Infographics and The Matrix

. Personal

I fell in love with the simplicity of infographics a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, I struggled with how to represent our work in such a creative way.  Over the last week, I discovered a fabulous site (www.infogr.am.com)  that helps you generate amazing infographics very quickly.

I feel like Neo when he discovered he was The One.

The Matrix
All I can see are infographic chart icons where ever I look.

Have your data points ready and the spreadsheet integration makes generating these gems a breeze.

Infographics

Utilizing it,  I’ve generated a new word cloud for my skills that looks like this:

Kim Matlock SKills Cloud

Now, we all have an extremely easy tool to use to make pretty pictures!
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What Price Beauty

. Personal . , , ,

A co-worker of mine has gorgeous hair. It’s the kind of hair that looks healthy, straight and effortless. When I asked her how she does it, with a smile and a swing of her hair she says,”keratin. You must try it. You’ll love it!” Needless to say, I do nothing and with a hectic schedule, I don’t bother to get my hair cut. Months go by and my tresses are lengthening to a place that I haven’t worn for 20 years. But the extra time to blow dry my hair and flat iron it is increasing each morning just to get out my pesky waves. I begin to think that it’s time to consider the keratin treatment because after all, I “will love it”.

Where do I go? Who can do it? I ask our local hangout waitress who has just recently gotten her cosmetology license. After all, she had to have learned about it in school, right? I also feel compelled to help her out to grow her business as we’ve known her for several years. Sure enough, she’d be available to cut my hair and apply the treatment.

Friday, after Thanksgiving, dawns brightly as do my hopes of a new hairdo. I get over to the salon and excitedly get prepped. I love the experience of getting my hair washed with the hot water and scalp massage. The treatment begins with the hair washing. ( I didn’t know that it was an important first step). Then, my hair is painstakingly separated into small segments and the solution is applied. I can see and feel my hair getting straighter. Eventually, the solution is all over my hair. Not so bad. The next part is blow drying. Okay,cool. I’ll be out in under two hours. Sweet.

O no. No.No.No.No.

The blowing drying alone takes two more hours. The flat ironing another hour and my hair doesn’t seem to be coming out correctly. It’s never good when the stylists all huddle for a conference. My hair is saturated with the oily keratin substance and all the heat in the world is not causing the proper chemical reaction. I reply, can I get my haircut now? Yes, they decide that a break would be good. My stylist starts cutting my hair. Say what you will about Great Clips but at least they have a process in which to systematically cut the quadrants of your hair, none of which are being observed by my newly graduated stylist. There is no rhyme or reason with the cutting approach. At this point, I don’t really care. The cut is done and before the blow dryer is fired back up, I announce that I’ve had enough. I’ve been over four hours in a chair. I haven’t eaten anything and I need a biological break. They all try to reassure me that everything is really alright with my hair and that the oily look is really normal and I must leave it in my hair this way for three days.

Three days?? Three days? 72 hours? I’m mentally doing the math of time in my head, calculating the number of nights times the amount of natural oil that accumulates each morning on my hair and the summation is more than I can tolerate. I already suffer from an unnatural aversion to dirty hair. In school, I would wash my hair twice a day. It just isn’t a look that I will suffer and now I am being told that I must for three whole days. It’s all I can do not to melt down. As kindly as I can, I say that it isn’t working for me and I’ll just wash it out. My poor stylist is beside herself and has tears in her eyes as I check out. I assure her that it’s okay and I leave $150 poorer with a head full of grease.

Fortunately, we have no firm weekend plans because its a given that I won’t be going anywhere. When I wake up Saturday morning, my hair calculations are confirmed and its worse. I can’t take it but I figure I have to try. I find a kerchief and tie it around my head making sure that my hair is straight. It’s not pretty. In fact, I look like some biker chick after a long ride. Another look that I don’t suffer well. But, at least, I don’t have to look at my hair in any mirror. I can’t stand it. The day wears on and the feeling on my scalp is grunging me out. I’m ready to wash it out but I’m concerned as to what would happen to my hair.

