Attention-grabbing titles in the running for Oddest Book Title
It looks like it’s not too late to cast your vote for the world’s oddest book title, which will be awarded the Diagram Prize by The Bookseller, a British trade magazine. The winner will be announced March 28, with the spotter of the winning book receiving...
Song lyrics that touch the heart as the snow falls
Poets and musicians have a way with words. The snow falling as I write this brings to mind: my favourite Robert Frost poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening (“He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow”) and Canadian folk singer Gordon...
Don’t wait; open that special bottle now
The Toronto Star wine critic, Gord Stimmell, alerted me to the fact that tomorrow is Open That Bottle Night. Started by Wall Street Journal columnists John Brecher and Dorothy Gaiter, the event is basically a call to wine enthusiasts to stop waiting for a special...
Email wrangling; it helps to turn off the wi-fi
Do you ever feel like you’re drowning in emails? My friend, podcaster and fellow writer Donna Papacosta has a great tip for dealing with the growing volume of mail: Use the telephone. Not only can it save multiple emails back and forth, but it also gives you a...Yeah, you can keep that kimono closed
Does anyone else find this a somewhat odd thing to say? “A successful blog kind of opens the kimono and from a brand point of view lets people know who you are.” This is a quote from Rob Frankel, a Los Angeles-based branding consultant, from an article called Business...
Read on! Good reason to promote reading
January 27 was Family Literacy Day, “a national initiative that promotes the importance of reading and learning together as a family.” I celebrated by reading while Son #2 studied for exams today. I’m a big reader so it’s especially important to me that our two sons...You knew this: Interruptions lower performance
Those who spend large amounts of time online will totally understand when T.J. Larkin, in a weekly Larkin Pages research summary, says that we’re the ones responsible for half of our own interruptions. Think of all those blogs you follow, keeping up your own...
Blogging: One year on
It seemed an incredible cosmic coincidence that I would start blogging on the very same day as the informative, insightful and strategic Les Potter, but as I found out when Les posted his one-year commentary on Tuesday, it was merely close. Well, two days apart is...