MGT444 SP11

Chrysula's website is a blog where she writes about work life balance strategies. She also has a section to where you can contact her for coaching and advisement. Many of her posts focus on ways to lead an integrated life to include raising a family, working, and living by your values. She seems to usually write from either personal experience or the experiences of acquaintances. She also includes categories from work life balance to mothering, fathering, and reforming and has links for work life reformers such as Sloan Foundation Work and Family and Alliance for Work Life Progress. Chrysula's experience and qualifications include a Masters degree focusing on work life issues and training and development. She blogs regularly with MomsRising.org and the Huffington Post and she will also have work published in two books this year: Dare to Dream and The 12 Powers of Motherhood. She is the Social Media Marketing Director for Foundation/Mashable Digital Media Lounge for UN Week on Changing the World One Mother at a Time. Chrysula's information was both subjective and objective. She listed links in her blog posts to different research that was done on the topic she was discussing to back up her opinion or information. She also provided links to changes in government policy that dealt with work life balance. Her blogs and information were all current as well and the website was easy to navigate. It was also well maintained and every link to outside sites worked. Chrysula's attended audience seemed to be geared toward working mothers and women in general although she has a whole category on fathering and much of her advice can used by both men and women searching for balance in their lives. One thing that Chrysula mentions in many of her blog posts is the importance of actually talking to your boss about you work/life balance issues. You can complain all you want, but if you never ask for flexibility then you are never going to get it. I think that

The mission of The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) is to improve the well-being of children by increasing the percentage of children being raised by "involved, responsible, and committed fathers." It is a well-known fact that children who lack the involvement of responsible, committed fathers are more susceptible to life difficulties. NFI brings together those in need & those who can help & offers a forum for anyone interested (from future parents, to educators, to policy makers) to study & collect reliable information as well as a community of similar interests & concerns. The home page of the website was easy to use & understand. It is accessible to the general public, does not require any knowledge, and it provides valuable information and resources (including mailing lists) for free. Among the many items that speak to this organization's credibility is its executive office. Roland Warren, a Princeton alumnus, husband of a doctor, father of a Harvard alumnus and a UNC alumnus who has recently completed his master's degree. Christopher Brown, the organizations Executive VP trains individuals and organizations on creating father-friendly organizations; he teaches how to develop, market, and evaluate fatherhood programs. He is the author and co-author of NFI curricula and has appeared as a fatherhood expert in media outlets including the L.A. Times, New York Times, Nick Jr. Magazine, and CNN. I was impressed that the site focused more on resources to improve involvement as well as ideas not only on the website, but also in the form of email newsletters that offer suggestions & solutions. Our studies have focused on the business aspect of creating family-friendly work policies and while crucially important, I like that this website recognizes accountability on both sides of the fence. It is important for organizations to recognize that parents need to be there for their children, but parents need to ensure that they are making good use of the time they

I really liked your review and your site. It is so important for companies to realize the importance of a child's need for their father in their lives, but also for parents to understand this importance as well. I think this is a great site for fathers to refer to in scheduling time for their work, self, and family.

Website Overview: This is a company website for an organization that offers consultation to employers who wish to provide a "healthier, flexible, effective, and supportive workplace." The site offers organizations insights into assessing staff and how to improve engagement and motivation. WFC utilizes online and Telework training e-courses to implement best practices and to share information and research related to transforming company cultures. Relationship to work, family, community class: Recognizing the need for change is important for any decision maker in any organization. Acting on that recognition may, perhaps, be just as important. This website sells that action in the form of changes to work practices, leave policy, time-saving assistance, in addition to better management of existing services already offered by the organization. The website briefly describes work-life as the "interaction between employers and employees, because everything that happens at work has an impact on workers' lives." It's not that I don't believe they are a credible resource in turning around a drowning corporate culture, it's that I generally don't believe anyone or thing that can't give me some example to support their cause. The site promotes its cause with scientific and academic research, but cost $29.99. So, I moved on. Next stop, case studies. I clicked on the "Business Case for Work-Life." In one of a handful of actual statistics, WFC cites a SHRM report that "work-life balance and flexibility were winners when recruiting skills, compensation came second." An agreeable statistic no doubt, unfortunately, this is the entire scope of this business case. No particular reference to a success of the company on implementing such a balance in any organization. However, respectable organizations such as Xcel Energy, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, and decision makers of a few other companies offer words of appreciation The President of StressStop.com

I agree with you in that paying for this information is probably not our best option. It seems to be a good site with credible information. The company I work for does a lot of in-house training for managers and executives in order to provide better working environments to our employees so I think it would be interesting to read into some of their strategies.

Unmarried America http://www.unmarriedamerica.org/ Unmarried America is a website to be used as a source for information about single people throughout America. The website contains an online library containing pages of material containing information about unmarried and single people in the United States and in other countries. The website is intended for the many different types of people in the United States that are unmarried, whether they are single, divorced, widowed, parent, or childless. I feel this website is more of an advocacy type of website promoting the views of Spectrum Institute and their views of unmarried Americans and how laws and policies are geared more toward "traditional families". Spectrum Institute is a nonprofit corporation based out of Glendale, California that is involved with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts for charitable organizations. When going into the "What's New" there are up to date stories from March 2011 and before, but when looking through the rest of the website most things are prior to 2007. This website brings to the surface that unmarried people are now becoming the majority in the United States and the government and businesses need take this into consideration when creating policies, benefit packages, and tax laws.

I liked your review of this site. Unmarried people definitely are now becoming the majority int he United States with more people men and women alike are becoming more dedicated to their careers, leaving less time for families. Companies should take this into consideration and I hope that their policies would be beneficial to both married and unmarried individuals.

The Project on Global Working Families (PGWF) is a research unit at Harvard School of Public Health. It was founded by Dr. Jody Heymann & co-directed by Dr. Alison Earle. They have developed a Work, Family, & Equity Index of government performance, around the world, to systematically define & measure the success of public policies on working families relative to that index. Research on demographic changes & policy initiatives is currently being performed throughout 150 countries. The information provided on this site requires a certain level of prior knowledge. The reading itself was fairly simple, but the graphs required more attention to comprehend. This leads me to believe that the site is designed for an audience that is familiar with the intricacies of the issue such as educators, public health students & professionals, & policy makers. The site's credibility relies on the reputation of Harvard University & a successful author & scholar (Jody Heymann is the author of The Widening Gap). The information is the same that we have been studying in this class, but with a global perspective. Statistics, analysis, interviews, case studies, & the public policy index are all available on the website for review. The purpose to understand & change the things that offer work-life balance to support family health gives additional credibility to the site; and since it is not a business trying to sell a service, it makes it slightly more trustworthy. The boundaries between work, family, & community are becoming more & more blurred. These areas of our life are so interconnected that any decision or incident, in one area, impacts all three. This website gives us a glance at the global condition surrounding the topic(s). It was interesting to recognize that the US is not the only country to suffer from the stresses of the work/family imbalance; it also gives a humbling image of the daunting task that confronts us. It is not a simple issue of fighting only for policy changes; it