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Jon Paul is a content marketing manager at D2L. He enjoys writing, creativity, content, advertising, marketing, tech, comics, video games, film, TV, and time and space travel.

Jon Paul

Here are some of the key people you’ll need to mobilize around your modern learning strategy and the important roles they’ll have to play to help you realize it.

Building Your Modern Learning Dream Team

Several agencies are embracing creativity and innovation. ATD Editor Paula Ketter offers highlights from the October issue of The Public Manager.

Innovation—Not Just a Buzzword for Federal Agencies

Paula Ketter offers a preview of the June 2016 issue of The Public Manager, which focuses on the federal government must change its recruiting tactics.

Attracting Top Government Talent

(From The Washington Post) -- For the federal leaders on your holiday shopping list, here are some of my favorite leadership books from 2012. Each book offers keen insights into management, human nature, and the thinking and actions of those who have been on the frontlines and succeeded. In the biography category, two recent additions to the bookshelves are perfect for federal leaders. William Silber’s Volcker: The Triumph of Persistence examines Paul Volcker’s work battling inflation in the 1970s and his role in helping the nation recover from the most recent financial collapse. The book offers behind-the-scenes accounts of Volcker’s time at the Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve. It also chronicles his resolve and independent thinking during times of crisis. Few individuals have had as profound an impact on our federal government over the last 50 years as Volcker.For those who appreciate history —particularly Revolutionary-era leaders — Jon Meacham’s book on President Thomas Jefferson is a great read. In Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power , Meacham provides what many critics consider one of the most comprehensive and balanced portraits of a very complicated man with many strengths and weaknesses. It offers leaders who want to learn from history an invaluable resource by providing insights into a man who understood humanity, could marshal ideas, learned from his mistakes and prevailed. Another good choice is Robert Pozen’s book, Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours . Pozen offers advice on how to achieve workplace productivity and high performance, and provides solace to those feeling overwhelmed by a heavy workload and competing demands. He also offers suggestions on how to determine the highest priorities and manage time wisely. Maybe it’s not time management that’s the major challenge, but information overload. If that’s the case, check out the new book by data rock star Nate Silver — The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t . This book can help any leader struggling with the best way of handling everyone’s latest, greatest buzz term: big data. If you are a federal leader overwhelmed by numbers, Silver’s book will help you distinguish between useful versus merely interesting data analysis.Read more.

Great Leadership Books in 2012

The Internet Society, an international organization that promotes open dialogue on Internet policy, technology, and future development among users, companies, governments, and other organizations, recently announced its inaugural Internet Hall of Fame.Among the inductees is Danny Cohen, who developed the first real-time visual flight simulator on a general-purpose computer and the first real-time radar simulator. Cohen also was the first to implement "packet-video" and "packet voice" (Network Voice Protocol)—demonstrating the first application of packet switching to real-time applications—when he adapted the visual flight simulator to run over the ARPAnet.Other inductees include:Pioneers CircleRecognizing individuals who were instrumental in the early design and development of the Internet: Paul Baran, Vint Cerf, Danny Cohen, Steve Crocker, Donald Davies, Elizabeth Feinler, Charles Herzfeld, Robert Kahn, Peter Kirstein, Leonard Kleinrock, John Klensin, Jon Postel, Louis Pouzin, and Lawrence Roberts.InnovatorsRecognizing individuals who made outstanding technological, commercial, or policy advances and helped to expand the Internet’s reach: Mitchell Baker, Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau, Van Jacobson, Lawrence Landweber, Paul Mockapetris, Craig Newmark, Raymond Tomlinson, Linus Torvalds, and Philip Zimmermann.Global ConnectorsRecognizing individuals from around the world who have made significant contributions to the global growth and use of the Internet: Randy Bush, Kilnam Chon, Al Gore, Nancy Hafkin, Geoff Huston, Brewster Kahle, Daniel Karrenberg, Toru Takahashi, and Tan Tin Wee.Commenting on the 2012 Internet Hall of Fame inductees, Internet Society president and CEO Lynn St. Amour stated, “This historic assembly of Internet visionaries, innovators, and leaders represents an extraordinary breadth of vision and work. While the inductees have extremely diverse backgrounds and represent many different countries, each individual has an incredible passion for their work. We all benefit from their outstanding contributions to a global Internet, making it one of the greatest catalysts of economic and societal development of all time.”In conjunction with the announcement, the Internet Society has launched a website at www.internethalloffame.org that will showcase the inductees and their contributions on an ongoing basis. The website, which includes inductee photographs and biographies, will feature an ongoing, exclusive column series authored by Wired. Highlighting multiple inductees each month in Q&A interviews, the first interview will feature Internet Hall of Fame Pioneer Vint Cerf.