Will I damage it more if I jump the 72 hour gun? Will it matter? What have I done? Sleep is alluding me and I decide to research what would happen if I violated the three day rule. I was happy to reaffirm that keratin is a natural occurring chemical in our hair and that keratin treatments can actually make your hair healthier over time. There is just this little agent called formaldehyde that is produced when the formaldin chemical is heated from the flat iron. Formaldehyde! As in preserving DEAD PEOPLE! On my HAIR! And I’m leaving it in for 72 HOURS! I’m a tad concerned. I keep digging. More forum posts, stylists who are praising the god send of the treatment and end customers with both “it’s the best thing in the world” and “it’s the worst thing in the world”. Of course, I have to look at these not so good views. One lady refers to an article that the formaldin causes nose bleeds and sore throats. Wow, come to think of it, my throat is kind of dry, perhaps even a bit sore. Could it be the grease in my hair? My panic rises. Another lady writes that her hair fell out in chunks. I quickly run my hands through the grease and tug on my roots. Nothing comes out. Whew. Finally, I find a stylist from Toronto who explains the chemical process and keratin bonding that convinces me that a washing is not going to be a problem and I’m finally able to go to sleep.

Sunday morning, I waste no time heading for the shower. I use the keratin shampoo that I purchased from the salon and scrub the bejeebers out of my hair. O, the joy of a clean scalp. I towel dry my hair and apply the keratin mask as prescribed by the conferring stylists. I blow dry my hair. Lo, as the follicles dry, the grease appears to be heavily reduced. Relieved, I determined after the drama of the last couple of days that a little bit of oil is fine. My hair is straight. The washing has indeed not affected the treatment. What does come to light is the cut of my hair. My perfectly straight hair is showing the unevenness of my shorn locks. I bust out laughing. How utterly perfect. A bad haircut too.

I think I’ll let my hair grow out and leave the fancy treatment to others. I’m clearly not “cut” out for it.

Redemption, Thy name is US Airways

. Social Media . , , ,

Okay, so it’s been awhile since I blogged. Chalk it up to too much work and too much travel. The last several months have been extraordinarily busy. After a conference in Scotland, with our EMEA partners, I was asked to reach out more frequently on my perspective in the world of social media at large. Frankly, I’ve tried to remain under the radar in this category simply because there are too many “experts” out there that taint the value of folks with the real world knowledge on how new media really works or in some cases, doesn’t.

After four social media focused conferences (with another one to go), it’s time to start adding my voice to the melee. Here goes…

Yesterday, after my 4th conference (in as many weeks) talking about social media, I was on my way back from Las Vegas. If you want to check out the conversation – go to Twitter and search on #hrcamericas. You’ll get the drift. BUT…my story is not about teaching folks to have a conversation in Twitter, it’s about my day interacting with @UsAirways.

I arrive at McCarron Airport by 7:00am where I am directed to check in using one of their kiosks. Now, I’m keen on evaluating the user experience as we are designing a kiosk experience for our Loyalty program. After a relatively simple process, I get to the magical time where the airline tries to bilk you for extra money on checking bags. It’s a crappy practice to create a revenue stream to pay for outsourcing 3rd party labor to load baggage on to the consumer and I was presented with a dilemma: do I check my carry on bag or drag it through the terminal? My concern was exacerbated by the fact that I had a small bag of leftover t-shirts (social media branded) that I had to bring back with me across the country because I (stupidly) did not give them out earlier. Now, I have my computer filled backpack, a small carry on suitcase and a tiny bag with 5 t-shirts. What to do knowing that @UsAirways are not kind about helping travellers out with more than TWO carry-ons. It was a dilemma to be certain. Unfortunately, when I got the to the user experience to pay for bags, I was going to be charged $25 to check the first bag. (Honestly, US Airways, this blows and the main reason I never want to fly with you again.) But again I digress…

I decided to take my chances and not check it.

I get to my gate and figured that I need to share with 200 of my new social media disciples that I use Foursquare just like I told them to do. Getting out my phone and navigating to the app, I search for “Nearby Places” and lo, my gate location appears. Before I check in, I decide to review the tips left behind by former travelers. WOW! I read this:

Yikes. It gets worse.

July 16 and no one responded from US Airways.

