Be honest, dating was tough enough in high school but these days women are waiting until their late 20′s or 30′s to begin dating seriously, as in looking for a mate.  There are also a fair number of women in their 40′s who find themselves single or single again.  The days of clubbing in hopes of meeting someone are less appealing than they used to be.  Interoffice dating is always fraught with perils. So where does that leave an intelligent, self-respecting professional woman who has reentered the dating realm?

In doing a little incidental research, I’ve spoken with several friends on this topic.  One woman, a divorced lawyer in her late 30′s usually meets men through mutual acquaintances.  She’s met some enough oddballs to start keeping a list entitled ‘Men I Will Not Date’. My personal favorite was a fellow lawyer who threw a paperclip at her in a bar then picked it up and asked her if she’d dropped it.  Some of the men she’s met are only interested in ‘hooking up’ and not any sort of real relationship.  While her anecdotes are funny and definitely book worthy, the frustrations she faces are not uncommon.

Two other friends have tried online dating. While this eliminates some issues it introduces new ones.  One woman doesn’t want children while the other would consider adopting or step-parenting. One prefers tall men. One loves to travel. Online dating profiles certainly make it easier to weed out the incompatibles. However, it’s easy to get lured into a false sense of the person you’re dealing with when all you have to go by is a string of emails.  The old Internet warning that a person can pretend to be anything online still applies.

How much do you choose to reveal to a perfect stranger?  You could consider setting up a separate email account for online dating purposes, but if you’re a professional woman with any online presence at all, once a person knows your name, you’re going to be pretty easy to find.  This is particularly true of entrepreneurs. Your contact information is readily available. Social media accounts offer up a bevy of personal information.

There’s a whole new dating etiquette out there. How many emails to you exchange before do you decide to exchange phone numbers? How many conversations before you decide to meet?  Where do you meet? Do you go alone or as part of a group? These are all factors to consider before diving into the online dating pool.

One thing is certain, all the women I spoke with are perfectly willing to hold out for The Right One rather than lower their standards.  We’re more educated and independent than in past generations. We’d like someone to share our lives with but we don’t need a partner to validate our existence or to provide financial security. We’re doing just fine on our own, thank you, and we’re not going to settle for cheesy pickup lines or being strung along.

It’s a fact of corporate life that every office has a drama queen (or drama king).  The one who lives for gossip, can be passive aggressive and loves to stirs up trouble.  Drama queens are often out more concerned with personal gain, with little or no interest in the good of the team or the company.  The key isn’t knowing who the drama queen is, it’s knowing how to deal with the personality.

Here are some tips on restoring office harmony:

• Be willing to talk to your boss for to ask for their support in dealing with a drama queen.

• If the drama queen isn’t pulling a fair share of the work, gather your team to review everyone’s responsibilities and the due process.

• Before meeting with anyone, whether it’s your boss or the drama queen, be sure of your own intentions.  You want to ease tension and create harmony.

• Establish a boundary and be ready to stick to it.  Either the drama queen will comply or test your resolve.

• If your boundaries are being tested, you’ll have to take action.  The key to good discipline is documentation and due process.

Mistakes that don’t hurt don’t matter. The worst mistakes are the ones that hurt others. The trouble with leadership is your mistakes always hurt others.

The top 5 mistakes of unsuccessful leaders:

~ Not being open to criticism.
~ Trying to hide mistakes.
~ Not making decisions.
~ Failing to explain objectives.
~ Telling people how to do things rather than telling them what needs to be done and letting them figure out how to do it.

See on leadershipfreak.wordpress.com

“Social media management dashboard HootSuite has announced a slew of new additions to its App Directory, with Reddit, StumbleUpon, Scoop.it, Nexalogy, and Cmp.ly jumping on board.”

Paul Sawers from TheNextWeb details the expansion of the HootSuite App directory that now includes Scoop.it and links back to its previous Scoop.it coverage.

See on thenextweb.com

Grow Your Practice, the Easy Way: Automate Your Marketing with a CRM. … This means a whopping 80% of your prospects need to hear from you upwards of 5-6 (or MORE) times to invest in your services!
See on getentrepreneurial.com

Last weekend was eye opening. I had been invited to attend an Entrepreneurial Seminar and even though I didn’t think I had the time to spend all day Saturday and Sunday, I went anyway. I needed to get out of the house.

The leader of the seminar was only 29 years old and I thought, “What’s a kid going to teach me?” Well it turned out, he taught me a lot and that seminar has prompted me to re-access my business plan.

See on www.sharpbizimage.com

“Here are three alternative browsers that I use regularly to perform tasks I think are necessary for educational use and general use that I can’t do using Apple’s default browser.”

See on mgleeson.edublogs.org

Robin Good: If you are looking for some good free keyword research tools you can find information and direct access to the best four ones in this illustrated article. 

Informative. Useful. 8/10

Full article: http://www.seo-northern-ireland.co.uk/keyword-research/best-cheap-free-keyword-research-tools-2012/

See on www.seo-northern-ireland.co.uk