True Grid
The humble MS Word table has been there for me so many times.
Communications
From van Gogh to Creative Government
We take creativity very seriously in the Scottish Government.
Real Branding Is For Worker Bees
The fantasy and fallacy of courses in brand is that consultants work like The Wizard of Oz. You think we stand behind a curtain, flipping switches and pulling levers, cogitating and ruminating. Until, like a pregnant woman, our water breaks. And a fully-formed, living, breathing brand pops out into the world, ready to “rock andRead… Read more »
Bridging the Veteran Culture Gap
The vocabulary and language that I used in the military was not the same as my fellow Veteran of current day.
7 1/2 Steps to Win the War on Marathon Meetings
I just left a meeting and the entire time I wished a meteor would strike the room we were in. How often has that feeling or something similar occurred to you? It seems to be fairly common in my 30 years as a government employee to have felt that way. I think there are meetingsRead… Read more »
The Connect Effect
I spend roughly nine hours a day in front of my computer working — minus bathroom breaks, lunch, meetings and a little Internet surfing for “research purposes.” Eighty percent of my duties involve direct interaction with a keyboard, my Outlook email account and a Word document of some sort. I’m a communicator by profession. My jobRead… Read more »
We Still Need to Convince People About Accessibility
I just read a blog post about the benefits of an accessible site. Despite working in accessibility for the past 15 years, sometimes I still get surprised that we even need to have the conversation about accessibility being necessary and the right thing to do–particularly in government where we’re required to comply with Section 508.Read… Read more »
5 Phrases To Cut From Your Emails
Email has become a primary form of communication for business, yet there are still so many terrible examples flooding company inboxes every day: Meandering, imprecise missives that don’t seem to have a point. Email chains a mile long that somehow leave everyone with a differing opinion on the next course of action. (When they wereRead… Read more »
Keeping Score with Email Goals and Testing
In football, the distance the kicker kicks the ball is irrelevant if he doesn’t aim for the field goal. The same goes for an email campaign. Establishing solid goals and developing a testing strategy comprise a winning game plan for an email campaign.
How to Pep Up Your Next PowerPoint Presentation
If you’re like most people, you hate going to a meeting where the presenter reads verbatim from a bland PowerPoint presentation. So, how can you avoid common pitfalls and create a great presentation for your next meeting? If your agency requires you to use a specific template, you’re obviously a bit stuck with how creativeRead… Read more »