I check in to Foursquare with the comment on Twitter

I get on to my flight with my two carry-ons and little bag of T-shirts and a bumpy flight later,arrive safely in Charlotte. Upon arrival, I receive a response on Twitter from US Airways:

I am impressed.

Not a few minutes later, I receive this tweet:

Hmmm….that someone went to soooo much trouble to not only create a hater twitter account but to actually follow the tweets & respond was also pretty impressive on the passion of disillusionment this person had with the brand.

I tweet back

Running out of time to respond, I have to board my return flight home. The Gate agent comes on the loud speaker to tell the traveler’s that only TWO carryons are allowed. Again, the dilemma looms….will I get to take my little bag on or will I be forced to check my bag. As I make my way to the check-in, Mr. Grumpy Butts at Gate C12 (Flight 1765) shouts at me that I need to step out of line and condense my t-shirts or check my bag. Frankly, it’s probably the rudest anyone has ever spoken to me from an airline. (Now, a second reason never to fly with them again). I have been embarrassed in front of the line and as haughtily as I can manage I tell him to check my bag which irritates him further. I draw a little satisfaction on his annoyance. He grudgingly tags my bag and with an arched eyebrow to him, I turn and journey down the jetway. When I get to the end, I actually warred in my head whether I should just take my bag on the flight or leave it on the jetway. Given what a rude jerk he was, I decided to leave it and get on the plane. The First Class flight attendant greeted me as I walked on and asked me kindly if I was having a “good day” to which I replied “No, actually not.” In rather a shocked reply, the flight attendant said “Oh, I hope it gets better” to which I reply “Actually, it’s your gate agent, who is quite a jerk and made an otherwise good day quite bad”. Flummoxed, the poor flight attendant just murmured something unintelligible as I walked away and found my seat. Now, another crappy practice that US Airways has is charging for seats in the front. I paid extra to be in row 7. I didn’t get any extra leg room, nor even a window for my window seat. (Now, a third reason not to fly with them again). I place my little bag of t-shirts under the seat and put my backpack up above.

After another safe flight home (and let’s be honest….any flight that lands without a problem is a “safe” flight home), I arrive at my final destination.

Since it’s quite late and it’s not only been a long week, it’s been a long day flying, I now have to go to bag claim to retrieve my bag instead of going straight home. My irritation with Mr. Grumpy Butts has returned. Oh well, not his fault since I tried to game their system. I get my bags and reach into my backpack for my car key. No key. Frantically, I unload EVERYTHING out of my bag. No key. Shit. Did I lose it on the Vegas flight? Did I lose it in the Charlotte airport? Did I lose it on the flight home? Shit. I call my husband and eat some crow to ask him to come bring me another key to the car. Ironically, last week, I had to drive 60 miles to bring him another key to his car and didn’t let him forget it. Now, I have to beg his indulgence to come and help me. Sadly, the irony was not lost on him either. But…as he is the better person than I, he got on his way to bring me a key. In the meantime, I had a thought to check with the US Airways lost baggage department.

Now, these poor folks have possibly the worst job in the world. Everyone who comes to you is upset and pissed that they don’t have their bags. There can’t ever be a good day. There is a gentleman behind the counter who kindly greets me as I come in. I let him know that I have not lost my bag but rather my car key and would like to know the process in which to locate it. He started filling out an incident report to gather my flight numbers when he decided to just call out to my arrival gate to ascertain if they had found the key. To my utter delight, they did INDEED find my key!!! The kindly lost baggage clerk gave me a temporary boarding pass so that I could pass security and get back out to the gate to retrieve my key. I rushed through the airport and made it out to the gate where my car key was gratefully retrieved. As I got back to the lost luggage counter to retrieve my carry on suitcase, backpack and small bag of t-shirts that I had left behind for my O.J. through the airport, I profusely thanked not only the clerk but the two others who joined them. I was so grateful that when I picked up my bag of t-shirts, I had a thought.
At the conference, I had taught the audience that it’s a great idea to delight a customer by a random act of kindness. Here was an opportunity to practice what I preached. I reached into the little bag that had caused me so much trouble with the Charlotte Gate Agent and withdrew three t-shirts and gave them to the lost luggage clerks as a thanks for helping me find my car key. Not only were they surprised, they were happy to have gotten an unexpected gift. It was a fitting close to a very long day that ended with a much happier customer.

