Blog
Check out my posts (196 and counting) about communications, information, motivation, writing, branding, creativity, media, marketing, persuasion, messages, learning, etc.
Why do we watch the Oscars?
The Oscars are coming. For the people up for them, and the corporate entities behind the nominees, awards can make a difference. They can be an ego boost, feel like a career reward, and bring material benefits in exposure and dollars. But why should the Oscars matter...
Why do some people think Barney the dinosaur, the Super Bowl and Coke are too woke?
In Toronto, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health notes that their address on Queen Street West was once home to what in 1850 was called the Provincial Lunatic Asylum. In 1905, it was renamed the Hospital for the Insane. And that was probably seen as enlightened....
From Pelé to Prince, the mononymous are not anonymous
The Brazilian soccer legend Pelé died last week at 82. He was known as perhaps the greatest player in the history of his sport. He was also known by just one name. Pelé is an example of a mononym: a name composed of a single word. People who go by one name are...
Google knows what we really care about
What was on your mind the most this past year? Even if you didn’t communicate it to the people in your life, you likely did to Google. The search engine knows what we really care about, from geopolitics to celebrity deaths to Pokémon. Every day, Google churns though...
It’s not your imagination – gaslighting is the word of the year
What does the name of an early 19th century form of illumination have to do with Merriam-Webster dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2022? The two words – gas light and gaslighting – remind us that what a term connotes can change radically over time. Words have no...
Was the Book Better Than the Movie?
Thomas Savage, Frank Herbert, William Lindsay Gresham and Haruki Murakami. What do these novelists have in common? They wrote the books upon which four of this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Picture are based. The source material goes back many decades for The...
A Pigment of Your Imagination
Our ancestors once dug up a mineral from the ground, ground it against a rock, added water and started painting. That was some 250,000 years ago. Ochres – in red, yellow and brown hues – were the first colours used by humans to create art. We’ve always used colours to...
Why Some Animals Get a Bad Name
Efforts are on the rise to change geographic and institutional names that are offensive. For example: Last year, Toronto council voted to rename Dundas Street, named for Scottish politician Henry Dundas, who played a part in delaying the abolition of the...
What’s a Five-Letter Word for Conspiracy Theorist?
Conspiracy theories are everywhere. They’ve even crept into the world of Wordle. For those who haven’t played it, Wordle is an online word game. You have six attempts to guess a five-letter word. With every guess, you see tiles that tell you if a letter is in the word...
Who Will Win the Advertising Super Bowl?
The Super Bowl is coming up. Are viewers excited about the game? The halftime show? For a significant number, the answer is the ads. According to a Harris survey, 61% of those intending to watch this year’s Super Bowl are at least as interested in the ads as the game....