Archive for the ‘Communications’ Category

My wife was shopping at H&M and noticed that before ringing up customers, the cashiers were asking them if they wanted to donate $1 to the Boys and Girls Club. Most people said “no.”

A minute later, after the cashiers rang up the order, they asked again, but slightly differently. The cashiers said something along the lines of “Would you like to round up your purchase to the nearest dollar and donate the extra change to the Boys and Girls Club?” Many people who had said “no” now said “yes.”

What created the power of …

I’ve posted about loving the employees who leave you and about learning from departing employees. But I haven’t yet covered the more important topic of employee retention. Here’s one idea to help your employee retention . . . .

Many companies have a standard practice of having exit interviews with departing employees. Too many companies don’t have a standard practice of having stay interviews with the employees they want to retain.

A stay interview isn’t a 1:1 meeting or a check-in meeting. Its purpose isn’t to talk about current projects. These are meetings focused …

When my wife (then girlfriend) and I were recent college graduates, she got into law school. She should’ve been excited, but she wasn’t. She wanted to work in cooking. She was a great cook but had no professional or educational experience that would help her land a culinary job. Not to mention that cooking jobs paid very little. Like a responsible adult, she planned to go to law school because that’s what she thought she was supposed to do. Like an irresponsible adult, I convinced her to pursue her passion instead. (I’m sure my future …

I’ve been in too many brainstorming meetings that don’t generate original ideas. There could be many reasons why. Perhaps it’s the people attending, the company culture, the environment, how the meeting starts, the facilitator or a combination of factors. I can’t cover all of these in a single blog post. Instead, I’ll focus on a way to kickoff your next brainstorming meeting that could help you generate more creative ideas.

But, before I get to that, please take no more than 30 seconds to answer this question: You’re at a construction site and you have …

A relative: Are you going to work on computers like your daddy?
Jack (our two year old): No

Me: What are you going to do when you get older?
Jack: Drink beer, drink coffee and touch the ceiling.

What can I say? He’s an ambitious kid with high aspirations and great role models. But that’s not the point of this post…

As demonstrated by our 2 year old, the questions you ask and how you ask them play a big role in the information you learn. I’m going to provide some suggestions …

My grandfather went out to lunch once a week with his friends. They used to eat at Subway . . . until the sandwich prices went up. Then they started a regular tradition of eating at Wendy’s. Popop was so excited about Wendy’s that he regularly explained why it was the best deal around. As he told us, “You can get an entire lunch for 99 cents. I buy the 99 cent chili and get a cup of water, which is free, to go with it.” His friends would do the same, and then they’d …

Nonprofits have critically important missions that certainly don’t match their small operating budgets. That’s why they need to constantly innovate and make the most of the least. With that in mind, I wrote this article about social media for nonprofits. Here are 22 high-impact, low-cost social media opportunities for nonprofits (adapted from a talk I gave at NPower PA‘s conference, Social Media for Nonprofits, and including some great insights from other speakers).

1)    Appreciate corporate sponsors. This is probably the easiest tip and the biggest missed opportunity. An example is Comcast’s blog a few …

It was hard to miss Greg Smith’s recent resignation from Goldman Sachs. The bank’s former executive director published a scathing resignation essay in The New York Times accusing his company of being unethical, ripping off clients, and of all outrages, calling clients Muppets!

There are many lessons from this including how not to resign from your job, how to avoid burning bridges (or leaving them in a complete fireball as Smith did) and the fact that Muppets is a derogatory term (who knew?). What I want to cover is the importance of how we refer …

“Whatever happened with Abbott Square?”

My cousin dropped me an email to check in on Abbott Square, a real estate property he had advised me about. I had completely forgotten to update him. Oops.

Whenever you ask someone for advice or help – whether it’s about something you need to do at work, finding a job, getting new business, or anything else – remember to keep them in the loop.

Of course, I said “thanks” immediately after Jason helped me out. I should have also followed-up after I took his advice. Everyone wants to know …