Goldman Sachs has banned the use of profane language. This is, quite frankly, fucking ridiculous. For one, the resources that will go into policing language could be better spent in other places. (Trust me, I live in a place that has wasted gazillions on misguided attempts to monitor language for…
You hear the word “rockstar” a lot today. It is used far too frequently in the PR/marketing world. Todd Defren wants to hire rockstars. Mitch Joel is one (or at least wants you to know someone has called him one). I get why Defren uses this word in ads designed…
Barbie is messing around with Foursquare. CNET reports: With a camera on her chest and an LCD screen on her back, the newest Barbie doll will kick off sales with a Foursquare-powered scavenger hunt in four cities across the U.S. The hunt–which begins Tuesday in San Francisco before heading to…
I saw an amazing doc on former major league baseball pitcher Luis Tiant the other night. It’s called Lost Son of Havana and focuses on his return to Cuba after a 40 + year absence. Watch it if you can. Tiant’s life and career resonated with me. He went through…
I work in PR for a medium sized firm. I also recently opened a small retail business with my girl. It has been a month and we have had success with our PR campaign. I thought it might be useful to share info about what we’ve done and why. Hopefully…
Seth Godin has a great post called “what is the point?” today. Read it, it will likely be better than this. I work in a mid-sized company, co-own a small retail business, sometimes consult on PR and write regularly for free and for money. Rarely though, in these relatively disparate…
Picture it… Your firm is in crisis. It has caused a major environmental catastrophe. Everyone is out for blood. Your CEO, rather than get down and dirty, decides to go…wait for it…yachting. Yup, just a day in the life of BP! They don’t, if memory serves, do much yachting in…
I recently opened a small business with my girl. Seven days in, the best advice I’ve received is don’t worry too much about sales in a day to day context. Sales will wax and wane based on a myriad of factors. While you need to monitor them VERY carefully you…
I have been dealing with various levels of government a lot lately, as we’ve recently opened a new business. I live in Soviet Quebecistan, a place where the bureaucrats can be particularly irksome. Imagine combining the French love bureaucracy with the “screw you” attitude of government workers in communist states…
When you manage people – especially remote teams – making sure your directives are understood is a huge part of the battle. This means making reflective listening part of the culture and also entails repeating instructions, often via multiple media. This way people don’t screw up as much. However, the tendency…