Last week we wrapped up our February food drive here at The Vandiver Group, Inc. (TVG). The TVG staff, along with family, friends and clients, successfully gathered hundreds of food and household items during the month of February. All donations will go to the St. Louis Area Foodbank to help meet the nutritional and household [...]

After reading a recent email from our colleague Joan Gladstone on the Academy Awards, we were inspired to write a blog of our own.
This Sunday people will tune into the Oscars for the fashion, the glamor and to cheer on their favorites in each category. While the potential Academy Award winners are worrying about what [...]

If you’re at all interested in consumer trends or insights from customer experiences, then you may have come across the term “ethnography.” Ethnography is the central tenet of cultural anthropology, and involves the qualitative study of human behavior and interactions where they happen- out in the real world- through observation and in-depth interviewing techniques. Ethnography [...]

Last Thursday, MoDOT went a long way toward calming angry drivers who were stuck in hours of traffic because of a mere half-inch of snow. Past storms have dropped much more snow on St. Louis and didn’t cause nearly as many problems. What went wrong this time? MoDOT’s Director Kevin Keith told the [...]

Happy Friday the 13th! Did you know this superstitious day is not only associated with bad luck, it also affects consumer decisions?
The Stress Management Centre and Phobia Institute, based in Asheville, N.C., estimates that $800 million to $900 million is lost every time the 13th of the month falls on a Friday, as people avoid [...]

St. Louis is a health care town and we wanted to share some highlights from a recent article in the Academy of Health Care Management Journal, titled “Health Care and Social Media: Building Relationships Via Social Networks”, along with some ways local hospitals are using social media.
Health care providers are joining the social media wave [...]

I was reading the latest issue of Time magazine (1/9/2012) and ran across Joel Stein’s “My Psychic Powers at Work”.  I was most struck on his amusing take on the end of the world on Dec. 21, 2012.
That’s based on the Maya calendar.  The end of days of the 13th Bak’tun, or the end of [...]

By Laura R. Vandiver, Director of Research and MBTI® Certified Practitioner
Thinking (T) and Feeling (F) & Judging (J) and Perceiving (P)
For the past few weeks I’ve been talking about the MBTI® tool and how TVG uses it.  Today, I’m focusing on the T/F and J/P preferences.
Thinking and Feeling
First, let’s look at Thinking and Feeling.  [...]

So you’ve proofread your resume a hundred times, checked for spelling and grammar, made sure all of the bullet points are aligned and inspected the document from top to bottom. Now you just have to save it so you can email it to prospective employers.  That’s the easy part, right?  Well, maybe not…
I bet you’re [...]

By Laura R. Vandiver, Director of Research and MBTI® Certified Practitioner
Sensing (S) and iNtuition (N)
TVG uses the MBTI® tool in some of our training seminars and facilitations with teams.  For the past few blog posts, I’ve talked about the four-letter designation that indicates each person’s preferences.  Today, I’m going to cover Sensing and Intuition.  These [...]