Our Advocacy Work
May 21st, 2020Meg moved quickly behind me to close the door to her office not wanting her staff to overhear. I had showed up in advance of the MediaWatch board meeting in 1990 to let her know that even though I’d only joined the board six months previously, I would be resigning at this, my second meeting. […]
read more...Tell your mentors how much you appreciate their impact while you canOur Advocacy Work and Uncategorized
December 4th, 2018Did you hear about the woman who left her small fortune to a potted plant because it was “the only thing that listened to her”? As relatable as the sentiment might be, the truth is that women are a growing force when it comes to donating to charities generally, and to social justice causes in […]
read more...How will we spend the $1 trillion coming our way?Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
May 15th, 2017I undermined the impact of my opening. I relied on my notes too much. I failed to advance my slides as intended. Those are just three of the critical observations I made after watching a video of myself delivering a conference keynote in Winnipeg. That’s the bad news. The good news is that 1. the […]
read more...Storytelling and the power of visual feedbackImprove 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?Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
March 20th, 2016I confess, I didn’t want to do it. International Women’s Day 2016 had already delivered an abundance of workshop and speaking opportunities to me this year (eight in the space of 10 days, three of them out of town), and I didn’t need the added stress of trying to adapt my 20- or 30-minute presentation into […]
read more...How to prepare and deliver a five-minute IGNITE speechOur Advocacy Work
February 15th, 2016Let’s say you’re an intelligent, confident and assertive woman who doesn’t shy away from expressing your opinion: chances are that at one time or another, a colleague may have decided you were “too aggressive.” Or maybe, by politely objecting to sexist behaviour in your workplace – the kind that expects the women present to serve […]
read more...How do you respond to charges of being too aggressive or sensitive?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 impactOur Advocacy Work
April 2nd, 2015A year ago, when veteran journalist and host of TVO’s The Agenda blogged, “Where, oh where, are all the women?” he ignited a firestorm of protest. Ironically, Steve Paikin’s show already had a much higher percentage of female guests than any other broadcast program studied by Informed Opinions over the past five years. (When we monitored the […]
read more...The Agenda producers prove gender parity is possibleOur Advocacy Work
December 6th, 2014You know you’ve done your job as a conference planner when delegates depart complaining of not having slept since they arrived, thanks to an excess of intellectual stimulation provided by the presenters and programming you’ve so expertly curated. But I’m guessing that conveners Christl Verduyn (Mount Allison) and Aritha van Herk (University of Calgary) both […]
read more...Should Smart Women Strive to be Public Intellectuals?Improve your Writing
May 12th, 2014Informed Opinions’ Writing Compelling Commentary workshop is chock-full of concrete suggestions designed to help you write a timely and persuasive op ed and get it published in an influential media forum. And previous blog posts have offered lots of content that expands on the hand-outs we supply and the examples we offer in the session. […]
read more...3 Tricks to Improve Readership of your Op Ed