Is the way your company operates thinking of the customer first? Or at all? I have recent examples of two companies that did a good job and two that did not. The surprising instances of customer appreciation: Bank of Montreal: My husband and I have banked with BMO for a very long time. Every once [...]
Monthly Archives: January 2009
Starting out? Listen to Donna
I’m having lunch later this week with an acquaintance who is considering launching her own business and wants to “pick my brain.” While I don’t claim to know it all, I’ve had my own business for about 18 years, so I must be doing some things right! I’m happy to share my thoughts about what [...]
Watch out for these scams
Akismet has stopped more than 36,000 spam comments from being posted on my site over the two years I’ve been blogging, a milestone reached yesterday. (Happy anniversary to me!) I scan through the “holding pen” every once in a while, and usually the spam is obvious. But recently one of the stopped messages took a [...]
Inspiring day in stunning photos
Thanks to Donna Papacosta for pointing to these amazing photos of the inauguration of President Obama on Tuesday. Between a client meeting, travel and a deadline, I was only able to watch about 10 minutes of the live coverage and had to catch up with the news later.
Big bro is watching
Big Brother was watching me this weekend, and it kind of creeped me out. OK, so I was being nosy. A neighbour’s house was up for sale, and I was curious to see how much it was listed for. So I went to the real estate company’s site, scrolled through the listings and found the [...]
That’s the word of the year?
You’d expect a “word of the year” to be something special, wouldn’t you? So it’s somewhat disappointing that the American Dialect Society‘s word of the year for 2008 is…drumroll…bailout. Even Grant Barrett, chair of the society’s New Words Committee, said, “You’d think a room full of pointy-headed intellectuals [those voting are linguists, lexicographers, grammarians, historians, [...]
Get creative with metaphors
You can’t argue with the Publication Coach, Daphne Grey-Grant, when she encourages writers to use metaphors. “They add interest, colour and power to your writing,” she says. “As readers, we all do better when we can visualize something concrete.” So I’m creating a file of great metaphors (and similes – thanks, Gloria!) to use as [...]
It’s like magic: referrals help you diversify
If all your money was invested in the stock market, you’d be feeling pretty nervous these days. That’s why financial advisors suggest you diversify — mix it up between stocks, bonds, guaranteed investment certificates and other products with varying degrees of risk and reward. (Then there’s your mattress, which is starting to look just as [...]
Posted in The Red Jacket Diaries blog Tagged Freelance writing, IABC, The independent life 3 Comments
Back away from the Internet
You knew it, and usability expert Jakob Nielsen confirms it: we’re drowning in irrelevant information, squandering an hour or more each day simply dealing with email and other distractions. So if you haven’t picked a new year’s resolution yet, here’s one: Set priorities and allocate most of your time to tasks that are crucial to [...]
Be of good cheer
So your Christmas bills are already coming in, your investments are still in the toilet and newspapers run nothing but doom and gloom. Why should you remain optimistic? Be inspired by these moving words from “Granny D,” 98-year-old Dolores Haddock: “Whatever comes, I do want you to remember that the hardest of hard times are [...]