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Fran Stephenson March 19, 2020 Leave a Comment

Work From Home: Sharing Our Virtual Team’s Daily Tips

New to working from home? We’re not! Our team is virtual and geographically dispersed across three time zones! And we have spouses, kids and fur babies in the mix too!  Earlier this week, we shared our top tips on Working from Home on our Facebook page . We got a lot of positive feedback on them, so we have combined them here into a brief bulleted list.  Questions? Ask away and we’ll do our best to help.

Fran Stephenson, Texas

10 years in a Home Office

  • Use the time chunking method
  • Minimize distractions like answering the door, picking up mail, etc.
  • Be aware of how much you are sitting and change position/location frequently
  • Don’t forget to eat lunch.

Jennifer Hatton, Colorado

9 Years in a Home Office

  • Prep family lunches and snacks the night before
  • Use an app like boomerang for reminders
  • Be realistic about “to do” lists
  • Use a planner for “All the Things”
  • Set time blocks for working and schedule things for my kids.
  • Be flexible to change up kids activities as needed
  • Your pets will tell you when it’s time to take breaks!
  • Set up a place to work, even if it’s small. Make it pretty!

Brittany Perry, Texas

5 Years in a Home Office

  • Shower and get dressed every morning, even if you’re not going anywhere
  • Make your work station personal – candles and an awesome playlist are my faves.
  • Take breaks and spend intentional time with your family.
  • Family communication is important too. Check in with everyone.

Claire Larson, Maine

6 Years in a Home Office

  • Doors are your friends. Everyone needs some space. 
  • If you can, get your kids outside in the yard or driveway, in a space where you can still see them. Set rules for when yard time is up.
  • Be creative with phone meeting locations – I’ve used the shower and a closet in a pinch.
  • Use an online calendar to help structure your day and schedule your tasks into time blocks.
  • Give yourself a start and end time to your work – you now live in your office and have to create boundaries for yourself (and others)

Most Valuable Takeaways

  • A space with a door, but improvising works too
  • Routines but with flexibility
  • Organize, organize, organize

Final Thoughts

Our virtual team is amazingly productive and so flexible. We cover for each other when someone has a sick child, a family emergency or just needs down time.  When your team is this fabulous, it’s easy to take them for granted. I try to find unique ways to connect with these three valuable women. We’ve sent care packages with themes like “it’s time for Fiesta” and “Summer Survival Kits” and check in via text and call.  Memes keep us laughing too.

Are these coworkers amazing or what?

Filed Under: Professional Life, Project Management

Fran Stephenson November 5, 2013 2 Comments

Reflections on SeaWorld’s 25th Anniversary

Some memories from SEaWorld including a photo, an award and name tags. It passed by with little fanfare earlier this summer, but SeaWorld San Antonio is 25 years old. This is an important milestone for our city, our region, and one that is important to me personally.

This largest of the SeaWorld parks opened in April 1988 in what was then considered a remote part of San Antonio.  I was part of the opening team to market the park, arriving in San Antonio 7 months earlier.

It would be easy to talk about how SeaWorld San Antonio changed the physical layout of the northwest corridor where it was built.  Even simpler (and more amazing!) would be to examine its economic impact in our region and on the city’s tourism efforts. Or how thousands of high school and college students called SeaWorld their “first job.”

But I will leave that to others to examine.  What I want to celebrate after 25 years is the effect that the place, the project and the people had on my life and on my career.

There’s something about this place – San Antonio – that is hard to explain.  Living in San Antonio opened my eyes to a radically different culture from my Cleveland upbringing. I knew nothing about Mexico, or the history of the region, much less the rich fabric of the Hispanic heritage here.  It drew me back to SeaWorld in 2002 as the Communications Director 10 years after I left the company to start a family and live overseas.

The enormity of the project—building the world’s largest marine life park—did not impress me until much later. We had a big job ahead of us: get the park open by April 15. We did whatever was necessary to make that happen. We traveled, presenting shows in dozens of cities across the U.S. plus Mexico and Canada. We hosted writers, business leaders and anyone who would listen to “park tours” from the vantage point of the Garden of Flags.  While that’s natural for a marketing team, we also planted flower beds, raked, picked rocks and laid sod during the two weekends preceding opening because there were not enough hours in the day to get it all done.

While the impact of San Antonio and the size of the project made a mark on my career, it’s the people I met and the leaders from whom I learned that made the experience a defining point in my career.

At this point in my post, I should start naming names, but if I did that, I would most certainly forget someone who made an extraordinary impact on me over the 15 years I worked for SeaWorld. There is no company I know with stronger leadership, singular direction and focused passion like that of my colleagues at SeaWorld.

Now, as a solo public relations pro, I frequently find something that I experienced during my SeaWorld career which applies to a completely different industry or situation.

While the exact moment of SeaWorld’s twenty-fifth anniversary may have passed, my gratitude is enduring.  I hope I get invited to the park in 2038 to celebrate fifty years.

Filed Under: Professional Life Tagged With: career, professional development, Sea World San Antonio

Fran Stephenson April 19, 2012 Leave a Comment

Your Next Job Interview May be Weirder

I attended the “Rockstars vs. Roadies, Who Makes a Better Employee?” session at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival last month.

This session was a real stretch for me because I am a one person shop, so I don’t hire people, at least not right now.  A thread which emerged during the session about interview questions got me thinking about interviews today and how the whole structure of interviewing for jobs has radically changed.

The panelists confirmed the continuation of a trend related to interviews and hiring.  That the bizarre, unusual and off-the-wall interview structure is here to stay.

Don’t think this applies to you? Here are the panelists’ favorite screening questions and observations.

Do I want to grab a beer with this person?

Would I want to spend an hour stuck in the airport with this person?

What’s the biggest deal you ever did that fell through and why did it fall through?

They also suggested asking former employers if they would rehire the candidate and measure the time between question and answer. If the former employer hesitates, that indicates a “no” answer regardless of what they actually say.

PR Practitioners who are preparing for interviews need to think and prepare differently. Here are a few resources for prepping for your next job interview.

A recent Forbes article shared what top executive recruiters felt were the top three interview questions.

The Monster Job site offers a very long list of the most used interview questions. Fairly predictable.

It may be more useful to prepare for your next job interview by reviewing some of the weirdest interview questions in this Huffington Post article.

Or have a look at what Toilet Paper Entrepreneur has collected as the best job interview questions.

If you’ve read this far and have clicked through some of the resources, you’ll notice that the traditional questions are nowhere to be found. So, if you’re preparing for a job interview, you might want to prepare to answer some of these:

  • If you were an ingredient in your kitchen, what would you be and why? What about breakfast cereal? Hit song?
  • What color are you?
  • If you won the lottery tomorrow, what would you see yourself doing?

If you’d like to listen to the entire podcast of the session, go here.

What interview questions have you been asked lately? Share some here so we’re all better prepared for our next interview.

Filed Under: Professional Life Tagged With: interview questions, interview styles, job interviews, Step In Communication

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