I interviewed author Ella Frances Sanders in 2015 after her book “Lost in Translation” had caused quite a sensation and landed on the NY Times bestselling list for four months. I remember thinking how improbable that a single blog post, “11 Untranslatable Words from Other Cultures” could morph into a bestseller. Thanks to over 2 …more
I’m not talking about our friend Lord Baelish who discovered that chaos wasn’t exactly a ladder. I simply like the line. With the last season of “Game of Thrones” soon to kick off, it’s a good time to dust off a lesson in persuasive language from the show. Let’s turn our attention to Tyrion’s plea …more
The grab-bag post returns for the first time in 2019. As a refresher, I invented the grab bag as a forum to share three shards on business communications that otherwise couldn’t stand on their own. Here goes. Who Will Get the Books? Fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld died last month. According to Le Figaro, the …more
Nothing impacts the success of a company more than its ability to recruit talent. Massive investments are earmarked for the cause ranging from websites to research to recruiters to salted caramel macarons for the requisite on-site sugar high. Yet, the auto-generated email that lands in the candidate’s inbox after submitting a resume is …more
Tech companies more than any other industry recognize that their ability to recruit A+ talent has a say in their long-term success. Magnifying the issue, the tech sector has been on a roll, and the talent pool hasn’t kept pace. With demand out of whack with supply, there’s even more pressure on companies to do …more
I wrote a couple weeks ago about how word choice can lift a narrative. Forget the classic story arc for a moment. Even one word or phrase can warm up the copy or jar the reader with a bolt of incongruence. But nothing tests the ability to harmonize words in tight quarters like …more
Roughly two years ago, I wrote a post about then-candidate Trump and how he used conversational language as a differentiator. Given his communications since moving into the White House, I decided to dust off the point of view that riffs on a Wall Street Journal column. Unfortunately, skipping to the end, bombastic did win the …more
The holiday celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. prompted me to dust off the “I Have Dream” speech. It’s a revealing exercise to read the text of the speech rather than watch and listen to the speech. King was such a gifted orator, you get the feeling he could recite the owner’s manual …more
Season 7 of “Game of Thrones” is off to an epic start with plenty of foreshadowing. My favorite was Sansa’s quip that she learned a lot from Cersei. Still, I can’t see Cercei holding the Iron Throne to the end, and Daenerys Targaryen seems too obvious. Might Tyrion navigate his way to last imp standing? …more
