In September, I was invited to speak to a gathering of the Illinois Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. As an association member was preparing my name tag, he asked how I should be described. Since I was going to be addressing the group, the logical answer might have seemed to be “speaker.” But, really, […]
REALTOR magazine senior editor Wendy Cole today posted a piece (“A WICKED Good Time To Buy”) on the marketing exploits of Realtor Roz Byrne, which I wrote about yesterday. You could say it’s a “spook-tacular” ditty, but you’d merely be echoing a turn of phrase that Wendy employs in the “Speaking of Real Estate” space […]
The same fine folks who specialize in wasteful spending via patronage and other forms of bureaucratic bumbling–I refer, in this case, to the Chicago City Council–now are considering telling mobile advertising units to go away. The latest example of government lackeys’ penchant for sticking their noses where it’s neither desired or necessary is a proposal […]
By my calculations, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas consume precisely three days of the calendar. But somehow it all translates into a two-month comfort-and-junk food fest, when people tend to pack on some additional pounds. (OK, I’m projecting from my own experience–it’s my seasonal pattern, anyway!) So it was with great admiration that in developing a […]
One of my favorite clients is someone who challenges me regularly to explain what I’m up to. Just today, she asked me about the placement of a news release on a user-generated website owned by the Sun-Times News Group. Why, she wondered, was the piece placed on a community page many miles from where she […]
“No good deed shall go unpunished.” I first heard that phrase from Mike Bailey, my curmudgeonly (in a classic newspaper way) former editor at The Courier News in Elgin, Ill. That’s Mike’s mug you see here to the right. I know Mike didn’t originate the phrase, nor did George Steinbrenner, the longtime (and often curmudgeonly) […]
Today I provided some copy-editing recommendations to a client who had mentioned his website, but without the “www.” part, in an advertisement. Fact: you need not type “www” into the Internet address bar to trek from one website to another. Reality: that fact notwithstanding, if you want to catch the reader’s eye, include “www.” in […]
The moment I saw my brother’s text message last night, I suspected that we had the latest media sensation on our hands. “Joe the plumber making waves in debate,” Andy wrote. At first, I thought some guy named Joe had commandeered a microphone at last night’s third and final Presidential Debate and blasted Barack Obama […]
“I don’t normally pass these types of e-mails along, but…” The “Silly Season” is upon us and so, too, are e-mail chains that begin with phrases along the lines of the one that started this post. Growing up, I learned about Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. I even enjoyed the music of Frankie Valli & […]