Effective Communication
March 27th, 2023You’ve probably been advised that the route to advancement lies not in what you know, but who. However, in my experience, what’s more important than who you know, is who knows you. Every significant career opportunity I’ve ever had has come about in part because of the public profile my thought leadership delivered. These have […]
read more...What’s more important than who you know?Improve your Writing
January 27th, 2021Be honest: if you sent me a piece of your writing, and I sent it back marked up like the page at the right, would you feel insulted? I know it’s sobering to see words you’ve carefully committed to paper marked up in red ink by a critic who deems your prose something short of […]
read more...6 tips for editing your own work — and why you should solicit feedback from othersImprove your Writing
July 7th, 2020Don’t stop me, even if you have heard this one before: It’s 1992. I’ve just joined the board of MediaWatch, Informed Opinions’ predecessor. A TV reporter calls to say the Miss Canada pageant has just been cancelled and he needs someone who is not a beauty contestant to come on TV to talk about it. […]
read more...My first op ed… on the Miss Canada beauty pageantImprove your Writing
April 6th, 2020In Stalinist Russia, poet Anna Akhmatova’s husband was shot and her son imprisoned. Every day for months she stood outside the prison walls begging for word about her son’s fate. Recognizing her, one of the other women in similar circumstances called out to ask, “Poet, can you write this?” She responded, “I can.” And then […]
read more...“Poet, can you write this?” We need to write the post-coronavirus reality we want nowImprove your Writing
July 18th, 2018In the dog days of summer 2017, when many people were at the beach, or glued to the media coverage of Charlottesville’s neo-Nazi march and the shocking response from the leader of the free world, a small posse of women with informed opinions were speaking up to make change. University of Ottawa law prof, Liz […]
read more...9 tips to improve the chances of getting your op ed publishedImprove your Writing
April 12th, 2017Gloria Steinem… senior bureaucrats… somebody who funds the kind of work you do? Whose attention would you most like to attract? In recent years, Canadian women writing timely, engaging and persuasive commentary have elicited responses from all of the above. Others have sparked international conversations, investigative journalism, and a reversal of government policy. And […]
read more...Whose attention would you most like to attract?Improve your Writing
November 10th, 2015Is it possible to draw attention to egregious sexism, make clear the consequences of rape myths, and place a judge under review in a single op ed? Yes on all counts — as two university law professors demonstrated yesterday. Monday’s Globe and Mail ran a commentary by Elaine Craig (above left, Dalhousie University) and Alice Woolley (above […]
read more...How to leverage 700 words for maximum impactEffective Communication
August 3rd, 2015I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been battling my yoga teacher for months. She’s personally warm and professionally competent — but I can’t actually hear her. Especially at the start and end of every class, her soft-spoken voice is barely audible, even when I’m seated front row centre. (I would read her lips, but my […]
read more...Speaking While FemaleImprove your Writing
April 5th, 2015It could be a stressful exercise. But by the time we force our commentary writing workshop participants into allowing others in the room to vote on the engagement capacity of their opening sentences, they’ve already laughed and commiserated enough that the “thumbs down” votes don’t feel personal. And the collective intelligence of the colleagues present invariably serves up a […]
read more...How to engage readers from the first sentence — and repurpose your content, tooOur Advocacy Work
December 31st, 2014EXPLOITING CELEBRITIES How do you draw public attention to rampant discrimination against women restaurant workers? I played the celebrity card, and heightened the drama by contrasting the red carpet behaviour of Hollywood A-listers, Sandra Bullock (rooted to the spot by her heels) and Hugh Jackman (bounding down Yonge Street posing for selfies with fans). […]
read more...Mandatory High Heels and Facebook Feedback