I seem to have misplaced my blogging mojo again. It started slipping away during a busy few weeks leading up to a week’s vacation. Then, between my writing business, and school, and networking/volunteer activities, and family, the blogging momentum just slipped away. The last time this happened, my friend Louise Desmarais of Mud Creative called [...]
Yearly Archives: 2012
Are you putting readers to sleep?
Working on a client’s employee newsletter has kept my nose to the grindstone for a bit (why hello blog! should I re-introduce myself?). And it also reminded me that the corporate world has much to do to keep employees reading their newsletters. Despite company guidelines that encourage lively and clear writing, the pieces I edited [...]
Like Millennials, I don’t want to ‘like’ you
It’s easy to understand why businesses want to be on Facebook. There are more than 500 million Facebook users, and half of them are logged in on any given day (thanks, DigitalBuzz, for the stats). But the funny thing is that people don’t really want to get cosy with you on Facebook. Sure, they’ll temporarily [...]
Red has the power, or not
Oh, dear. Bad news for someone who loves red jackets for networking and presenting; according to researchers: “Red makes you sexy, dumb, attractive and repellant.” Well, wait a minute. I could live with attractive, and maybe just a little sexy. And I’m not sure how you can truly be attractive and repellant at the [...]
Aim for plain language
I encountered an error message this morning trying to get to a Paper.li page. Talk about corporatespeak!!! The infrastructure issue impacting the service has been well identified and we are now closing in on a final resolution. Let’s pick it apart: Infrastructure issue: Well, points to Paper.li for apparently, sort of, taking ownership of the [...]
Secrets of successful independents
The F-word cropped up early in the March 7 “Secrets of successful independents” session put on by IABC/Toronto’s Professional Independent Communicators. I’m talking about FOCUS. Coping with changes in the freelance landscape requires both focus and business vision, the foundation of a business plan, agreed speakers Paul Lima, author and freelance writer, and Cathy Ledden, [...]
The discussion about how often to publish continues
While the last post had been in the works, it got finished because of a comment made by Steve Crescenzo in the latest issue of IABC’s Communication World. I know Steve is a big fan of print newsletters, so he shocked me by stating that three or even two times a year was often enough [...]
Restoring the past: Every picture tells a story
(Written for HP Canada employee newsletter) A treasured photo can be a memento of a significant occasion, a record of a birth or marriage, the last connection to a late loved one. For families left homeless after the devastating hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, photos also represent memories of a life washed away by [...]
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Tell-tale toads take to reclaimed land
(Article written for Suncor Energy employee publication) Like the canary in the coal mine signaling air quality, frogs and toads move in when an ecosystem is healthy. “To most people, toads may not be the ‘sexiest’ wildlife species out there,” says Leo Paquin, reclamation co-ordinator at Oil Sands. “However, we’re definitely encouraged that we’ve provided [...]
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Newsletters: How often should you publish?
I recently spoke with a colleague who mentioned that her company had a small print employee newsletter. They published it three times a year, but were thinking of dropping the frequency to twice and increasing the size. My first reaction was dismay. No matter what the format, print or electronic, twice a year is just [...]