I received a final tweet from @USAirways in response:

Got to love them for trying….

“Can’t stop the gods from engineering, Feel no need for any interfering” Red Hot Chili Peppers – Can’t Stop”

Kim

Staying True to the TR30 Challenge

. Bucket List

Wow, I have to say that I’m doing better this go round than last. I’m actually doing two a day yoga, baked cookies & have been thoughtfully breathing. It really has helped get through an incredibly busy week which should have been high stress but wasn’t. Another crazy week is in store for me. Whoohoo….

On a seperate side tangent, as I’m writing this I can’t tell if the little lizard that lives outside on my office window is staring at me or at his girlfriend this morning. As I was having a meeting in my office last week, we caught them having lizard sex. It was like an episode of Wild Kingdom. Thankfully, not much to see and therefore no business model to enable lizard porn. I don’t even want to know if such a thing exists. I’d like to remain in my sheltered world…

“There’s more to see than can ever be seen, More to do than can ever be done” - Circle of Life Elton John
Kim

Where O Where Has Kimpossible2 been?

. Bucket List

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog entry. Like all excuses, life has been rather busy lately. When chaos is at it’s zenith, it means it’s time to organize my priorities in order to keep the right things in perspective. What it really means is that it’s time for another TR30 Day Personal Revolution. It’s living the next 30 Days like they are my last and find authenticity in all that I do. It’s propably a good time too since the next 30 days are going to be incredibly busy.

30 Day Bucket List

1. Practice Yoga each morning
2. Breathe (I know that sounds stupid but it’s really about thoughful breathing to stay calm)
3. Finish LM522. (my Cornell Univ Strategic Marketing class)
4. Mail I2 & A2′s Christmas & b-day presents. (yeah, isn’t that horrible? Last Christmas’ presents)
5. Bake some more cookies. (haven’t done it since the last time which is more than six months ago)
6. Pet a Highland Sheep (not as impossible as it sounds)
7. Get a picture w/Stevie Nicks (there’s a slim chance)
That’s all I got for the moment. I have to get my expenses done. Meh…..

“And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I’ve had enough,
But I’m gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough.” – Piece of My Heart Janis Joplin

Kim

Are you a Social Digital Addict?

. Social Media . ,

Are you addicted to posting, poking, pinging, tweeting, texting, IMing, checking in or emailing? Scary to think but you may be a digital social addict. According to Judith Horstman’s new book, The Scientific American Brave New Brain, research suggests that these actions trigger the release of dopamine to chemically reward you.

Here’s a quick list of behaviors that could determine if you are a digital social addict:

  • You lose sleep keeping up with e-mail & social networks. E-mail’s the first and last thing you check each day.
  • You spend more than 3 hours a day trolling, obsessed with checking to see who’s writing to or about you. How many “results” do you have on Google? How many Facebook “friends”? How many hits on your blog?
  • A lost Internet connection, cell phone dead zone or computer crash puts you in a panic.
  • Internet social networks are your main way of connecting with others. You have more than one such account. In fact, you have more friends on Facebook & Twitter than you do in real life.  What is real life?
  • You procrastinate and ignore work in favor of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email… The list goes on but your work doesn’t.

Ouch.  Hello Pot, It’s me, the Kettle, calling you black.

The upside for me is that I’m one of the very fortunate few in the world who are lucky enough to get paid to have this addiction because I can turn it into a business ROI.  Score!

 

“The problem’s plain to see, Too much technology”  – Mr. Roboto  Styx

Kim

Time Traveling

. Personal . ,

My paternal grandfather got me interested in the family history back when I was in High School. One summer visit, he pulled out a family bible from his paternal grandmother’s side of the family.  The bible dates back to 1836 and has all of the children’s names & deaths written it. Also, stuck between the pages are locks of hair, a crushed flower, a Klassen’s Wearing Apparel receipt dated Mar 29, 1915 to Miss Nettie Revoir for $1, my great-grandfather’s Modern Woodmen of America official receipt dated Mar 24, 1906 for $3.20, and my personal favorite: my great grandmother’s July 16, 1914 Singer Sewing Machine Company receipt for a whopping $2.  I’m not quite sure why the bible was the location of the receipts but I do remember my grandfather talking about them though he wasn’t sure why they were kept in there either.

