Management

Improve your writing in one easy step

After Melbourne author Anh Do won a few prizes recently for his book The Happiest Refugee, there was a bit of media eyebrow-raising when it came to light that Do had had the assistance of a ghostwriter in putting together his book. The unspoken implication seemed to be that perhaps Do’s award-winning credentials should be [...]

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This year, make your greeting cards meaningful

Seems like we just finished the last one but, yes, the silly season is upon us again. Amongst other things, that means swinging into the December routines around the office. Dusting off the decorations, planning the parties … and composing the greeting cards. Now the greeting card task might sound fairly ho-hum, but it is [...]

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Global customer service is no customer service

I’ve just had another of those messy customer service experiences that only serve to remind us just how diminished the concept of customer service has become. And why global customer service is not the way to go, despite the ever increasing trend towards it. The general situation was one we are all far too familiar [...]

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It’s True: The World is Simpler than We Think

Always nagging in the back of my mind is the notion that the world is a lot more simple than we tend to make it. (It is because of this that, over the years, I’ve been an advocate for simplicity.) To see how complicated we imagine life to be, take a look at the Self-Help and [...]

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“Up in the Air” Cracks the Ice

“There’s a law of diminishing returns on preaching”. So said author Kate Grenville in a thought provoking lecture, ‘Writers in a Time of Change’, in 2009*. Yet everyday, in thousands of blog posts and columns all over the world, preaching is exactly what many very earnest writers do. I do it myself – often. There [...]

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Inspiration from a Deaf, Nutty Genius

A deaf bloke with dubious personal hygiene. A complete nutter who died nearly 200 years ago. And a modern day inspiration for artists and business people alike. All in the same person. Who’d have thunk it? But Beethoven was, and is, all of those things. In Search of Beethoven is an engrossing new feature length [...]

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Hurry Up and … Slow Down

Over forty years is a long time to work on a single task. Yet that has been the lot of the four editors of the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. The massive 3,952 page double volume will be released this month, the culmination of the editors’ entire careers. In our world of fast, [...]

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Marketing Shock! Less is the New More

Not two, three, four or five. My latest razor now has five blades – plus one on the back for trimming any recalcitrant hair. Our toilet paper is now three layers thick, has a space-age texture and is quite possibly made from Kevlar. Our toothpaste makes so many promises that our dentist can safely retire. [...]

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Why Everyone – even Blokes – should see ‘The September Issue’

To judge from the gender balance in the audience, there aren’t a lot of blokes lining up to see The September Issue, the new documentary feature that gives us a peek inside the walls of Vogue magazine in New York. Which is a pity, because the film has a lot to offer anyone – male [...]

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Happiness Sheds its Hippie Heritage

I was listening to a talkback radio discussion last night about what constitutes achievement and success in work and life. While not a particularly original topic for evening radio, I was struck by the tone of the calls. During quite a lengthy discussion, not a single caller suggested that success is about climbing the corporate ladder or making money. Could it be that success – for everyone, not just the hippies – is about being happy?

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Our Life at Work Stripped Bare

Most of us spend a healthy slice of our lives working. We spend additional time thinking about work, but these thoughts are generally focused on the job at hand. We think through an upcoming meeting, worry about a deadline or scheme about our next job change. Much less often do we think about the wider connection of our work to our community. Rarely, if ever, do we think about the extent to which others’ work impacts on, and is essential to, our way of life. In ‘The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work’, Alain de Botton does this for us in a thoughtful and entertaining way.

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