Put your CFO hat on! 10 tips for small business banking
Independent communicators are used to wearing a lot of different hats, but the one that’s most uncomfortable is usually the one called “Chief Financial Officer.” Frankly, we’d rather be doing what we do best! However, members of the Halton-Peel Communications...
Make better decisions by throwing away what you think you know
You can’t necessarily trust your brain. As magician/speaker Dan Trommater told IABC/Toronto’s Professional Independent Communicators at a meeting on Nov. 6, your brain sometimes fills in the blanks when you make assumptions. It also shuts off when you come...
Don’t let fear stop you from growing
“All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.” – Astronaut Sally Ride “When you make friends with fear, it can’t rule you.” – Writer Anne Lamott, in Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith With Halloween on the doorstep, it seemed time to...
Insults, buzzwords and pirates: It’s Friday Fun!
After spinning straw into gold this week (still in progress: six pages of complicated notes into 800 words), I felt like a little Friday fun: You need just the right words to convey your true feelings. Thus, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, with such gems as,...
Tweet summary dos and don’ts
(Updated September 2024) Twitter comments are fleeting, and a time that’s convenient to a few may not be to everyone. That’s why it’s helpful to collect the tweets into a conversation that can be saved and others can read later. You collect – or curate, if you’d...
Why there’s a Coming Out Day (and why it matters)
October 11 is National Coming Out Day — meant to be a reminder of the power of coming out as gay or lesbian.* The day marks the anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1988. Why is coming out so powerful? Simple. It’s easy...
Here’s how to use social media to find clients and build relationships
Find clients, build relationships, make work easier – social media can do all this and more. Here are some of the specifics from the “Social Media for Freelance Writers and Communicators” panel*, hosted by the Professional Writers Association and IABC/Toronto’s...
Get noticed with effective content
The more advertising gets in our face, the more we tune it out. Instead, 70% of us apparently turn to our friends, the people in our networks and our own online research to learn more about a product or service that interests us. What does that mean for those of us...