I guarantee you that I can disturb and alarm any businessperson just by explaining to them how a university works. It’s foreign territory for them, a place they don’t want to go when they hear about it. The object of their disdain is the concept of shared governance. A business […]
All writers have a set of rules or, more precisely, broad ideas that guide them in their craft. You could also characterize these rules as pet peeves, good ideas they picked up somewhere and tricks that work for them. I presented my list recently at a Chamber of Commerce gathering […]
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation last month announced it will move its education plans forward with more data collection and reporting, followed by attempts to influence political decisions on governance of secondary school and colleges. Its next step, as reported in the education journal “Inside HigherEd,” is to “create […]
If you care about words and meaning, March Madness should make you crazy. One practice that continues to be repeated during the otherwise exciting basketball tournament is the unnecessary use of the term “Lady” in front of the nickname of many team names when the women play. You’ve got the […]
Social and electronic media are so important in today’s communication plans that it is easy to forget the vital role human touch still plays. Together, they are very powerful. I worked recently with Tara Alemany to promote her new publishing business, Emerald Lake Books, which focuses on helping entrepreneurs bring […]
Tom Szaky likes to brag about his “negative cost marketing department.” Szazky is one of the group of Ivy League drop-outs who started successful companies. He is no Mark Zuckerberg – he dropped out of Princeton, not Harvard — but his business, TerraCycle, is growing, profitable and a player in […]
Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, demonstrate that any communication problem we have can be overcome.
Steven Brill, the blustery founder of American Lawyer and Court TV, said something smart in an article published in Bloomberg BNA’s Big Law Business. He was talking about how to earn publicity. “The effective law firms that get a lot of good publicity have the lead partners out there talking […]
Abraham Lincoln supposedly said that “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be,” which is good to think about when the temperature is 10 degrees, the wind is gusting to 50 mph, and the air is filled with snow. It’s a matter of keeping things […]
It is important to convey ideas clearly. The announcement surrounding the new Harper Lee novel is a good example of what happens when things go wrong. Muddling your information opens the door to multiple interpretations, and then a discussion ensues not on the merits of the proposal but the veracity, […]
