Listen to Traci

I truly love writing this blog, but sometimes I struggle to decide what I’m going to write about.  And so I troll the internet, looking for topics that would lend themselves to my industry in general and, I hope, my job specifically.  But as anyone who has gotten lost in the nooks and crannies of the internet knows (sticky, tangled web indeed), it’s easy as all get-out to be distracted by the minutiae.  I've been keeping a list, and here are just a few tidbits that sparked my interest: Scientists believe the Greenland shark can live over 500 years.  Full disclosure – the dating method is inexact.  The particular shark in question might be anywhere from 272 to 512 years old, but most likely is about 400.  And one study in the journal   Aging Research Reviews notes a deep-sea sponge from the species Monorhaphis chuni   lived to be 11,000 years old. Sponges, by the way, are animals, not plants, which is another fascinating fact I learned. ...

I’m a working mom.  If you’re unfamiliar with the species, I won’t bore you with a detailed list of how busy that makes me, but I’ll bet you can imagine it just the same.  Peacefully immersing myself in music is a luxury.  So when I do have the chance, I want it to count.  But being a working mom also means I’m on a budget, and so have to be careful what that indulgence costs. Enter the upstart BackBeat 500 .  In a word, “wow.” The 500 is a lower-priced Bluetooth headset that rivals the quality of high-end models.  At $79.99, you won’t find wireless headphones at a better price with better sound (note:  there is an included wire to give you the option of connecting via a 3.5mm jack). According to NPD Group, in the first half of 2016 the overall headphone category saw a 7% growth rate in year-over-year sales, while cordless headset sales grew by 42% in the same time period.  With Apple leading the way for the cell phone industry to elimina...

Buzzwords aren’t all bad, but they can be vague, pretentious, and lazy.  Maybe they’re called buzzwords because they’re like mosquitoes:  annoying, hard to get rid of, and they’ll make you itch. We’ve all heard them, and most of us use them, but, like mosquitoes, they’re generally just irritating and useless.  Empower:   Seriously, I hate this.  It implies that someone else has to give us permission to have power. It’s condescending too.  And demoralizing.  The opposite of power.  Ideate:   It just means “think.”  Say “think.” “Ideate” makes you sound like you think too highly of yourself.  Bleeding Edge:   Gross.  Cutting edge will suffice, if you must, and doesn’t make me flinch. Bandwidth:   It’s trendy to use this word to identify a person’s or team’s capabilities, as in, “we don’t have the bandwidth to complete this project on time.”  But as someone who works in telecommunications, I prefer...

“The humble Cumulus humilis - never hurt a soul.”   ―   Gavin Pretor-Pinney ,   The Cloudspotter's Guide Joni Mitchell sang to us about looking at clouds from both sides.  Keanu Reeves took A Walk in the Clouds.  If you’re distracted, your head is in the clouds, if you’re deliriously happy, you’re on cloud 9, and when things aren’t going your way, remember that every cloud has a silver lining.  Clouds are powerful enough to block the sun but too insubstantial to hold.  But here in the super-technical, uber-digital 21 st century, The Cloud has come to mean something completely new, increasingly pervasive, and statistically explosive.   The odds are excellent that if you have a smart phone, something of yours is stored on the cloud somewhere.  Do you use Gmail, Instagram or Google?  You, my friend, are cloud surfing.  Basically, “The Cloud” is a whimsical phrase for computer outsourcing.  But holy cow is it po...

My intention for this post was to wax rhapsodic about the motivational powers of music.  I would then elaborate on this theory by talking about the scientific evidence that our brains tell our hearts to beat at the same tempo as the music we’re listening to.  So for a really effective workout, we should listen to upbeat (120-130 bpm) music, whereas for concentration, we should listen to music that calms and focuses (about 60 bpm).  At this point I would segue brilliantly into the superior quality of Plantronics headsets that maximize the delivery of the right music for the occasion.  Finally, I would effectively come full circle and encourage you to turn up the music and get to work. I got distracted, though.  I polled co-workers, friends and family to see if I could find a common thread for motivation.  The answers ranged from the obvious (cash, survival), to the inspirational (excellence, curiosity), to the amusing (looking for lost keys, pickled bee...

Let’s talk about politics.  Just kidding.  I’m actually not a big fan of beating my head against a brick wall.  How about religion?  Um, yeah, ditto. Customer service it is then.  Now there’s a topic I’m happy to sink my teeth into.  Everyone has a customer service horror story.  A truly hair raising tale about terrible treatment from a so-called professional when you needed assistance.  There are some pretty entertaining stories  from the other side of the looking glass as well – customers whose requests were so outlandish as to be laughable, or whose treatment of salespeople was flat-out abusive.  Consistently bad service, however, indicates a company that runs by rote, and requires employees to stick to a script even when the script is nonsense. On the flip side are the stories of epic customer service that are passed around new-hire training sessions like The Good Word at bible camp.  If you Google “great customer servi...

Fifteen states and four U.S. territories have hands-free laws, and all but six states have some form of restrictions on cell phone usage while driving.  Even without state regulations, giving your absolute attention to the road is simply good common sense.  And as a working mom, I need to be reachable no matter where I am or what I’m doing, but I need to be safe while doing it.  Furthermore, having all the natural navigational abilities of a petrified stump, I also really appreciate having my GPS’s instructions delivered directly into my ear.  Pre-GPS, a trip to a new location for me involved a map, inevitable tears, and liberal reliance on U-turns.  Combining new state-of-the-art navigation systems with a really great headset means I never get lost (at least for very long) anymore. The fact is, there are a lot of reasons we need mobile communication – smart phones, soft phones, GPS, unified communication, working from home, traveling to meetings. ...