One of the things I’m enjoying most about podcasting my client’s conference in Vegas is the people I’m meeting. You see, this is an internally focused event for sales people and resellers (which is why I can’t share any of the audio content we’re creating – sorry). In conversations with ...

While I shoveled the first genuine snowfall of the season, I caught sight of a man on a blue bicycle – not something you spot all the time in Oakville in December. We both nodded hello and then he said, “How are you doin’ there, m’am?� “Oh, fine,� I answered, “the snow’s not too he...

Yesterday I led my business-writing workshop for a warm, smart group of entrepreneurial women here in Oakville. During a discussion about marketing copy, I showed them a sample sales letter. They nodded their heads at the attention-grabbing lead sentence, the problem, the solution, and so on, but on...

When I heard that the IABC International Conference would be in New York this year, I registered immediately, because I never pass up a reason to visit my home town. I really do like living in the Toronto area, but I’ll always love New York (as this sculpture on Sixth Avenue says). Over four days,...

 No, I’m not turning Trafcom News into a restaurant review blog. I’m hardly qualified to write about gastronomy. However, we discovered a fabulous restaurant in New York last night, a place with an interesting story and marvelous food, and I wanted to share it with you. Colors, at 417 Lafayette...

This lovely story in the BBC News brings back memories of my old typewriter. I wish I could say that I once possessed a vintage Underwood, but my first machine was actually a Smith Corona electric, which my parents delighted me with at Christmas. I guess I was already a nerd in eighth grade, looking...

I admit it. I cringe when reading novels or non-fiction riddled with errors. (I find it hard to ignore spelling and grammatical bloopers on menus, too, but that’s another story.) Well, here’s an example of one publisher who actually recalled a poorly proofed book and reprinted it. Lesson: allow ...

As Joe Thornley says in his blog post, measurable results in the realm of social media are hard to come by. But guidance is at hand. At the Third Tuesday Toronto meetup on May 20, you can learn from a panel of measurement experts, who’ll tackle this tricky concept: Measurement queen Katie Paine, P...

Now that I can peek out from under the pile of work to be tended to in yet another post-conference period, I can fully reflect on my experience in California last week. Jen McClure and the team at the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR), who ran the New Communications Forum in Santa Rosa,...

In this guide to writing a non-fiction book quickly and painlessly, Paul Lima outlines the entire process step by step, emphasizing that: It takes an idea. It takes purpose. It takes knowledge of your reader. It takes time. But that’s not all. He goes into great detail, with an engaging and highly...