"Red Zone" thermometer

If you've ever shopped at an Apple Store, it may have appeared to be a chaotic environment.  Indeed, there are three different teams working the store floor, including sales Specialists, Genius technical support, and previously Trainers delivering OneToOne training sessions.  Many employees are part time, meaning they are typically at work for 15-30 hours each week.  There are daily meetings before the store opens, but any employees coming into work later in the day missed out on any information presented during those Daily Downloads.

Apple: Overcoming Objections

Apple did not establish expectations for its sales people in terms of the amount of revenue they generated; the company wanted to cultivate a low- or no-pressure sales environment for its customers.  However, they did establish expectations for the percent "attach rate" for ancillary services sold with every device.

As a new employee, I learned about these services, but was actually completely unaware of the importance of attaching the services to each purchase.  When I would mention AppleCare, Mobile Me, or OneToOne to a customer and they would shrug it off, I simply kept moving forward with the hardware sale.  It was not until a manager brought my poor metrics to my attention that we realized there was a problem.  I did not want to be a "pushy" sales person and so I did not work to change customers' minds about the benefits of Apple's services.

2016 Sylvia Kunreuther award winner

I won the 2016 Sylvia Kunreuther scholarship at Temple University, and was profiled in the College of Education's Educator magazine Winter 2016 issue.  My passion for the Adult & Organizational Development program and my keen grasp of the material distinguished me from other scholars.

Learn how I saw myself on the cusp of a formal career in training, and what I see as the challenges ahead.

How to password

Welcome to life in the 21st century, where everything you touch, from the money in your pocket to the food on your plate, and even things you don't touch, like songs or movies streaming over the internet, comes with a password.

Having watched many people forget their Apple ID password over and over, and having watched carefully to make sure they were not simply making a mistaking typing, I realized what people needed was a pattern, or set of guidelines for remembering their passwords.

Gaming as a Teaching Tool

Games are a popular tool that helps keep learners engaged and can reinforce important principles.  Part of the final project in AOD 5402: Conflict and Communication was to design a game that taught players principles from the course.  I created Shout-N-Match, The riotous game of conflict theory.

Why I want to be a trainer

Why I want to be a trainer: this should have probably been my very first blog post, but here it is anyway at #5.

This is a piece that I wrote as part of an application to what Apple calls the In-Store Guest Trainer career experience.  This was 2012, before I started the Master's at Temple--before I even knew such a degree existed--and as much as I knew what I wanted to do, I had never thought about why.

Global Readiness

At the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, March 2013

"To be successful in today's business world, you must be culturally aware."  It is a refrain heard often, both in business and in academia.  Is global readiness something that can be taught in a classroom, or is a cultural sensitivity that must be engendered through a more kinesthetic, experiential learning process?