Business “Open Houses” are a dime a dozen. For many of these events, you could call them “Come Into My Business So I Can Try to Get You as a Customer.” Not that you should do that, of course. Hardly anyone would come, and it would be really hard to fit all those characters into […]
“Content creation.” It’s a term that I never heard, or used, during my years as a journalist. But it’s become an almost-daily phrase in my vocabulary as I help organizations tell their stories. The creation of content–often, in the form of stories that accentuate someone’s expertise and knowledge–is a foundational element in most any public […]
It’s that time of year when many of us–me included–are prone to adding a few pounds. Holiday parties, extra layers of clothing to combat the cold, and still more holiday parties conspire to tempt us to add more calories than we need. New Year’s resolutions, such as getting in shape and shedding excess weight, can’t […]
“In an amazing, unique development that will leverage cutting-edge technology with grassroots principles, the Acme Redevelopment Group, Inc. is utilizing a new game-changer in the burgeoning lint removal industry.” If you had not detected the patent ridiculousness of that opening line already, the last few words should have been a tip-off: lint removal industry? Although […]
In all my years as a newspaper reporter, through the thousands of stories in which I quoted one or more individuals, I was constrained by this pesky requirement: the person had to have actually said something in order for me to include it inside the quotation marks. Imagine that—and hold that unspectacular, elementary thought for […]
For the longest time, back in the days when I actually had a home phone line, I resisted getting caller ID. Instead, I took a certain pride in maintaining this “purist” approach to picking up the ringing phone without any indication of who was calling. I was old school, by golly, and my stance meant […]
In the first two segments of this three-part series, we examined the actions of a street performer that my family recently came across on The Magnificent Mile in Chicago. Spray-painted silver, dressed in flashy attire and sporting a bright red head of hair, he cut a striking figure as he stood perfectly still atop a […]
In the previous post, we took you along to The Magnificent Mile in Chicago, where a street performer was standing perfectly still atop a box. Spray-painted silver, dressed in flashy attire and sporting an eye-grabbing hair-do, he was waiting for passers-by to make donations that were a pre-requisite for him to swing into action. When […]
Along Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, in the heart of The Magnificent Mile, the sounds of Pharrell’s “Happy” swept along the sidewalk one recent Sunday afternoon. After moving closer to the source of the music, I was stopped short by the striking image of a street performer standing on a box. Silver paint sprayed over his skin […]
Last week, my kids were intrigued by a question from a neighbor: “Are you interested in making a little money?” The intrigue turned to excitement when they found out the task related to the compensation: the family was going on vacation for 10 days and, in their absence, they were hoping the Baron children could […]