by Sue Horner | Apr 13, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog, Writing samples
Readers appreciate when the writer does the heavy lifting to explain the complex and figure out “what’s in it for me?” That’s a big part of what I do. In 2016 and 2017, I had the honour of interviewing brainy researchers at Western University’s Faculty of Science. My...
by Sue Horner | Apr 6, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Post-it notes were flying in a session on creative problem-solving. Trevor McAlpine of Synergetic Management had members of IABC/Toronto’s Professional Independent Communicators covering the Post-its with ideas in a fast-paced session on creativity. The tactic was...
by Sue Horner | Mar 30, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I’m a packrat. There. I said it. And it’s true. I hang onto things way too long. Sometimes it’s due to sentimental value (Baby’s first stuffed animal! Photos! Letters from loved ones!), but other times it’s just that I’m busy. I file and forget. I don’t even see the...
by Sue Horner | Mar 23, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) launched an exhibit this week that explores the story of nine rare blue whales that became stranded in thick ice and died. The ROM recovered two of the skeletons after the creatures washed ashore in Newfoundland and Labrador in...
by Sue Horner | Mar 15, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
My colleague Sheila Gregory posted on Facebook that it starts to bug her when a word becomes trendy and is used everywhere. Right now, that word is “myriad.” A few of us chimed in with other overused or jargony words we find annoying. But jargon isn’t just annoying....
by Sue Horner | Mar 8, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Whether your organization has five people or 50,000, there is no “silver bullet” that will solve all your communication challenges. And despite the shiny toys of the digital age, panelists at an IABC event on Feb. 28 agreed that old-school listening, talking to...
by Sue Horner | Mar 2, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
While chatting with a colleague this week, we got on the subject of Twitter. She didn’t see much value in it and wondered if I did. I do. I’ve made connections with new people on Twitter, and gained better visibility myself. I regularly find and share interesting...
by Sue Horner | Feb 21, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Humans are funny creatures. We’ll binge-watch hours of TV episodes or movies, yet barely tolerate a fraction of a second for a web page to load. That means you need a shortcut to meaning if you’re explaining something complex or unusual. Seth Godin says the best way...
by Sue Horner | Feb 15, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The fellow I interviewed was chatty; the topic, fascinating. The problem? Cramming as much of that interesting conversation into just 300 words. My clients often have a specific number of words they need to fit a certain space. Magazine and newspaper editors also...
by Sue Horner | Feb 9, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I must have run across Roger von Oech at an IABC conference years ago. He’s an author and inventor who has been giving seminars, workshops and presentations on creativity since 1977, although he doesn’t specifically point to IABC on his website. His name came to light...