My journey back through time this weekend was kicked off on Friday night when the dear hubby and I were winding down for the night. We happened to be flipping through TV channels when we stopped to watch the celebrity show of “Who do you think you are”. I guess each episode is meant to take a celebrity back through their historical roots to find something interesting that someone they are related to has done in the past. The show is sponsored by Ancestry.com and it got me back fired up again.  For many years, that site just didn’t have enough critical mass to get anything really researched.  So, I log back in for the first time since 2003 and pay up to get started again. Wow, was I surprised at the many changes in the site, but more important the amount of records that have finally been digitized. All of the Census records have been put online.  I remember when my mom and I would go to the public library and go through Microfiche to do our research. We’d spend hours & hours and not get very far.  Well, I stayed up past 1am on Friday and spent my entire Saturday afternoon and evening again to 1am updating the family trees.

I started to get so excited when I found that my wonderful Norwegian ancestors kept great records. I began tweeting every time I get another one hundred years into the past. The downside to the editorial process in Ancestry.com is that family records without digital or physical proof, is just really interesting but you can’t bet the house and the kids on it.  Fortunately, the Norwegian data was backed up by quite a few good sources. You can tell when information is crap when dates don’t match – like a mother having a birth date that is newer than the child record.  When I came across these incorrect records, I didn’t attach them to my tree and ended the search for that line. I was pretty pumped to have a claim that I was really a descended Viking since that was awesome & cool on it’s own.  But then our family history took a turn to Sweden. There I found one MacDaddy line that was unbroken and with clean dates all the way back to Sweden’s Royal Eriksson’s Dynasty to Sverker I in 1104.  It was nice when you hit royal lineage because everyone is married to another royal family and the dates are accurate.  We’ve got the King’s of Russia, Poland & Denmark in the family pile too.  Oh, and we have a saint too. Saint Birgitta of Sweden. She is somewhat credited for creating the rosary prayers of Our Father’s & Hail Mary’s.  Pretty sweet.

Now, my husband made the observation as many of you might, that if we go far enough back (as in my case almost 1000 years), we all are related to royalty. So, I set out to prove that theory out on his side of the family tree.  It turns out that his side isn’t doing to shabby themselves.  William Matlack (1650) was the first settler up the Delaware River into New Jersey and came across on the first ships to America from Nottinghamshire England.  He was a land baron and quite a wealthy man.  Sadly, like the royal lineage, the money and titles were lost over time.

Now, it’s Sunday morning. Not only have I missed my long run, I’ve blown off church as well to keep going on my grandfather’s mom’s side of the family. It goes to Switzerland in a generation, so I’m looking forward to seeing how far back I can go on the Swiss side.

So much for cleaning and prepping for our Super Bowl party. I have some more skeletons to dig up.

“All that I come from and I that I live for and all that I’m going to be, my precious family is more than an heirloom to me” – Amy Grant Heirloom

Kim

The Road to Punta Cana

. Personal .

There has been much excitement building up to our trip to the Dominican Republic. We’ve been prepping for several months to execute a global conference for the top leaders in our business. My team and I have spent weeks getting ready and D-Day arrived to make the journey. My trusty travel companion was ready to go too. Fortunately, this was another one of those trips where I could bring the fabulous hubby along (on our own dime – mind you). As usual, he knew the routine, though I would be working 24/7. he was on vacation and more importantly, on his own. Since the beginning of this trip is on a weekend, we get to enjoy each other and the mutual journey for a brief time together.

Our trip started out this morning to another trip to Charlotte. What I didn’t blog about last week is that our Week 2 of the New Year saw another funeral. This time for the mother of our closest cousins on the Matlock side of the family. My wonderful husband has an equally wonderful first cousin who is by far his best friend and like a brother. In fact, they look more like brothers, than the hubby’s own. It is his wife who is like a sister to me as true as my own. She just lost her Dad in August and now her Mom just four months later. It’s just awful that anyone has to bear that kind of loss. So, we went to Kentucky to support them in their grief. Our journey to Kentucky took us there and back again through Charlotte just last Sunday. And here we were again, just a week later…back in the Charlotte Airport. Strange.

