If I could...
The lady who wrote to Amazon that “if I could, I would seriously make out with you right now” got a lot of attention for her blog, so I’m going to try it with the service providers that play a big role in my life:THP Contractors, if I could, I would seriously rub your feet with warm oil while you luxuriate in rose-scented silk sheets as soothing music and soft lighting complete the ambiance right now.Overhead Garage Door, if I could, I would seriously go down on one knee, beg you to complete me, and burst into whoops of jubilant laughter mixed w

How I learned to stop worrying and love the boot
I told a hiring manager yesterday that I'm enjoying my job search so much, I don't want it to end. Steven, if you're reading this, IT WAS A JOKE. But the truth behind it is that sometime in the last two weeks a mental switch flipped and I went from considering networking a bore and a chore, to finding it pleasant and even exciting.One reason for the change is stumbling across the single most useful (from a job seeker's perspective) feature of LinkedIn. I'm not sure whether it's a new feature or I simply never thought to try it before, because it is a little counter-intuitive: Select "Search People," not "Search Companies," but then enter the name of a company,

Goin' medieval on your brand
I've been talking to lots of communicators in postsecondary education lately and have discovered that a medieval oversight still bedevils modern branding and messaging efforts: what, exactly, is a university?Even if they don't use these precise terms, all universities face the "branded house" vs. "house of brands" conundrum and many seem to be in a perpetual state of rebranding as a result. Far more than a semantic nicety, the distinction has serious implications for relationship-building -- and the budgets to support it.At the University of Colorado I l

Single-subject misrule
Colorado and many other states have a "single-subject rule" stating that a bill or ballot proposal can only deal with one subject. It's a good effort to focus the mind, even if it does make it hard to write a law that attempts to prescribe both a cause and an effect (e.g., when a new tax is proposed to fund a specific expenditure).Lately I've detected the existence of a new, unwritten single-subject rule: An e-mail may only deal with one subject. This has probably always been a good idea in a business setting; a rambling memo gives the recipient too many opportunities to shirk the areas s/he doesn't wish to deal with.Even in personal message

Relationship management
Much like expectations or bosses, relationships, it seems, must be managed. That's the implication I see of using so-called relationship management software when dealing with large numbers of donors. When a relationship consists principally of hitting "send" every now and then, however, is it really a relationship?Our household is facing a similar issue with Infinite Campus (IC), the Web site that serves as an electronic grade book for teachers -- and allows parents to peek in 24/7. Report cards as a feedback mechanism were always imperfect because they reported on the past; by the time you got them it was too late to intervene and correct any problems. IC is a huge le