Do you struggle when asked about your ideal client or customer? I’m embarrassed to say I always do. Maybe it’s because I’ve worked with everyone from teenage hockey draft picks to CEOs, to actors, authors, and sex trade workers. ...
Because I do a lot of Zoom ‘brainstorming’ sessions, do you have any tips for best ways to facilitate discussions as opposed to presenting?...
Now that we've mostly taken off our masks, there's a very strange thing occurring: I no longer recognize people I thought had become familiar....
That’s when it occurred to me: why couldn’t we adapt what I did for clients, creating strategic communications plans, and turn it into a personal, small-scale strategy for dealing with this particular crisis? ...
Perhaps you’ve had this experience but it’s a new one for me: full-blown laryngitis, an inflammation of the larynx and vocal cords. They told me, reassuringly, that it isn’t usually serious and should go away in 3 weeks max. ...
It’s another way of thinking about the way you organize your content for presenting to a particular audience. You have to know where you’re going and how quickly you have to get there; you have to know who is coming for the ride and how...
While working from home didn’t result in any loss of productivity, innovation has plummeted and corporate culture and collaboration are taking a major hit....
The goal of effective communications with the outside world is to have credible, committed spokespeople....
Suddenly, I find I have so much on my plate: new opportunities for challenging and rewarding work, supporting clients in pursuing their goals, learning new platforms, and discovering new technologies. Sometimes I feel as if I’m racing the clock, wondering how much productive time remains...
This whole discussion is a microcosm of what is happening all over the world. ...
In recent Zoom meetings, I have caught myself occasionally wondering, “what the **** is he talking about?”....
Gain a new perspective. As a mother of five, grandmother of 5 (and counting), a communications coach, an avid cook, and one who often runs out of olives for dirty martinis I always enjoy trying new things. I decided I'd expand my horizons and share...
So it seems with "point and click activism", as described by self-described champions of many causes. UNICEF mounted a campaign to convince “slactivists” to give money, not just shares and likes....
And yet knowing how it works doesn’t always prevent us from being worked! To wit this encounter outside the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts on Front Street in Toronto....
So here’s how it works: first set an objective for your communications with, let’s say, your daughter-in-law. Presumably, your goal is not to have her dislike and resent you and find excuses to avoid you. I’m going to assume your goal is to have a...
I can’t point to the day, month or even year when it happened but at some point, getting older ceased to be a process and became, instead, a place. It’s a place similar to what I imagine life on mood stabilizers to be: the calving...
Now let’s talk about how we all err on the side of ritual and why we have to stop and dig a little deeper. ...
I gave a communications workshop recently, notionally on the topic of how to engage, persuade and communicate effectively through the 2-dimensional world of online video appearances....
There appears to be a cottage industry springing up around the quandary of when, how and where to go back to work. You can find any number of webinars, consultants and publications jam packed with advice. At this moment it seems the majority of people...
There has been quite a bit of discussion about, demand for, and envy of that ephemeral thing called presence. It's the sort of thing that gets people hired, promoted, and rewarded and yet if you ask most people to define it, they'll probably say something...
Not very many fire departments are comfortable putting on in person training, especially if it means bringing instructors in from outside. That’s why FireWorks Consulting and Training has developed online, video-based instructional courses leading to accredited or non-accredited evaluation and examination. We’ve also equipped and...
How many of you are a little nervous about re-entry? That delicate process of re-engaging with friends, family and coworkers as the restrictions on interactions loosen and the immunization rates rise? For months now I have been sad about the inability to see people in...
Centuries before zoom and other online video platforms turned us into the worst kind of insecure self critics, human beings have been holding themselves to an impossible standard. Generally when we are out in the world we feel pretty secure but we can be thrown...
I had a vaguely alarming experience recently when two colleagues, reminiscing about our shared media past, related an incident that involved all three of us. It was one of those media events where various TV and radio personalities take part in risky, ill-advised and potentially...
I first realized that I had covid when I woke up at 2:30 on a Monday morning with the sheets soaked and freezing. My teeth were chattering on top of the full body shivers that ran up and down like someone practicing scales. I finally...