Reading time: Less than 2 minutes It shouldn’t surprise anyone that there are many problems at UBC. It’s a large school with more than 59,000 students. But how does the university handle these problems? Aye, there’s the rub… What exactly is going on at my alma mater, and the place my three adult children are now […]
UBC faces a litany of problems, poorly Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute Friendship is a gift but sometimes there’s a downside to Facebook friends… The recent terrorist attacks in Paris have raised a secondary issue relating to social media. Who are our “friends” and what do we expect of them? I’m not talking about countries here. Nor am I talking about political
The downside to Facebook friends… Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute A picture is worth a thousand words, as the expression has it. So is a sign in a window…. There’s a store not far from where I live. It used to be a corner grocery, but it was either sold or rebranded as a produce outlet about a year ago. I
Dear valued customers…. Read More »
Reading time: Less than 2 minutes This idea may sound obvious but you’d be surprised to learn now many people fail to do it: You need to start writing notes to yourself… This week I delivered a class on how to re-energize yourself after completing a big project. Although my class was aimed at writers,
The benefits of writing notes to yourself… Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute Everyone who works for a company is responsible for effective communications… Communications goes by many titles. Sometimes it’s call PR, or public affairs or promotions. At other times it’s called the press office, customer service or even marketing. But whatever the title, it’s a category that all businesses needs to
Does your company have effective communications? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute Groucho Marx defined politics as “the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” Many of the leaders in the recent Canadian federal election might be likely to agree… I am not a political consultant and this post will not share
What happened the day AFTER the federal election? Read More »
Reading time: Just over 1 minute Have you ever made a bad hire? Of course you have. But a bigger question remains: How do you help an employee with writing problems if you don’t want to fire them? Not everyone knows how to write. But if you’ve hired someone to do that kind of work
How do you help an employee with writing problems? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute You’ve undoubtedly heard the expression “a photo is worth thousand words.” No where is that more true than when it comes to refugee photos… The heartbreaking photos of a 3-year-old drowned Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, have finally woken up the world to the Syrian refugee crisis. Going viral the same day
Worth a thousand words… Read More »
Reading time: Just over 1 minute Have you ever had to be involved with a corporate video? Here are five suggestions that will help you achieve a better result… I worked at a videotaping session last week — not for anything remotely Hollywood-ish or even corporate — but instead for a new non-profit society. They were
Making a better corporate video Read More »
Reading time: Less than 2 minutes Unless you live in Vancouver you may not be aware of the UBC presidential crisis that’s occurring right now. Even if you live here, however, the scale of it is hard to believe… I once made a bad hiring mistake. I was 20 years old, working at a weekly
Anatomy of a UBC presidential crisis… Read More »