DISQUS

Congrats to you, Maryam and the kids!

Klein is one author who doesn't need any handlers to help her get her point across.

I suspect they expected her to be a bit more of a rabble-rouser, and less of a skilled debater.

Klein is one author who doesn't need any handlers to help her get her point across.

I suspect they expected her to be a bit more of a rabble-rouser, and less of a skilled debater.

Love the photo! These are good tips.

One thing that's really important about deadlines is communicating with the client when you're likely to miss a deadline (especially if it's something beyond your control). There may be things they can do to compensate if they find out ahead of time. If you phone them five minutes before something's due to let them know there's been a delay, you'll just piss them off and make THEM look bad (you already look bad).

Feeling a little bit in control of my schedule helps me deal with any weird hours that come my way.

When it's work, work, work all the time, I feel like I'm on an endless treadmill. Chop a few items off the list. Definitely.

You can use Facebook for something besides Scrabulous? Jeez, I'm behind the times...

Weird, and getting weirder.

Who needs new episodes of Grey's Anatomy and The Family Guy, when there's As the RSS Aggregator Turns to watch?

Wow. I could barely plod my way through that bloated lead paragraph. Sometimes less is more.

Works on me. I never read him except when he's trashing someone. I guess I miss all his wisdom in between trash talking, but I can live with that.

The Internet doesn't reward manners. Traffic flows to the latest online train wreck. It seems Dave W. feels he has to savage somebody every second or third week, in order to get a bit of attention. And it works every time...

If you have an editor, it's not a blog.

I hope that doesn't include my wife, who sometimes helps me find what I'm really trying to say hidden in a long, rambling first draft.

Good on you. Some things, like good wine, improve with age!

I think part of the reason people might feel yanked around over the iPhone prices is the uber clevernesss of Mr. jobs, who acts like everything is part of a master plan that he won't let you see.

As for gas prices, no one in N. America can complain that we're paying too much. Look at prices in Europe if you want pain.

I got an unlocked Nokia e61 so I wouldn't be locked in with a company. I like having a keyboard I can use with my big thumbs.

Nice screen, wifi access. A bit clunky, but I'm happy.

I don't mind if a site that aggregate hundreds of sources pushes out a refresh every once in a while. It saves me from clicking Refresh to see if anything on Techmeme has updated.

But Drudge? Yeah, sounds like phoney page inflation to me.

Someone sent an invite to jetrois.

Most public relations people I know are happy to put "subject matter experts" in touch with media or others, when the time is right.

Just as most companies have tight financial controls in place to keep from getting ripped off and to keep employees from temptation (or from being wrongfully suspected of financial shenanigans), most smart companies have policies in place about who talks to the media or outside groups, and what they say.

For publicly owned or regulated companies, it protects the employee from saying something that could inadvertantly cause problems with regulators, or with the stock price. Far better to have somebody vet the interview who knows about Sarbanes-Oxley and any other complex rules on public disclosure of info.

There's plenty of media training and public speaking training available to help middle managers or people lower down the food chain handle themselves when talking publicly about information that hasn't been officially disclosed. The training also helps them choose better ways to communicate complex concepts (simplify, use examples, don't over-explain).

Management usually doesn't want everyone running around sharing information without any warning, and without any limits.

PR policies are in place to protect the company, but they're also in place to protect the employee.

Bleu and Jason hit on the everyman quality and the strong hook. Good points.

For me, an online video works if it surprises me, delights me or amazes me.

So, go do something surprising, delighting or amazing, in a way that isn't cliched, and you stand a chance at getting my attention. Since countless companies have been routinely failing to do that in their traditional advertising campaigns, I'm not spending a lot of time waiting for a flood of commercial videos that blow me away.

Take chances. Aim for the niche, not the mass market. Do something fun. Do something daring. Let talented people try new things, even if they're not as technically skilled as the pro down the street. Be willing to target your inner child. Then you might get past the impulse to copy what's worked for someone else.

Once Skynet becomes self aware, none of use will want to belong to social networks. It will just tell the machines what we're doing, and how to find us.

I suppose Microsoft suing to protect their patents is slightly more palatable than the companies whose sole purpose is to buy patents and sue anyone who comes close to violating them.

This would play better for Microsoft if they identified a portion of their patents that they feel should legitimately be freely used by anyone, and find a way to give them to the world.

Leigh: That has to be the best part of the tape - his failure to nail down his daughter's age.

You can bet his publicist knows the ages of everyone in the Baldwin universe without checking their notes. So he doesn't need to remember insignificant details like that.

What an ass. Glad Dora didn't take it personally!

Chris: I followed your advice, but I think I must have got the details mixed up. The facilities here in jail are nice, and they even let me use the computer for a few minutes. Please wire me some cash so I can post bail!

Just kidding... Great suggestions!

Brett: Not dead, just behaving more predictably.

There are lots of companies that do very well, despite some flaws in their senior managers. Microsoft has done very well with the development of Xbox Live, which is very consumer-oriented. That success is overshadowed by the monolithic corporate leviathan image, but it's still worth noting.

Totally agree, except the part about companies not analysing whether to have a receptionist.

The place I worked a few years ago went through an efficiency exercise, and decided to do away with receptionists for each floor of the building. They were replaced by a centralized switchboard, phone queues, and a commissionaire in the lobby who knows nothing about the company.

For in-person visitors, the process of being greeted by the elevator was replaced with a convoluted process of sending the person who was being visited to the main elevator bank to try to meet up with the person who was visiting them. It worked best when you knew what the person looked like. "I'm wearing a red carnation," or something like that.

Not only should we not insist on a rigorous cost-benefit analysis for blogging, we should take a good look at whether all the cost-saving decisions we make are, in fact, exercises in Dilbertian stupidity.