Halona Black

For many of us, when we think of travel, our minds may go straight to family vacations jam packed with bus tours and overcrowded restaurants that serve dinner with local entertainment designed for the amusement of tourists. You buy a few T-shirts and refrigerator magnets to take back to your friends, then sprint to the airport — only to get home and feel you need another vacation just so you can recover.
But you know what? Travel doesn't have to look like this in 2025.
In fact, for a growing ...

If you make or purchase smoothies, juices or shakes, what do you like to put in yours? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Who would have thought that pumpkin seeds would make a great foundation for a protein smoothie. Imagine a cold, creamy vanilla base blended with warm, caramel and cinnamon notes from medjool dates. The ginger tickled my tongue and the golden color from the turmeric was reminiscent of the best iced chai latte I used to drink at my favorite plant-based cafe on the be...

Interview with a chef to learn about different uses of mushrooms for home cooks.

How are you adding more plants to your weekly diet? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
My editor knows I’m a big believer in plant-based eating, so she challenged me to try a growing nutrition trend. It’s called the “30 Plants a Week” lifestyle. In short, it involves eating 30 different types of plant foods in one week. Will my plant-based meals make the cut? Let’s find out…
The “30 plants a week” diet is based on twelve years of scientific research from Rob Knight, co-founder of the ...

Speeding up your metabolism may be one of the keys to healthy weight loss. But you don’t have to starve yourself to achieve it. Adding this one forgotten food group may boost your digestive engine. Which bitter foods do you enjoy? Tell us in the comments below.
Just the thought of bitter foods may be enough for you to turn your nose up. Perhaps it brings up old memories of your mom fighting you to take your medicine when you had a tummy ache. Now that you’re an adult, I invite you to rethink ...

Is there a favorite global cuisine that fits into your healthy eating plan? Mexican salsa? Brazilian fish stew? Jamaican callaloo? Have you ever traveled abroad and later tried a recipe sampled during your trip? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Ami knocked on my door a couple hours later than we had scheduled. It seems that no one really sticks to timetables in Thailand. It didn’t matter though because I was too ill to be bothered with a schedule. I hobbled over to the door and crac...

By the time I turned 40, I was deeply unhappy, unhealthy, and unsure of how to fix it. I was divorced, reeling from another failed long-term relationship, and living with my father and his wife while trying to regroup. My body felt like it was turning against me. I was obese, battling anxiety and depression, and stuck in a fog that dulled my creativity.
Just a few years earlier, I had left a 10+ year career in education and launched my freelance writing business. I was desperate to make it wo...

Personal essay

Scope creep, which occurs when the work required to complete a project exceeds the work the team originally planned for, can be quite harmful – but it’s also very common.
A culture of transparency and good change management can mitigate the worst effects of scope creep, but it’s not avoidable altogether.
Scope creep does offer some benefits, sometimes enabling creativity and innovation, and/or resulting in a better end product than originally planned.
Project managers spend most of their waki...

As a customer support leader, you know how important it is for your customers to be serviced in a timely manner. So, your company invests in the training needed to ensure your agents know the product and can help the customer use it. You train them on understanding customer needs and how to demonstrate empathy so customers leave the interaction feeling seen and heard. Yet, a major challenge is the technology customer support agents use, which slows down productivity.
Siloed systems is one of ...

Does your customer service software help you measure customer expectations? Understanding the relationship between customer expectations and customer satisfaction is crucial to business success. Companies must grasp, understand, and manage customer expectations effectively in order to deliver experiences that meet or exceed them. When they do, businesses can use that momentum to enhance customer satisfaction, build stronger customer relationships, and drive business success.
What’s The Benefi...

Ensuring that customers have a superior experience using a product or service is a top priority for most companies. Customers expect to have access to fast and easy customer support when and where they need it. As a matter of fact, research shows that 40% of customers stopped doing business with a company due to poor service.
However the current economic climate is forcing more companies to make tough decisions regarding where to focus their resources. What’s the best way to balance customer ...

Any customer support team receives a range of customer requests throughout the day. These can include requests for adding new users, “how-to” questions, password retrieval, and more. The requests are often recurring, and a technology-based customer support tool is needed to implement an agent workflow that allows easy and efficient management of each customer request.
A service level agreement (SLA) can benefit the work of customer support teams and customers alike because it sets guidelines ...