Yesterday, FBI Director James Comey issued his final statement about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal email server. While he characterized her behavior around classified information as “extremely careless,” he will not recommend prosecution. Democrats and Republicans are spinning his decisions relentlessly today. The overwhelming impression I get from Comey’s statement is of a diligent…
When you learn things, you know them. Then, if you try to teach someone else, you realize you don’t know them, and you learn them at a deeper level. I recently tried to teach my teenager to parallel park. I’ve been successfully parallel parking for many decades, of course, but we needed to practice together to…
Yesterday I rode my bike from Arlington to Falmouth, Massachusetts, to support my nonprofit. I’m very sore, of course, but I wanted to share some of what I saw. Bicycling is a unique way to experience the countryside — you see, hear, and smell things at a pace that allows you to drink in the…
If you want to sound like an immature, unprofessional idiot, fill your prose with exclamation points, emojis, superlatives, adverbs, and profanity. Today I’ll explain why people use these rhetorical techniques and how they undermine your meaning. There are no absolute rules about business writing. You are welcome to use any of the elements I describe here….
From southern courtesy to corporate bullshit, you had lots of questions after last week’s webinar for Higher Logic. I’ve answered them here. (Questions edited for length and clarity; some questions are from multiple listeners.) Q. Isn’t this all things that we should have learned from “Elements of Style” by Strunk & White? How is this different? Strunk…
Four Americans died in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. Yesterday’s “final” 800-page report about it from the U.S. House Select Committee is biased. So are the response from House Democrats, the coverage from Fox News, the coverage from CNN, and every other article. Why? Because all stories are inherently biased. It’s the nature of the form. Here’s…
Facebook determines which of your posts get through to your friends. Your emails, on the other hand, all go through. But what if they didn’t? You’d have to write email to make it clearer, more compelling, more engaging. And that’s what you ought to be doing anyway. While Facebook’s algorithm is mysterious and ever-changing, we know…
I’m redesigning this blog. The top header is coming off (wasted space). I’ll be highlighting the book and the blog posts. What else needs fixing (from a design perspective)? Your comments appreciated.
Donald Trump says he is a great negotiator. But he’s actually a brinksman — a master of brinksmanship. This works great in business, where the government can bail you out. But if you crash the government, there’s no one to save you. I’ve studied negotiation with the Harvard Negotiation Project (the originators of “Getting to…