The Challenge For the past few years I have had to work fairly extensively with a colleague who is just impossible. He is arrogant, stubborn, sometimes abusive, and acts like he is right about almost everything. At first I tried to ignore it, but it has just gotten worse. It’s so bad, I feel like…
Category: Articles
For Small Businesses It Can’t All Be About The Benjamins —Passion Counts
There are a lot of people who start their businesses because they believe their ideas are fabulous and unique, and they also believe that the operation of a small business is going to make them rich. Often they believe riches will follow quickly if they get their businesses going. Sadly, it is almost never the…
Uncommon Comments On Social Media and Human Communication
As social media moves into a more mature phase, there’s still a lot we don’t know about its usefulness to the majority of businesses. Below are a number of short snippets, quotes and comments on social media. Whether they are valuable, insightful, to you, or whether they just clutter up your social media view is…
The Problem of “Thin Relationships” On Social Media
Umair Haque, the Harvard academic, posts on The Harvard blog, a thought provoking idea about the limitations of social media and the kinds of relationships that are forged via social media. He speaks of “thin relationships” Here’s a quote that expresses the concepts: Call it relationship inflation. Nominally, you have a lot more relationships — but in reality,…
Writing Tip: Words Are The Paintbrush
Think of your words as a paintbrush for the senses. EVOKE. Most amateur writers get lost in abstractions, abstract concepts, vagueness. Don’t say love. Tell me what love looks like. Paint it like DaVinci. Tell me what love smells like. Is it skunky, musky, like rotting lemons? Tell me what it feels like on the…
Writing Lesson: Glib, Cute, Idiot
It’s easy to mistake facility with language with poetic ability. Don’t. Wordplay, cuteness, glibness — all to show how damned clever you are just shows how lacking in substance your writing is. Cuteness, glibness cannot replace real insight, real ability in communicating insight about the human condition. Being clever will cloud your message. If you…