What have I done to deserve this?

Today's menu: Tomato with Sponge Shaft and Green Paste. Have you read the World's Best Airline Complaint Letter? Quite effective.

Maybe you too have had a less than favorable experience with a service provider. Before you write that complaint letter, get some tips in The Fine Art of Persuasion via Email from WebWorkerDaily.

Awards Open for Submissions

Hey fellow communicators!  As you may have heard, Maroon & Gold
Awards submissions are open!  Here's your chance to show off and be
recognized for the work you've done.  We are especially
excited to see the submissions this year...due to cut backs and budget
slashes, we communicators have had to be especially creative this year
in communicating our messages, and we want to applaud your innovation hard work!

More information about the awards and the categories can be found at the Forum Web site here.  Also, new for 2010 is the Coordinated Social Media and E-Newsletter subcategories! 





The Awards submission period runs until 4:30pm on February 19th, however, the Early Bird pricing ends February 12th, so get your submissions in early!

Questions?  Drop me a line at ward0115@umn.edu!

Link roundup, 1.26.10

From board member Peggy Rader:

Every week we'll post a roundup of interesting communications news and articles from the past week. What have you been reading, listening to, and watching? Add a comment or suggest a link for next week.

Maybe you've heard of Stamats as a group that offers seminars and webinars. It also has a great Web site chock full of downloadable articles, how-tos, etc. Always worth a visit when you're looking for specific advice or just have a free 30 minutes.

Another communications group that has an excellent Web site is Ragan's. You have to register for some of this site's content, but it's free. They carry blogs by various members that offer interesting reading and send out a once-weekly e-mail with a summary of what they feel is fresh on their pages. They also offer videos and downloadable papers.

And for all you book lovers out there, may I suggest Shelf Awareness, the Web site for a daily newsletter aimed at independent booksellers. Yes, I know you aren't selling books, so I don't advise subscribing to the newsletter. But the site includes those groovy newsletter features without the boring bits: interviews with and profiles of authors, plus excellent book reviews of books that you may not find in the New York Times columns. The newsletter editor also writes the occasional essay about some aspect of the book business that I always find fascinating and enlightening.

Monday link roundup, 1.18.10

Every Monday we'll post a roundup of interesting communications news and articles from the past week. What have you been reading, listening to, and watching? Add a comment or suggest a link for next week.

I found a couple interesting articles:

• Employers Using Social Networks To Screen Employees


• Social Media and Internet Trends for 2010

Monday link roundup, 1.11.10

It's a quick one this week, so help me out: What have you been reading, listening to, and watching? Add a comment or suggest a link for next week.

• How to use an apostrophe -- comic from The Oatmeal
  


• Stop using stock photography clichés -- "We should refuse to use one more photograph of business men shaking hands or ethnically diverse people laughing together."

Poll: Did you make any New Year's resolutions?

Though New Year's resolutions may be doomed to failure,

many people use the new year to reassess and recommit. What about you?

Monday link roundup, new year edition

Ok fine, early January: you win. Here is the obligatory Best of 2009 post (with some decade wrapup thrown in).

• 50 Best Websites 2009 -- Time Magazine



• 25 Best Blogs 2009 -- Time Magazine



• The
  
  Pogie Awards for the Year's Best Tech Ideas -- The New York
  
  Times



• Picturing the Past 10 Years -- The New York Times



• The 10 Most Innovative Viral Video Ads of 2009 -- Mashable



• The Decade's 14 Biggest Design Moments -- Fast Company

What do you think of these lists? What would you change? Do you have other year-end lists to recommend? And was 2006 really the year of ironic mustaches?

Image / sxc.hu / enimal