Hey everybody! Turn off your computers and think for a change. (Okay, after you’ve read this post.) I’ve written about this before but the problem is only getting worse so I feel the need to beret you again.

All of our interconnectivity has lead social scientists to coin a new symptom: FOMO, or “fear of missing out.” For those of you who are wired 18 hours a day–with cell phones, email and Facebook connected directly to your veins–you may be damaging not only your personal relationships but also your brain.

Public opinion surveys consistently show that the #1 fear of most people — greater than drowning — is the fear of public speaking. Obviously, Ann Coulter has no such fear. While I hate to write about her for fear of giving her more publicity than I think she deserves, I have to mention the recent Ottawa debacle. It’s not that I don’t want to give credit to credible conservative commentators’, I do. George Will, for example, is both reasoned and readable — two things that Coulter is not.

Why can’t we all grow up? That’s the thought that comes to me while watching the kvetching, screaming and tantrum throwing that’s surrounded the health care vote. For some time, both sides have been like four year-olds, squabbling over buckets and rakes in the sandbox. My disgust turned to horror this week when the brawl turned truly ugly by the degenerating into racial slurs and escalating into violence. Unfortunately, I see the same kind of escalation in the workplace.

Denver lives and dies by the Broncos. Thus it has ever been and probably always will be. Because of the collective sports fever, ending a season that started out with a bang of 6-0 and ended up a whimper of 8-8 sent the city into a collective funk. But in the midst of all that a very public squabble arose between the young Turk coach Josh McDaniels and two of his star players: wide receiver Brandon Marshall and tight end Tony Scheffler. McDaniels announced two days before the season finale that he was benching these two players. In addition, just before that he had publicly questioned Marshall’s ankle injury. Not nice to imply that one of your players is a wimp!

There’s been much ado and tisk-tisking about the Salahis’ –now infamous White House gate crashers. Most people seem to assume that the Secret Service royally messed up and of course that’s perhaps true. But the reality is many of those same people who are aghast at that breach couldn’t defend their own security systems.

If you’re in corporate America, you’re probably used to key cards, sign-in sheets and the like but how safe are these systems? Do you test for leaks?

Ugh! We’ve endured a week of bad celebrity behavior. Serena Williams threw a profanity-laced finger pointing fit at a U.S. Open lines woman on Sunday. That same night, Kanye West leaped onto the stage to steal the thunder from Taylor Swift at the VMA’s. (MTV’s video music awards, for those of you who don’t have fifteen year old, music obsessed, twins as I do!) And don’t even get me started on the outburst by Representative Joe Wilson during President Obama’s health care speech.

Hurrah! I always like being right!

A new study has confirmed what I’ve been telling you for years: multi tasking is not good for you, no matter how skillful you think you are. While we may believe that we’re paying attention to two things at once, brain scans show the opposite.

What happens is that the brain actually has to perform a complex switching mechanism between activities. What this means is that it takes time and energy for the brain to make this switch, and then more time and energy to refocus on the first activity.

When you pass on to the ’sweet by an by’ what will people be saying about you? The passing of the great liberal lion, Ted Kennedy, offers us a chance to reflect on this question. In my experience, there’s no better way to measure whether we’re accomplishing our personal and career goals than to reflect on our own funeral.Love his political rhetoric or not, everyone agrees that he lived a big life, consistent with his own principles to never give up the fight for the little guy. He overcame his personal failings to live a life dedicated to his country and his family.

By now, most of the pundits have weighed on Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was arrested on the porch of his own home on July 16. Just in case you’ve been on vacation on a remote Atoll and have missed this debacle, while many facts are still in dispute, these are the facts that both sides agree upon:

Gates arrived home from a trip to China, had trouble getting the door of his house open and forced it. Someone called 911 to report breaking and entering. A police officer approached Gates’ home and asked him to step outside. Gates declined. The officer went into the home where Gates showed him an ID that proved he lived there. Gates asked the officer for his name and badge number and did not get them.

The blogosphere and pundits alike have had a field day over the last month with the specter of yet another supposedly straight-laced, upright, morality preaching politician brought down by infidelity. While he hasn’t resigned as of this post, he had a tough time at Monday’s press conference dodging questions about his affair with an Argentine beauty while he was trying to talk about state business.
While I could go on about how he–like other sanctimonious, bible thumping politicians- should have just “kept it in his pants” what I want to remind you about, dear reader, is the stupidity and dangers of email.
The State, a South Carolina newspaper, printed excerpts from the florid emails between the Gov. and the woman with whom he was having an affair, “Maria.” For example:
“Two, mutual feelings…You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light- but hey, that would be going into sexual details…
Sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul.”
What is it about email that makes supposedly smart people abandon all sense? Almost every investigation I conduct these days has the alleged harasser or discriminator leaving an incriminating email trail. These are all people who should know better: lawyers, investment bankers, IT professionals. Yet email they must, despite the fact that an email is a just a postcard on the server floor.
As I often tell my workshop participants, and as I wrote in my book Stop Pissing Me Off! What to do When the People You Work With Drive You Crazy, the e in email stands for evidence! And in the Sanford debacle, I would say that the e in email stands for embarrassing! Some examples of the stupidity I have seen: