Reading time: Less than 1 minute Universities need to learn that ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away… Let’s talk about the issue of sexual assault on university campuses. Check out, for example, this story about Brown University, published yesterday in Bloomberg Business. Protesters said wrongly ending an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations because the accused student’s […]
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute Do you pay attention to how you name things in your company? I don’t just mean product names. I’m referring to the names you use for reports or day-to-day activities. Naming matters. It can make a huge difference to your success… Most companies think they understand the importance of naming. They may
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Reading time: Less than 2 minutes Do you ever get bored by work-related parties? Maybe you should be the person to suggest some party games that can help make the event more fun — and more productive… I’ve attended two Christmas/year end parties in the last two weeks. Yes, it’s February. But both workplaces (one was
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Reading time: Less than 2 minutes Have you ever had to hire a communications contractor? How did it work out for you? If you had any problems, here are three suggestions for how to make your next hire more effective… I was having breakfast with some colleagues who work in communications yesterday. One of them
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I speak convincingly and passionately. But I’ve recently learned a secret to giving better presentations thanks to nervousness of a client… In a couple of weeks I’m going to be doing three important workshops for a client. They have 60 senior people who need to become better writers and I’m going
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Reading time: Just over one minute So many people massacre their PowerPoint presentations. Here are three tips to teach you how to punch up PowerPoint… Do you ever use PowerPoint? I find the vast majority of PowerPoint presentations are far too dull — snooze-fests, seemingly designed to lull the audience into somnolence rather than awaken them with
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Reading time: Less than 2 minutes There’s plenty of collateral damage from Jian Ghomeshi — an object lesson in crisis communications gone wrong… When I coach clients on how to prepare for crisis communications, I have one key message for them. It’s something my mother told me when I was a kid: Don’t guess. This may
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Reading time: Less than 2 minutes Did you develop a list of new year’s resolutions yesterday? Not me! I’m sticking with rituals for 2015. Welcome to 2015. If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you may remember that I’ve given up on the idea of new year’s resolutions. But I welcome rituals. Here, then,
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute If you’ve ever felt that you can’t afford a copy editor, here’s a suggestion that may work for you. Copy editors — people who fix spelling and grammar mistakes and double-check dates — are not expensive. Especially when you consider the cost of the material your company is publishing. How
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Reading time: Less than 2 minutes We all need at least one decent grammar reference book for our shelves. My recommendation? The Transitive Vampire… I’ve never fancied myself as much of an expert on grammar. I hated the subject as a school child and I learned it only reluctantly as an adult. But I was blessed with
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