I’m delighted to introduce you to my latest book: Effective Communication at Work: Speaking and Writing Well in the Modern Workplace (Rockridge Press 2020) I’ve devoted more than a decade to researching and writing about the intersection of the analog and digital worlds. Social media, email, chat platforms, instant messaging, and texting have dramatically impacted the way we communicate at[...]
Canada Post has had its troubles in recent years, largely because of the shift from paper to electronic transactions. The federal corporation’s annual reports show volumes dropping from 10.8 billion pieces of mail in 2009 to 8.9 billion in 2015. Your friends don’t send many Christmas cards any more, and your credit card company wants to send your statements on line. As part of a survival[...]
The Digital News Report 2016, published by the Reuters Institute this past June, explores changing patterns of news consumption in 26 countries based on interviews with more than 50,000 people. As you’d expect, the 124-page report has news about the rise of digital news (64 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 get their news primarily online) and, in Canada especially, the decline of print. [...]
We had coffee last week with a friend who works in a large government agency. Its good work benefits thousands of people, but the work is very technical, very complicated. She said her senior leadership is “conservative”, meaning they don’t like to communicate or meet with the public. She also said the agency is changing the way it provides its services and is getting a rough ride from news[...]
Over 15 years and more, Main Street has generated a big chunk of our income through the use of one phrase: “You should talk to people before you try to do that.” B.C.’s recent history is littered with project proposals and policy proposals that ended badly or have suffered damaging and expensive setbacks. Mines, pipelines, run-of-river power, gravel pits, waste incinerators. A harmonized [...]