First Visual Simulator Developer Makes 2012 Internet Hall of Fame

Winter 2013 - The Public Manager

Conflicting interests,management styles, planning schedules, and agency cultures nearly sunk an emergency preparedness program. A new process solved the program’s budget and accountability impasse and built trust between state and federal government participants.

Using Integrated Process Teams for Interagency Coordination

Mindfulness. Mindful. Being mindful. Practicing mindfulness. Look around these days and you’ll find a myriad of discussion, news, groups, and classes all around this thing called mindfulness. From the Huffington Post to Time magazine, mindfulness and being mindful is more than a hot topic. Mindfulness is THE hot topic of the early 21st Century.But is mindfulness here to say? Some say that mindfulness is just another flavor of the day. A fad. The latest thing of the moment. Regardless of if you or I think mindfulness is a fad, its presence is real. Mindfulness is here—right now.But what is this thing called “mindfulness?” What is “mindful?” What do these words mean…really mean? How are they defined? Of the definitions out there, whose is right?A search of the words “mindfulness” and “mindful” on the internet pulls up more than 2 million results. Let’s take a look at the more common or well-known definitions.Founder of the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) technique at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness in Full Catastrophe Living as “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally, to the unfolding experience moment to moment.”Out of the University of California Berkeley, the Greater Good offers a definition of mindfulness as “maintaining a moment-to-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment.”Another well-known figure in the field of mindfulness is Sharon Salzberg. Her definition of mindfulness is “the state of being fully present, without distraction.”Some would argue or present the argument these definitions are Westernized, and they engage in a dance of debate of the definition of mindfulness as well as question its origin. (We’ll save that discussion for another blog post, though.)I prefer a definition that is simple, and I tend to go old school and lean on a reliable and respected source such as a dictionary. Merriam Webster defines mindfulness as, “The quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.” To make the definition even simpler, when I am asked, “What is mindfulness?” my answer is, “Mindfulness is awareness.” Quick. Simple. Short. Easy to remember. Easy to understand.Mindfulness is as complex as the word love. Actually, the word mindfulness reminds me of the word love. Ask 10 people the question, “What is love?” and you’ll more than likely get 10 different answers. Heck, ask 50 people on Facebook “What is love” and you’ll receive some long answers, some short answers, and some answers that are as long as a peer-review journal article.And in the workplace, mindfulness also differs from person to person, team to team, division to division, and organization to organization. What matters is what YOU think mindfulness is? How do you define mindfulness? What does it mean to you?While the industry and field of mindfulness is unregulated, I always caution clients and people I talk with about adopting another person’s opinion as fact or truth for their own beliefs. I suggest doing these few steps in order for you to come to a definition of mindfulness.Steps to define mindfulness:Write down or use a tablet to capture your thoughts about the word “mindfulness.” What do you think it means?Then ask, “Why do you think it means this?”Now explore on Google, through books, articles, discussion with co-workers, family, or friends what are their thoughts around the word mindfulness. Capture all of these in a central document.After collecting the information from steps 1-3 go back and review what is collected. Reflect on this information. Think about what was captured.Ask yourself (and the group if in the workplace) “why does it mean this?” How did it get to this meaning? Why not something else? Where did these come from?Create three columns: 1) can live with, 2) neutral, and 3) can live without. Identify and place these potential definitions and comments into each of the three columns. Anything that falls into the neutral column, repeat steps 2-5 until they get placed in a non-neutral column.Review what’s placed in the “can live with” column and condense and create /into a definition of mindfulness. Now you have your definition of mindfulness.These steps can be done individually or they can be done as part of team work within an organization, school, or home. Once completed the result is an agreed upon definition of mindfulness; one that will work for you, the office, team, school, and at home.Let’s continue this discussion. Send us your comments and thoughts about this blog, as well as your experiences and outcomes of going through the process of defining mindfulness.

What Is This Thing Called Mindfulness?

