beckysue 
I swear I learned a concept in high school psychology called “spatial filling.” I can’t find it on the Internet (or at least not in the way I thought I knew it), but here’s how I recall it. Spatial filling is the tendency for our mind to fill in missing details that we expect to … Read more
In the book I give some tips for using humor in a business situation — speeches, videos, emails. I talk about the fact that comedy is derived from truth. It should happen naturally and organically — just like it does over the dinner table when you’re out with friends. The #1 Rule for using humor? … Read more
I used to do crosswords all the time. Then I got a smartphone. Now I just kill time browsing the Internet. But I always take one or two aboard a plane, because there are long stretches where you can’t use electronic devices, and everything, including my books, are on electronic devices. Anyway, I was on … Read more
I hadn’t heard of the “logical punctuation” movement. I’m not really disturbed so much by the continued evolution of language to a looser, more informal style. But to learn that there has long been debate over where to put punctuation marks in relation to quotation marks? I’ve always thought that was ironclad. Periods, commas, question … Read more
This weekend we shot a series of web videos to accompany the book, and it reinforced several important lessons: Keep your videos SHORT. One minute is great, two minutes is okay if it’s good. Longer than that? How do you plan to keep people watching? Right now I have nine tabs open in my web … Read more
With the iPod, iPhone and iPad — not to mention MacBook and iMac — Apple has been on an almost decade-long roll. But in a rare stumble, the company encountered multiple setbacks that delayed introduction of the heavily anticipated white iPhone for almost a year. When at long last the company unveiled the device a … Read more
Oh, man, the agony and angst just getting to this point. I swear the outside of the book has taken more out of me than the inside did. Speaking of the inside, we are now going over the galleys and getting that into shape and looking at publication as early as July. Less than three … Read more
I came across this great article recently about scheduling and time/project management. It divides the workplace into two types of people: “makers” and “managers.” There are two types of schedule, which I’ll call the manager’s schedule and the maker’s schedule. The manager’s schedule is for bosses. It’s embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each … Read more
With the book basically done — at least the writing part — I’ve started focusing more on the marketing, starting with a new fan page (since Facebook doesn’t let you change the names) and continuing this video series, and scripting out a bunch of new ones that I’ll be appearing in. So humor is the … Read more
It seems a new article appears somewhere every week validating the premise of the book. On Sunday, Maureen Dowd did a column about Jerry Brown’s return to the Governor’s mansion in California. Here’s a particularly interesting insight: Noting that he followed actors into the Statehouse twice, Brown observes: “A lot of this is theater. How … Read more