Recently I spent the day supporting a proposal team in person after working with several of them only through Teams calls, emails, shared documents, comments, and deadlines. We already knew how to work together. We knew who handled which parts of the project, who tended to ask certain questions, and how the work moved from … Read more

I’ve always been one of those people who can figure out how to do a lot of things. Give me a new piece of software, an unfamiliar document, a messy project, or a problem nobody quite knows what to do with, and there’s a pretty good chance I’ll start poking around until I understand it. … Read more

Back-to-school season always makes me think about homework in the most basic possible way. Before anyone sits down to do it, there has to be a pencil, paper, the right book, maybe a calculator, and somewhere reasonably quiet to sit. None of that is the homework, of course, but try doing the homework without it. … Read more

I didn’t become a life coach because I wanted to leave consulting behind. I became a life coach because consulting kept turning into coaching. The longer I stayed on a project, the more likely it was that someone would close the office door, lower their voice, and tell me what was really going on. Sometimes … Read more

One of the hardest questions to answer when you work for yourself is also one of the simplest: What do you do? It should be easy. After all, you know what fills your days. You know the kinds of problems people bring you, the projects they hand over, and the work that keeps finding its … Read more

Apparently, one thing leads to another. I updated my resume. Then I updated LinkedIn. Then I realized DebraOConnor.com was sitting there waiting for me to decide what I wanted to do with it. So, on a Sunday afternoon, while three proposals and several other projects are patiently waiting for Monday morning, I installed WordPress and … Read more