Successful Blog

Interview 9.3: Tammy’s Biggest Challenge, Her Wish, and Her Advice

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How Does One Mediate from a Blog?

Dr. Tammy Lenski

Dr. Tammy Lenski is an author, coach/consultant, teacher/trainer, mediator, and runs her practice both in the 3-d World and in the blogosphere. We talked about challenges, issues, and wishes her practice brings her.

Hi, Tammy! What do you find is your biggest business challenge as a mediator?

Conflict is uncomfortable and scary and preferably avoided by a lot of people. Even the word makes some people cringe. As a mediator and coach, I get to see the truly life-changing transformations that take place when a person steps up to her most difficult conversations with the support of someone who knows how to navigate these conversations effectively. But people who haven’t tried that have no real basis on which to really understand how they can transform their lives. Every time a client says to me, “You just changed my life,” I tell them to go out and tell that to 10 people they know!

What are the most important issues in your work?

I see people disempowering themselves every time they blame the other person for the conflict. When we blame the other person and tell ourselves they need to change or fix what they caused, we hand all our power to them. And if they don’t think it’s their fault (they usually don’t), then we’re stuck because we’ve made it their job to fix it. There are such straightforward ways to get beyond the blame game and I’d love to see more people doing them—from our country’s leaders down to the people at our own dinner tables.

What do you wish for?

I wish for a culture where people don’t wait until conflict’s really entrenched and stuck before they think about asking for some help. I wish for the telephone call that begins, “A co-worker (or spouse, etc.) and I have gotten into a bit of a difficult place with each other and before it gets really messy, I thought I’d get some guidance…” At the risk of sounding trite, world peace begins with every individual.

One last thing before we go, what advice would have for folks starting out?

Find your voice. Figure out what’s unique about you and be bold and tenacious in bringing that to the world.

That Tammy Lenski, she knows how to have a conversation. Doesn’t she? I can’t help but learn when I listen to her.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Interview 9.1: A Conversation with Dr. Tammy Lenski
Interview 9.2: Dr. Tammy Lenski, Mediator, Coach, Blogger
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1.1 Meet Indie

Interview 9.2: Dr. Tammy Lenski, Mediator, Coach, Blogger

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How Does One Mediate from a Blog?

Dr. Tammy Lenski

Dr. Tammy Lenski helps folks sort out a dispute and converse constructively, even when they’re frustrated. That’s her role as mediator — part coach, part strategist — in helping people solve communication problems. Tammy began blogging early in her business. Let’s take a look at what she has to say about it.

Welcome back, Tammy! About blogging, how and why did you bring your business to blogging?

I heard of blogging years ago when it first began, created a Blogger account, and put up a few posts. Back then it was mostly teenagers writing about their lives and I just couldn’t figure out how to get my clients interested, so I dropped it. Then, a couple years later, I read about the ways that blogging platforms can serve as content management systems. That got my attention, because I had hundreds of e-zine articles I was trying to manage effectively on a standard website—way too much work. So, I got a WordPress account, started educating myself about blogs (the idea of business blogging had been born by then and was in its earliest stages), and jumped in. I got to write about things that interest my clients, had an easy way to manage lots of articles on my site, and could interact with and learn from my readers.

What’s been the biggest surprise about bringing your business to blogging?

How easy it’s been to create real connections with people—like you—via the digital world. Though I was creating web pages and using email very early on in the development of those technologies, I was skeptical about real relationships being possible via the web. I thought that only happened with weird people who sat alone in their apartments at 2 a.m.!

Next the challenges and important issues of a mediation business.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Interview 9.1: A Conversation with Dr. Tammy Lenski
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Link Leak Virus Overtakes Parallel Universe!

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Everyone Knew the Time Warps Weren’t the Only Thing

If we could have as many lives to be as many versions of ourselves as we could be, what might we become? The outer limits of Successful-Blog had that conversation and weird musical sounds were heard coming from every category in the sidebar. No one actually said that an extraterrestrial would be a choice, but . . . some thoughts in that direction seemed to come up.

The Link Leak Virus was to be part of the whole operation, whether we were Mother Teresa, Mark Cuban, Lucille Ball, or Donald Trump.The Link Leak Virus is a special strain of the indie virus with blogtipping mutations that occur in threes. But we were in a summertime frame of mind.

