Mean What You Say

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One summer day many years ago, a friend of our family told my then eight-year old self that he would build me a treehouse in the fall. Maybe this friend didn’t realize how much I trusted his words. Maybe this friend didn’t really think I was paying attention to what he said or figured that, being […]

What Speed Dating Can Teach Us About Sales

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Forbes recently published a story on research by Karen Huang, a Ph.D student at Harvard, that suggests that people who ask questions, particularly follow-up questions, may become better managers, land better jobs, and even win second dates. Huang designed a study that examined whether asking questions at a first meeting improved the relationship or made no difference. She […]

More Than a User Manual

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I’ve had more than one experience where after bringing home some new gadget requiring a bit of technical expertise to install, I am disappointed to find the directions sorely lacking. A quick phone call to technical assistance gives me only a shred of new insight on how I can use the product to its fullest […]

What’s in a Logo?

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Rumor has it that UK oil group BP spent close to $150,000 US dollars on logo design before launching the now instantly recognizable sunflower logo in 2001. British Petroleum adopted this new logo and rebranded itself as BP (“Beyond Petroleum”) due to negative press on their poor safety standards and other reasons. This new logo was to […]

The Many Faces of “Free”

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Free stuff comes in many different forms. Sometimes there are legitimate, useful things to be had for free. Consider the scores of handy apps to be downloaded free of charge that perform any number of useful tasks. And then there is the pretty ridiculous stuff, designed to lure in anyone with a little too much […]