What’s more strange- traveling to the Caribbean from Florida by way of North Carolina. It makes no sense. But then again, I’m not the one scheduling flights for any airline. Be that as it may, we go to Charlotte.

We get up bright and early to an extremely cold Florida morning. Our son is kind enough to get up and drive us to the airport. Our trip through security by the TSA has us both remarking what a gigantic waste of time and money the whole fiasco is. The only thing we can figure is that our current government can claim the new TSA jobs as part of the jobs created for the country. Thumbs up!

We make it out to the gate and what is important here (as my new Health Coach willl be reading), I don’t eat any fast food breakfast or crap served on the plane. I stick to my new Medifast diet (I’ve lost 9lbs this week- thank you very much!). I was hard core the rest of the day and naturally, I’m pretty pleased with myself.

We make it to our new favorite airport in North Carolina and saunter through the airport like pro’s. What we do find is that half of the nation seems to be traveling through there and it’s AMAZINGLY busy. We were dodging peeps right and left. Once again, I make my new diet stick when hubby dear eats a crazy big bagel for lunch. Pound fists.

We were fortunate to have a couple of my co-workers on the plane to make the other passengers wonder who the heck we were. I probably clued them in with my walking billboard of a t-shirt screaming Hard Rock but who knows? We had a comfortable flight down to the island. When we land, we notice that MANY other flights are landing/parking at the same time as our plane. All of the passengers de-plane from the tarmac. What was kind of weird, was the number of planes and the number of people de-planeing. It had a very cruise-ship feel to it. We all converged on immigration at the same time. We’re talking HUNDREDS of people from at least six different planes. What’s wild is that the Dominican Immigration moved us through fairly quickly. All tourist coming into the country must purchase a $10 Tourist pass to enter the country. A nice little cash bump to the D.R. bottom line thanks to the tourist. (You all know I love a person/business/county/government that takes beautiful advantage of capitalism for an economic gain)

After we purchase our travel cards, we make it through immigration and go to pick up our luggage. What suprises us in comparison to EVERY other country we’ve ever visited was
A – there were porters at the baggage claim conveyor belt
B – the sheer number of them

These guys (there were no girls) were very eager to help every tourist out with their luggage. They even would take bags off the belt and hover over them until someone claimed them. We were able to dodge all of the offers for help and drag our bags out of the airport without them. We were a bit fuzzy as to our shuttle service set up but fortunately I had read enough of our pre-travel literature to direct us to the right folks. Perfectly, our names appeared on their list and we were safely shuffled to the right bus. I highly recommend having this piece of travel pre-arranged before showing up as it was a bit of a mad house when we got into the transportation area.

A couple of our co-workers used one of the many porters to drag their bags out of the airport to our bus. The poor porter tried to take our bags but we refused. When we got to the bus, he took our bags and put them into the bus then demanded that we tip him. We didn’t. OMG!! He started bad mouthing us in spanish. Then, my darling hubby took him on and told him he didn’t deserve a tip as we took our own bags. The guy stalked off saying some not so nice things about us in spanish. Great. We’ve gotten off to a wonderful start.

Thinking it was going to be touch and go, we had a great trip over to the hotel. Lots of hairbend curves BUT there were speed bumps in the road. Unlike anything we have in the U.S. A total uneventful trip and unharrowing. We get to the resort and though we knew it would be big, we had no idea HOW big it would be. In true Hard Rock style, we got kick-ass service from landing, check-in and our trip to the room. AND O WHAT A ROOM!!

King bed in the center and at the foot of the bed, two steps down a double butt jacuzzi tub that looks out onto a tremendous patio. The shower has enough room to shower a family of four together. The hotel is spectacular in every detail and we couldn’t be happier with the summer temperature.
We are kicking back, pinching ourselves that we have this opportunity. Never would we have put the D.R. on our bucket list, but we are sure glad that it happened that we did.

The quote on our headboard..
“Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree. Traveled the world and the seven seas…” – Eurythimcs

Nighty-nite,
Kim