What actually happened: Personal profile at work
I got good advice from TE folks on nature of personal profile re: my health and wellness for my employer's intranet news: http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=51423
So the profile is on the front/home page of the corporate intranet reaching several thousand employees for this work wk.
The profile is heavily cycling focused....and the headline screaming for my profile: My name xxxx, care-free, car-free commuter for last 30 years! Photos of me cycling in summer, in winter in my ordinary gear and front face photo. I personally never liked seeing employee profiles where they wear their sunglasses: there's no need since we all work for the same employer. So I did provide 4 photos for them choose.
But never dreamt that 3 photos would be used.
Internal communications person was enthusiastic and really wanted to try to include link to my ..personal blog. Coincidentally he is also a commuter cyclist. So I gave link specific to the post I wrote a yr. ago on physical activity choice and motivation. He also wanted to include my comment that I looked forward to new bike lane being built. He went further and gave URL to the city's drawings, etc. (This will be the city's first separated bike lane downtown....cycling infrastructure history/milestone.) This for certain will probably create impressions of me for unenthused car driving employees.
1 of the questions asked and how I responded in profile:
You’ve lived without a car for the past 3 decades. How do you make
that work?
I’ve lived and worked in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary and have
consciously chosen to live and invest in walkable, cycleable neighbourhoods
in each of these cities. I came to Calgary direct from Vancouver, and like a salmon out of water, I was a bit out of
my element here at first, but I found cycling was a great way to explore and learn about the city at my own pace. I
look forward to the completion of the xxxxxx separated bike lane. I’ve been a cyclist for
transportation, fitness and touring for the last 22 years. It’s a fantastic de-stressor and saves me a lot of money. :)
Yes, people did click to my blog link. I could see the traffic as a blog-owner on the back end.
Anyway, some encouraging comments from people in person or by email. Not many (compared to blog clicking traffic).
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By coincidence (I think) with publishing of the profile:
*Published first on our city's Earth Day.
*Parallel publishing on intranet of article for employees about our tiny fleet of bikes any employee can sign out and bike commute to any of our work sites for meetings.
*Same day, I won a $50.00 basket of honey products for a fun raffle on food sustainability exhibit at workplace.
*This week a huge news media has exploded locally over the upcoming city elections in 1.5 yrs., where now the building developers are trying to buy votes for local politicians by giving lots of money to some politicians for their political campaigns. Our local developers are VERY resistant to high rise /multi-family dwellings since they make less money vs. suburban single family dwellings. They have recently accused the mayor for blocking suburban development... which is only partially true. Our city is known in Canada for being very sprawly..not surprising.
Employees are alerted to news items on the intranet that interest various depts. This local news item was one of them. :)
If nothing else, maybe a reader or 2 now will understand the usefulness for everyone, of designing and living in walkable, cycleable neighbourhoods.
