How do you support a friend with cancer?
I lost another friend last week, this time to inflammatory breast cancer. It’s a particularly nasty form that often comes on suddenly, acting similar to mastitis (also an inflammation, usually related to breastfeeding), and spreads quickly. Her oncologist had...
Poppies for remembrance
From November 5 to 11, Canadians celebrate Veterans’ Week, remembering and honouring the veterans who fought in past wars and the soldiers who are still fighting for freedom. November 11, the day that marked the end of World War I, is both Remembrance Day here...A story with legs
If you used Google today, you will have noticed the “l” looks a little different. In fact, it looks like a pair of legs — those bright orange legs belonging to Big Bird. The “doodle” celebrates the fact that Sesame Street is 40 this...
Twitter tips for newbies
At a hands-on social media event sponsored by Communicators Connection (then called Halton-Peel Communications Association), I joined fellow members Donna Papacosta, Rob Clark and Joan Vinall-Cox in talking about and demonstrating how to use LinkedIn, blogs, audio and...You should volunteer. Do you?
At a networking event given by IABC/Toronto’s Professional Independent Communicators (PIC), I shared why I volunteer, as did my colleagues Leslie Hetherington, Donna Papacosta, Barb Sawyers and Lee Weisser. PIC supports more than 100 independent communicators,...An imperfect world 2
Time for a reminder to be careful out there, as we look at some of the recent errors spotted in our imperfect published world (because, of course, I am perfect and never make any myself)*: …the pictures of the bloggers…don’t wreak of the standard...
How to warm up to cold calling
While decluttering my office, I ran across a battered 1981 edition of The Canadian Writer’s Market. In it I found 32 pages of agency listings, each entry with a pencilled X or check mark beside it, plus new telephone numbers and scribbled names. Flashback: I was...