Dr. Pamela Rutledge

It would be impossible to not pause and ponder the implications of the deaths of Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Both were cultural icons tied to a specific time in U.S. pop culture. Their death forces us to deal with the passage of time and mortality (theirs and ours). It reminds us that we won’t ever be that age or that person again.

It would be hard to distinguish between people’s reaction to the loss of Fawcett or Jackson as symbols of the time, (not to mention success, beauty, creativity, innovation, and social change) versus what psychologists would call a parasocial attachment (i.e. feeling that they were your friend). Nevertheless, these individuals have created (or are at the center of) metaphors that trigger strong emotional responses for many of us. Love them or hate them, it’s hard to separate icons of this magnitude from the experiences you have concurrently both personally and in society at large.

(This was posted June 5, 2009 on my blog “Positively Media” at PsychologyToday.com)
Ralph Waldo Emerson said:
“No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby – so helpless and so ridiculous.”
Think of the tech-saavy younger generation as another country with a different [...]

This was posted April 13, 2009 on my blog “Positively Media” at Psychology Today.
First it was “Dell Hell” and now it is “#AmazonFail.” For all the debates over the purpose, point, and value of social media, it is events like these that illustrate how important they have become and how powerful they can be.
“Dell [...]

Nigeria has recently embarked on a rebranding effort to improve their image worldwide.  Global perceptions are important in attracting the kinds of things an emerging economy needs to improve the living standards and opportunities of its people: tourism, trade, foreign direct investment and foreign financial assistance, or even to meet the UN recommended Millennium Development [...]

An article on Entrepreneur.com “In This Economy, Everything’s (Re)Negotiable” got me thinking about how hard it is to make changes in a business.  Aside from contracts and other commitments, it’s difficult to retrench because it means redefining how you think about yourself and success.  Running a business is hard work because you have to be [...]