Zeenat Potia, who now works at and blogs for Oxfam America, started her career in book publishing. In her first year in the book business, Zeenat would often be asked at parties whether she was an editor, and she’d say no, that she was in marketing. But:
“I did not like casting myself as a marketer [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘communications’
August 12, 2009
Too much nonprofit marketing?
August 11, 2009
The answer-outcome paradox
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the gap between finding the right answers and getting to the right outcomes.
A few years ago, a close friend of mine was working for a think tank that was hired to consult for the Ministry of Education of a small country. The team, which was made up mostly [...]
June 3, 2009
Your voice
Seth recently shared a great response to all the people who say they’re going to be the next Seth, rightly exhorting folks to get busy being their best selves instead.
But how do you find your own voice?
We all stand on the shoulders of giants – people whose ideas we are building on, whose lessons we [...]
May 6, 2009
I missed you
Between trying to catch up on work and a publishing glitch this morning, there was a gap in my blog posts.
I was talking to one blog reader yesterday who said, “What happened? You didn’t post today.”
That’s great news. If you want to influence, if you want to lead, if you want to have voice and [...]
April 29, 2009
Don’t forget
Everything you write online (email, blog, twitter, text) can and will get anywhere else in an instant. This isn’t news, but ask yourself: do I write EVERY email/blog/tweet assuming that the people who are closest to this can and probably will read and share what I’m writing?
This isn’t just about search and the fact that [...]
April 7, 2009
Telephonitis
Twice in the last week I’ve been on important conference calls where severe “telephonitis” set in. “Telephonitis” is the process whereby otherwise conversant, engaged, active people become silent in the face of a group conference call.
Maybe someday videoconferencing will become the norm, but I think phone calls are here to stay – at least for [...]
March 19, 2009
Honey, did you hide the Sample Copy button again?
I don’t know for sure, but I’d venture to guess that, given the near-extinction of the VCR, the copy machine has captured the title of Consumer Electronics Product that Most Makes People Want to Scream.
Today, two and a half years after I first used the copy machine at work, I noticed a tiny prompt in [...]
March 6, 2009
You are at the top of my list
If you’re trying to get someone’s attention for the first time, it’s hard to stand out. People are flooded with information, emails, RSS feeds, tweets…how do you make yourself heard or seen?
Why not try being unbelievably responsive? If you meet someone for the first time and four days later send an email to say thanks [...]
March 4, 2009
44 reasons I blog
“Why do you blog?”
I get the question a lot. So here’s a list. I originally wanted to come up with 99 reasons, but 44 is where I ended up.
(If you have serious additions to the list please comment and I’ll approve. I’d still like to get to 99, and if I do I’ll repost the [...]
February 4, 2009
Wow, I love Google forms
Occasionally, I cannot resist sharing a Google jewel that I’ve discovered. This is a small one, but it’s so darn useful that I cannot resist: Google forms.
If you work in a nonprofit (or even if you don’t), you’re constantly bringing different groups of people together for different reasons, and there are lots of complicated and [...]
