theparkerfamily.org

Tag: Worklife

  • ’tis the season for cubicle decorations

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    i love my co-workers.

    my team is the only group on our floor that’s decorated their cubes this year — and once again we’ve totally out done ourselves. the theme this year was “white trash” and i think i can safely say that we knocked it out of the park we’re just plain awesome.

  • wishing

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    we’ve got a new CMO at work — chief marketing officer — and i’ve been itching to meet him.

    i’m itching partly because i’ve heard such great things, and partly because i don’t have a good track record with meeting my “C”-level executives so i want to get it out of the way.

    see, when i first started at my current gig i met the then CEO … on my second day … in the 2nd floor bathroom.

    it was awkward as hell, and over the next four years he proceeded to introduce himself to me each and every time he saw me, never once remembering that we had met before.

    about three years ago we got another CEO and about a month into his tenure i met *him* for the first time … in the 4th floor bathroom.

    it was awkward as hell, and I haven’t really talked with him since.

    so it was with GREAT relief that i made it to the conference (which our new CMO is leading/attending) without any untimely meetings in a bathroom back in the worldwide office.

    it just so happens that i met our new CMO this morning … in the bathroom of conference center … while i was actively using the, er, facilities.

    it was awkward as hell.

    no word yet on if we’ll ever speak again.

  • tonight, on larry king live …

    i’ve spent the better part of the last six days helping get the Conservancy ready to be one of the featured charities for tonight’s CNN/Larry King Live “Gulf Coast Relief Telethon” at 8 p.m. ET.

    besides the normal online donation stuff my team always does, we’re using the opportunity to launch our first mobile text-to-donate effort.

    viewers will be able to text “COAST” to 50555 to donate $10 to The Nature Conservancy’s Fund for Gulf Coast Restoration. needless to say, i’m fascinated to see how it goes.

    so, tune in tonight … and help me justify my paycheck.

  • circa de mayo

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    See All the Photos on Flickr:
    circa de mayo

  • diversity at the conservancy

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    … comes down to which color Prius you own.

  • firsts: direct mail from the Conservancy

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    baby sparklet got her first piece of direct mail from the nature conservancy. not sure if she got it because her uncle/aunt/cousins adopted an acre for her, or if i just used her information as some kind of test.

    either way, i’m feeling a perverse kind of proud right now.

  • baby sparklet: single-handedly crippling office productivity since 2009

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    i honestly believe that i could get a full day worth of child care from my coworkers … just break Sparklet up into 15 minute increments.

  • paternity

    [The Nature Conservancy's Hellen Creek Hemlock Preserve, Lusby, Maryland.]
    IMG_0522.CR2, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    it’s 4:01 pm, and i’m officially on paternity leave … and will be on full-time sparklet duty between now and February 17th, so the lady sparkler can go back to work.

    being able to take this much time is one of the great benefits of working at a non-profit — and one of the great benefits of having great coworkers — that i can (a) disappear for this long, and (b) not be worried that the world is going to end without me.

    right now, the only burning question in my mind is whether i will now have more time to blog, or less. and i guess that means that life is pretty good.

  • firsts

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    photo of the week // week six
    another string of small celebrations over the weekend:

    • first “take your daughter to work day” — we stopped by the Conservancy on Friday afternoon (i had the day off) and made a quick round. i love the fact that i am the only boy in a department of 29 women for just this type of occasion.
    • first television — i caught little miss kate actually *watching* television this weekend. sunday night, i put her down in front of the tv to get her a new bottle, and when i came back here eyes were transfixed on the screen. of course, it was the tottenham match, and they went on to win 9-1 (which is kind of a lot for a soccer match) so she’s now allowed to watch tottenham whenever she wants.
    • first dress — baby momma has been just itching to get sparklet into a little dress she had picked out, and we had a couple good reasons (guests, work) to break out the nice stuff. monumental, because it’s the first time she’s broken out of the usual onesies/pants routine.

    in other news, we had out latest pediatrician’s appointment on Friday. sparklet clocked in a a whopping 9 pounds, 1 1/2 ounces, which brings her up to about the 25th percentile for weight. if you couple that with 22 inches long (75th percentile) and 14 inches around (25th) she’s either going to be a bean pole, or a supermodel, or both.

    and lastly … i’ve got to find a new time to blog. way back when, i used to blog on my two hour round-trip, public-transit commute, but with the baby i have started driving (i know, i know) which not only takes less time (18 minutes each way) but isn’t a very good environment for multitasking.

    more recently, i’ve been blogging during the downtime between the 6:00 pm feeding and the 10:00 pm feeding. the lady sparkler is asleep, and sparklet *used* to be either (a) asleep or (b) blessedly docile. however, since the onset of the six hour rolling dinner feedings last week, there has been precious little time (or free hands) to write anything down.

    maybe they make thought-to-screen, telepathy-based dictation software for the mac …

    Explore the Photo Set:
    sparklet’s first dress

  • foundation center: *basic* quick and dirty case studies on social media

    another presentation on social media today, this one at the Foundation Center in downtown D.C. this group was looking for a more basic information about social media, so we talked much more about what people (especially small orgs) should be doing in the social media space.

    the panel was setup by Dahna Goldstein of PhilanTech, who had a bio that would rival most noble laureates, and again featured Jocelyn Harmon (of Marketing for Non-Profits fame).

    no fire alarm this time, which was a good thing, because (with questions) we went a full hour over our allotted time. a lot of fascinating discussions, especially from a portion of the non-profit community (the smaller part) that might not have the same bandwidth and resources to devote to the topic.