by Sue Horner | Aug 17, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
There it was again, in a caption on the front page of a section of today’s newspaper: a sneak peak. (We won’t talk about the use of bugs in food. Ugh.) I feel silly offering guidance about when to use “peak” and when to use “peek,”...
by Sue Horner | Aug 10, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The Olympics can’t keep up with the corporate world when it comes to jargon, but they sure have a vocabulary all their own. With the 2016 Summer Olympics in full swing in Rio, let’s take a look. The most noteworthy/cringeworthy is how achieving a medal has...
by Sue Horner | Aug 3, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Have you ever noticed that some words suddenly become popular, and you see them everywhere? Next thing you know, a solid word turns into overused jargon, or it gets mangled by misuse. Lately, I keep tripping over the word “resonate.” I understand its...
by Sue Horner | Jul 29, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I haven’t visited the spam holding pen for a while, so Friday seemed like a good time to check for the latest flattering and incoherent messages. (Thank goodness for Akismet, defender against blog comment spam. Although it no longer shows a running total, at one point...
by Sue Horner | Jul 21, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
In a showdown between fast cars and slow-moving turtles, the losers are easy to spot, flattened on increasingly busy roads. The study of this often deadly interaction of road networks and nature is called road ecology. Some background reading I’m doing for a project...
by Sue Horner | Jul 14, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” — Henry James Whether you are a freelancer or work in a corporate office, you may find that business slows in the summertime. People you...
by Sue Horner | Jul 6, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
When technology and big data converge, the results can be revolutionary. Just don’t forget communications. Illustrating that point was one of many stories shared by Julia Oosterman at the “Next Big Thing” session for IABC/Toronto Westend members on June 23. Julia...
by Sue Horner | Jun 30, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Sometimes, individual months draaaag along (January, I’m looking at you), but suddenly June hurtles past and the year is halfway through. Heading into the July 1st / July 4th long weekend, here’s a half-dozen of my most-viewed blog posts so far this year: ‘How to take...
by Sue Horner | Jun 27, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
How rare is it to be born on February 29, the extra day in a Leap Year? By chance I was travelling on this extra day one year, and found this explanation by journalist Steve Rubenstein in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Being born on Feb. 29 is rare, sort of. The odds...
by Sue Horner | Jun 22, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
My client’s newsletter deadline was already past, she was scrambling to get it finished, and then WHAM. A story she was counting on looked like it had fallen through. This is a case where the person you hire to help you with some writing is more than her ability...
