A continual learner and teacher, I love to discover something new about myself, about others, and about life in general. For example, when my daughter went abroad for a student-exchange program in her junior year of high school, I missed her so much that I interviewed other mothers and daughters and wrote a doctoral thesis on mother-daughter influences.

When she was about to head off to college, I asked myself, "Am I living the kind of life that I would wish for her as she became an adult.? The answer was "no," so I opened a private career counseling practice, taught graduate students in counseling, and wrote a book about how I was leading my life and what kind of example I was setting for my daughter and other younger women. As I was writing the mother-daughter book, I contemplated my next move.

Empathizing with the struggle that my adult students have in commuting to both their work and school, while trying to maintain a reasonably sane personal and family life, I created a self-paced, online job search and employability course for workers in transition, from high school on up. My goal was to make the Job Juggler the first and best e-course on employability skills available, and I intend is to keep improving it so that it can be of top value to those who use it. Then I created a Practitioner Program to help career practitioners support their clients in finding satisfying work. Most recently, I created Career Expert Audios that can be downloaded for instant listing. As I experiment with new media, I usually try out the media, myself, before using it with others. For example, listen to Jacqueline Marcell interviewing me on the topic of Coping with Caregiving.

When I was designing the online job search curriculum, I found that there was so much material on portfolios that I separated portfolio from the resume lesson, and gave portfolio its own lesson. Subsequently, I have found that electronic portfolios are growing exponentially and will probably replace resumes within the next 10 years, so I have begun both researching and sharing information on this development.

Upon viewing the results of a Professional Development Survey that I designed for the National Career Development Association, I see my role as not just counseling and coaching, but also learning about distance delivery systems and sharing this information with other career practitioners and students around the world.

College and university career centers generally reach about 10% of their students. Private and public institutions reach even fewer employees/clients. With the use of online courses, such as Job Juggler and e-communities, outreach to employees, clients, students, and alumni can increase dramatically. You are welcome to join me in sharing e-based career tools.

I am beginning to explore how to acquire and use information effectively, rather than becoming inundated with information. The Tightrope Artist Model of Career Decision-Making integrates past, present, and future through brain-based learning.

Last year I completed a book that was published by the National Career Development Association: "Starting and Growing a Business in the New Economy: Successful Career Entrepreneurs Share Stories and Strategies." After you read the book, if you are a current or aspiring entrepreneur, you are welcome to join the Entrepreneur Community to network with the successful career entrepreneurs who contributed to the book. Most receently I created Entrepreneur Kits for career professionals and their clients.

This year I started an e-community for family caregivers and another e-community for older adults in transition. I served as Guest Editor of a special issue of the Career Planning and Adult Development Journal on "Counseling and Advising Caregivers." This year I am writing a monograph to be published in 2009 by the National Career Development Association on Career and Caregiving:  Putting the Pieces Together.

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To become acquainted with my favorite resources available in LWPS online communities, explore "Owned communities" and "Community memberships" and link to keywords in the yellow box with my picture.