on I have a lot of them. “You know what I mean?” “So, really…” “Does that make sense?” Crutch phrases. Those words we turn to when we’re looking to fill the silence or when we’re trying not to trip over ourselves. “Basically…” used to be one of my crutch phrases until…

Edition 48: New Year, New Me? The lookahead It’s 2019 and we can say 2018 (which was a trainwreck for most of us) is officially behind us. I’ve spent the last few weeks mulling my 2019 goals, both professional and personal. I try to set goals as opposed to resolutions, because goals tend to feel more…

Edition 47: The holidaze The head and the heart This is my final newsletter for 2018. I’ll be taking next week off and then the next Middles will be in the new year and I already know what it’ll be about: Goal setting! Please send thoughts and recommendations on that my way. I want to…

Edition 46: I need a new friends list Walking the line I was sitting in my office the other day (I have an office!?!), in a new city, trying to learn how to use a PC again and figure out what my teams need from me first. My husband of only a few months was…