"You're gonna come crawling back to the humanities," said Mrs. Thomas, my 12th grade English teacher, as I headed off to get my engineering degree. How did she know that years later, I'd take joy one evening in going through a draft of a marketing datasheet, and... Replacing passive voice with active Making sure bullet… Continue reading Copy editing
Category: Marketer
New blood
If only every organization could bring in a new member every few weeks. The energy and enthusiasm brought by a new hire, early in his or her career, who's just happy to be there and excited to contribute, could power a small city. "Eat this brick," you could say, and the new hire would go… Continue reading New blood
Vacations, not quite unplugged
It's really nice to take a vacation unplugged. To leave it all behind... and to know that there's nothing you can really do to help out with all those responsibilities you left behind. (Like the responsibility of writing daily blog posts.) And yet... there are advantages to a vacation that's not quite unplugged. When you've… Continue reading Vacations, not quite unplugged
Telepathy
In his magnificent book On Writing, Stephen King describes makes the amusingly accurate claim that writing is basically telepathy. "All the arts depend on telepathy to some degree, but I believe that writing offers the purest distillation," he offers. As an example, he points out that the book is scheduled to be published in late 2000,… Continue reading Telepathy
“Flipping the Bit”
A few more chorus members have left the chorus I sing in, casualties of trust from the transition. They've decided that for them, singing for that conductor in that chorus under these circumstances is just causing them angst. There are enough other musical outlets in the Boston area that they'll certainly find another chorus to… Continue reading “Flipping the Bit”
The Joys of JJFoley 