This is the fourth post in a multi-installment series on mindfulness. Other posts include An Introduction to Mindfulness, How Mindfulness Supports Leadership Development, and The Neuroscience of Mindfulness.Everything that I am presenting in this series on mindfulness I also cover in my seminar on Mindfulness & Leadership Development. And normally by this point, the audience members are very excited about mindfulness. After all, there are many benefits of mindfulness in the workplace. It’s easy to see why so many companies are offering mindfulness programs. Then I get to the part about practicing mindfulness, and the room goes silent. I can practically read minds: “Practicing mindfulness means…meditating? That sounds very ‘woo,’ and I’m not into that.”“Meditation” is the term used to describe a practice that is dedicated to mindfulness, which has roots in 2,500-year-old Buddhist traditions. The original word for mindfulness meditation is Vipassana, which means insight into the true nature of reality. Because of this, mindfulness meditation is also referred to as insight meditation.Beginning in the 1970s, mindfulness was widely popularized by Jon Kabat-Zinn through his work with medical patients at the University of Massachusetts. He found that mindfulness was particularly effective in treating many kinds of physical and mental health ailments. He also realized that you do not need to study Buddhist tenets to benefit from mindfulness—you simply must cultivate the ability to be mindful.When I use the term meditation, I am referring specifically to a practice of mindfulness. However, transcendental meditation is an example of another traditional school of meditation in which attention is focused on a single object until the mind enters a deep, trance-like stillness. In mindfulness meditation, we are not trying to leave or alter our current experience—we are bringing attention to it exactly as it is. We are trying to expand our awareness, not focus it.Meditation is also used as a synonym for contemplation or deep thinking. Mindfulness meditation is not contemplation or thinking; instead, it is bringing awareness to our thoughts. Quite simply, mindfulness meditation is time dedicated to practicing mindfulness.As an executive coach, I do not ask my clients to meditate. I may not even mention the word in conversation, given the misunderstanding around what meditation means. What I do, however, is give my clients exercises to help them be more aware in their work environments. I tell them that being mindful is directly relevant to being a strong leader and that the more they practice mindfulness, the better they will be at it.One of the questions I frequently get is, “How can I be more mindful at work?” Here are some suggestions:Pause several times a day and pay attention to the sensations of your breath. I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to do this.Eat your lunch or a snack mindfully, paying attention to the sensations you see, hear, smell, and taste as you eat.Give your full attention to the task at hand, and reduce distractions as much as you can: Shut your door and turn off the phone and email.Check in with yourself to note your thoughts and feelings in a given situation, especially one where you may want to respond differently.

Practicing Mindfulness

The traditionally Eastern practice of mindfulness is becoming more and more common in Western business settings. A number of Fortune 500 organizations such as General Mills, Apple, Prudential, eBay, Aetna, Target, Proctor & Gamble, Google, and even the U.S. Marines offer mindfulness programs to their employees. It is not unusual to see articles on mindfulness in Forbes and on the Harvard Business Review Blog. While mindfulness in the workplace is increasingly accepted, this also means a growing body of information—and therefore potential misunderstanding and confusion—around the topic. So what does it mean to be mindful, and how exactly is mindfulness relevant to the workplace? What are the benefits of being mindful, and what evidence do we have to support this? This is the first in a series of blog posts that will provide answers to these questions.Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts is widely credited with bringing mindfulness into the American mainstream in the late 1970s. His definition of mindfulness consists of two parts: moment-to-moment awareness of our current experience, and acceptance of the experience that is unfolding. Acceptance in this context does not mean you approve of or are even comfortable with the experience, but it does mean that you notice what is occurring with a lack of judgment or intervention. In other words, being mindful means that you choose to pay close attention to what is going on in the present, whether it is pleasant or not, without changing anything and without commenting (either out loud or to yourself)—you simply observe. This includes using our senses to take in what is happening outside of us, and noticing what is happening internally, like our thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.Much of the time, many of us are not mindful. Instead, we are distracted from a direct experience of the present moment and instead are thinking about the past or the future, or we impose stories and judgments on the current experience and those involved with it, including ourselves.Imagine you are in a meeting, a common scenario at work. Are you mentally a million miles away, thinking about how well your presentation went yesterday? Trying to decide what the heck you are going to do for dinner later? Do you find that you have a running internal commentary while others speak? “That proposal can’t possibly work.” “Tim’s idea is the best one.” Do you respond in a knee-jerk fashion to reactions you have, like interrupting when you get excited or checking out of the conversation when you get annoyed? Or, are you listening—really listening—to each person as she speaks, with full attention and curiosity? Are you able to notice and identify your internal reactions, your thoughts as well as your feelings, as they happen? Do you pause and reflect before responding thoughtfully to what others have said?No matter how mindful you are today, it turns out that mindfulness is a skill that can be developed and strengthened, just like learning a language or running every day to improve your physical fitness. And among people who practice mindfulness, a wide range of benefits have been documented that are highly relevant to workplace performance, such as:Higher emotional intelligence, which has in turn been linked to stronger leadership effectiveness and improved business resultsGreater focus and ability to stay on task and enhanced memory for details of a task, as well as less fatigue and a better mood after task completionImproved mental well-being, such as reduced stress, anxiety, and depressionImproved physical well-being, such as lower blood pressure and blood glucose, and strengthening of the immune system.In addition to these benefits, adopting a mindful mindset is at the heart of leadership development. This will be the topic of the next blog post in the series.

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