Welcome to all of the new folks who came. It was great fun having you!

Cool links were shared.

What Actually Happened?

And this week Rick Cockrum of Shards of Consciousness found a creative way to tell the story of last night’s event.

AdLib is happy just as he is
Fresh bread close at hand, hair down to his chair
His blog back in biz, and music filling his air.

Joe is a lawman,
A wookie for real
Protecting us all with McGyver’s great skill.

Scorpia, too, is content
As she already is
Everyday fantasy is already her biz.

Liz directs song and the dance,
Electronics begone.
Children, flowers and writing Is where she belongs.

Renee comes in singing,
Dancing dog in her arms.
Man and canine alike, she soothes with her charm.

Christine’s in Missouri
Her ballads filling college breeze.
She stopped and said hi before the clock made her flee.

Chris Cree is traveling,
A hero in the stars,
Humming Led Zeppelin, escaping storms in his car.

Seanrox cooked at the barbie,
A feast he laid out
While being James Bond with a bottle of stout.

Douglas dropped in among us,
Just to say hi
Then time warped him away, away to fly.

Ben plays great hockey,
And cartoons on the side,
With Basil his donkey, round the world he does fly.

Starbucker wings in
Home from the West,
Song and dance in his soul, with his wife he does rest.

Cat steps in for a moment,
Still fuzzy with sleep,
Tea in the morning, as to bed we softly creep.

Tony’s in a time warp, two hours behind,
Somewhere he is starving
Drawing comics so fine.

Phil zips by so fast
Pac-man behind him
In a kung-fu world Donkey Kong races past.

Wendy said it was fun
From time zones away.
In the alternate world she stops by to play.

And Ellen pops in
With a comment from home
She read the discussion as a way to be grown.

So another mic closes
It was quite a feat.
We think of you often until the next week.
— Rick Cockrum of Shards of Consciousness

Thanks, Rick, for that great summary! Thanks Everyone, for coming!
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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The Mic Is On! We’re Having Parallel Lives!

Net Neutrality 9-13-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Net Neutrality and the DMCA

. . . Buried deep within the legalese and copyright mumbo jumbo of the DMCA is a single but little read clause that could, in theory, have a dramatic impact on the net neutrality fight, especially if net neutrality never passes.

[ . . .]

When the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998] (PDF) became law in 1998, telecoms breathed a sigh of relief. After years of uncertainty, it was revealed that they could not be held liable for any copyright infringement that passed through their network. As a “transitory communications” provider, all they had to do was meet a few simple requirements and they never had to worry about being held accountable.

However, it’s one of those requirements that may now prove to be a sticking point. The second requirement for a “transitory communications” provider reads as follows (emphasis added):

“The transmission, routing, provision of connections, or copying must be carried out by an automatic technical process without selection of material by the service provider.”

In short, the DMCA gave telecoms a pass on copyright infringement suits so long as they didn’t make any selection of the content that passed through their service. As long as telecoms are blindly routing requested content to its end destination, they could not be held accountable for that material.

However, the minute they start intelligently discriminating one type of material from another, their situation becomes in doubt. They no longer meet the qualifications of “transitory communications” provider and now have no clear status under the DMCA.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

The Mic Is On! We’re Having Parallel Lives!

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

Here’s how it works.

open mike night

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about.

Tonight we’re talking having more than one life!

castle Beach Barsailboat

We might also talk about

  • Donald Trump or Annie Lennox
  • Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela
  • Steven Spielberg or Meg Ryan
  • anyone real or fictional

AND THE EVER POPULAR,
Basil the code-writing donkey.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Tues. 7pm Chicago: Open Mic — What Would You Do with a Few Parallel Lives?

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Let’s See There’s the Rich One, the Rock Star One . . .

Personal Branding logo

YES, the mic will be open again tonight. So start collecting your thoughts. Remember, you get to bring what you want to talk about.

The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about.

Tonight we’re talking about having more than one life!

We might also talk about being able to be

  • Donald Trump or Annie Lennox
  • Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela
  • Steven Spielberg or Meg Ryan
  • anyone real or fictional

AND THE EVER POPULAR,

Basil the code-writing donkey.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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The Mic Is On! It’s Summer Vacation Again!