7 Steps to Better E-Mail Management

It's easy to get overwhelmed by your in-box, but these simple strategies can help you keep it all under control ... more

What did you say? Ways to create effective listening skills

Have you ever caught yourself finishing another personâ??s sentence? Or have you interrupted a business contact to add your own comments before you even heard the other person out? What about interpreting what someone else said completely wrong because we did not let them finish their sentences or explain their point more clearly?

Here are some ways to create better and more productive conversations, stronger relationships and increase your bottom line. >>>

How to work a room

There are tons of networking events to attend - too many, actually. Too many ways to meet people you'll never see again, too many opportunities to collect a stack of business cards you'll never look at again. But it's well worth doing as much networking as you can, because you never know where a chance meeting will lead. Last year, for example, I was hired to give a presentation at a secluded resort near Honolulu, Hawaii - all because of a conversation I struck up with a woman sitting next to me at a luncheon.

Here are 13 simple tips to make the process easier and more productive. >>>

Book: You’re Too Kind : A Brief History of Flattery

You’re Too Kind : A Brief History of Flattery

by Richard Stengel

From the reviews

Stengel (a senior editor at Time magazine) ponders the meaning of flattery and illustrates that more than mere praise, flattery is praise with a motive, be it benign or grasping.

You’re Too Kind is a witty, colorful, fast-paced trip through history. It’s meticulously researched and comprehensive. .... more

Communication is the key

Communication is such a touchy subject. Although we all do it all the time, there are so many layers that make communication so difficult, and also so exciting and fun! First of all, there is a layer of assumptions. We often believe that we all come to the table with the same understandings, the same values, the same meanings. But, truly, we don’t. ... more

Editing America

The other day a man wearing a brown fedora strolled through Pike Place Market. Unlike most tourists, he wasn't there to browse or buy. He was there to edit.Yes, edit. Toting markers, chalk and white-out, the man known as the Indiana Jones of typos had come to do battle with this city's misspellings and botched punctuation. Seattle, bookish as it may claim to be, was revealed to be barely literate. There was the sign for "Dillettante" chocolate. The board announcing "Todays sample." The posters for "recepies," "cake's," "birthday candell's." The parking-lot warning that you get "no in/out priveleges." More ....

Business Buzzwords That Make You Gag

Readers wrote in with their nominees for this column's first-ever Most Annoying Lingo awards (the Mallies).

Find out which phrases they would like purged from our professional conversations.

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