Sharing and Connecting Is Just As Important As Closing The Big Deal

July 24, 2008 at 1:55 am · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: Blogher2008, Blogs, JNJ Blog

When I think of Johnson and Johnson I tend to think of babies and the sweet smell that J&J products give to babies.  Did you know that Johnson and Johnson had a blog?  I didn’t.  And surprisingly it is a very good blog.  I like the blog because the topics are just as random as the topics on my own blog and the posts are written in a very familiar voice as if you talking to an old friend.  Currently their are four contributing writers, Ray Jordan, Jeff Leebaw, Shaun Mickus, and Bill Price.  The editor of this blog is Marc Monseau .  A recent post written by an employee named Rob was about his experience at BlogHer 2008.  Rob attended a blog conference that was attended mostly by female bloggers.  One thing that Rob pointed out was that he noticed at this woman dominated conference women were more interested in “sharing” and connecting with each other whereas male dominated conferences would more interested in “selling” and “deal making.”

 I can totally agree with Rob’s observation.  As a higher education administrator  I have attended two NASPA conferences.  Many people use the conference as a chance to interview for positions at other universities.  However, I love to go to the conference to use it as a chance to not only learn about new trends in higher education, I also like to meet people from other universities that I would not ordinarily have an opportunity to meet.  I also get a chance to hear about the challenges that other universities may have or share “war” stories about housing issues, move in weekend, and helicopter parents. 

Last year, the conference was in Boston.  While I was there I meet Fabienne Naples, Ed.D and her husband Robert Naples.  Fabienne is the Associate Vice President at the University of Nevada, Reno.  Bob is the Associate Vice Chancellor/Dean of Students at UCLA.  Yes, the have a long distance marriage and they are the cutest couple I have ever seen.  They were also two of the nicest people that I think I’ve ever met.  And although both of them have very high positions at their universities, both of them are highly educated, and  exceptionally smart.  They were the most down to earth people you would ever want to meet.  Quite a few people at my university could learn from them.

On a side note…if you are involved in higer education in any way and you have never been to a NASPA Conference, you don’t know what you are missing.  

NASPA 2009 Seattle, Washington!!                                          

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