by Sue Horner | Aug 2, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
My dog is known to police. I found this out from a hanging door tag left by the local Humane Society while I was out. “Please call the officer below re: incident involving ‘Jake’,” it said. Uh oh! While I was away one weekend, Jake had stayed...
by Sue Horner | Aug 1, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
No wonder employees find it hard to understand company “leaders” (the new word for managers, apparently). The latest “BigExec-speak” I ran into this week: Action as a verb, as in, “We’ll action those areas.” Ugh. Criticality....
by Sue Horner | Jul 25, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
A colleague shared this great term for an affliction common in the corporate world: source remorse editing. That’s when you get a terrific, meaningful, human quote from someone for a corporate use, say a newsletter. During the approval process, your contact sees...
by Sue Horner | Jul 24, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The latest Alertbox from Jakob Nielsen refers to Amazon.com’s e-commerce design (more detailed analysis here), saying: “Amazon.com continues with outstanding use of confirmation email to sustain customer relationships and long-term loyalty. A week ago, I...
by Sue Horner | Jul 19, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Glad to find out I’m not the only one somewhat confused about how to use/make the most of social media — you know, LinkedIn, MyRagan, Facebook, MySpace, [oops forgot Melcrum’s Communicators’ Network] etc. Pamela Slim at the entertaining Escape...
by Sue Horner | Jul 18, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
What happens when a phrase references old technology? It becomes a prime candidate for being misspelled. I thought of this when spotting “put us through the ringer” in my local newspaper. The word should be spelled “wringer,” as in the old...
by Sue Horner | Jul 12, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Talk about a never-ending job! Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition) recently added some new words, chosen among submissions from readers for their favourite word not in the dictionary. Sadly, one of the top choices was...
by Sue Horner | Jul 11, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
While catching up on my reading after being away, I ran across an interesting article in Saturday’s Toronto Star. In “The tyranny of residual media,” freelance writer Ryan Bigge talks about the iPhone and how consumers chase the new and improved. As...
by Sue Horner | Jul 1, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Twice in the past couple of weeks I’ve been to events “celebrating the life” of someone who had recently died. Let’s just say there were lessons learned from each. The first was a hockey teammate of my husband’s, gone at age 58 due to...
by Sue Horner | Jun 8, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
A compliment is a small thing, often casually given, but don’t underestimate the lift it can give the recipient. It’s been a stressful week (which explains the lack of posts), and in such situations a fine remedy is to collapse in a comfy chair with a...
