What is it about an online article that makes people forward it on to their acquaintances?  Is it a feel good story? Practical advice? The unexpected?

According to a recently concluded study of the New York Times  all three play a factor, but the most important element is whether or not a story can evoke a feeling of awe.

There is no science to evoking awe, but there are some patterns that you can look for.

• Does your writing evoke a feeling of vastness, that there is something greater than you and your reader?
• Does your article tell the reader …
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You’ve probably heard that earlier this month the Federal Trade Commission released new rules regarding blog disclosures.  What should you look for if you regularly write on blogs and forums and you want to make sure that you are in compliance?

First ask yourself the following two questions:

• Do you use your blog, forum, or other social media accounts to write reviews?
• Do you receive anything for the reviews you write (for example, special rebates, free samples, or cash payments)?

If you do not write reviews, or if you use your own money to acquire the products that you review without receiving any other …

Gentle Reader,

E-mail correspondence, like all business communication, plays a balancing act between formality and efficiency.  But there are other features that are unique to e-mails.

One in particular made compiling this list especially difficult:

There are actually two …

This week I conclude my series on e-mail deliverability inspired by the Lyris Inc panel featuring Michael Kelly of Click Mail Marketing, Craig Spiezie of the Online Trust Alliance, and David Fowler of Lyris Technologies.  If you enjoyed this series, or found it useful, please comment on this post.

Origins of the term SPAM

Anyone telling you that SPAM is an acronym (at least in regards to its online usage) is pulling your leg.  It comes from Monty Python’s SPAM skit, where SPAM manages …

You’ve been there… eyelids growing heavy, mind wandering, sitting through another boring business presentation. And what happens when it’s your turn to speak? Chances are you are committing some of the same presentations sins as everyone else. One of the greatest of these sins is the misuse of presentation software like PowerPoint.

Slides laden with bulleted text are not ingredients for a powerful presentation. But many of us don’t know any better. The templates provided by the software seem to beg for bullets and text and slide titles and logos and clipart. What were meant as tools to make …

This week I continue my series on e-mail deliverability inspired by the Lyris Inc panel featuring Michael Kelly of Click Mail Marketing, Craig Spiezie of the Online Trust Alliance, and David Fowler of Lyris Technologies.

A Quick Recap

Last week we discussed the importance of letting members of your mailing list chose to opt out, and also to periodically ask them to opt back in so that your least engaged readers will weed themselves out before they’re tempted to hit the dreaded SPAM button.

What E-Mail Monitoring …

This week I continue my series on e-mail deliverability inspired by the Lyris Inc panel featuring Michael Kelly of Click Mail Marketing, Craig Spiezie of the Online Trust Alliance, and David Fowler of Lyris Technologies.

Giving Your Mailing List What They Want

The CAN-SPAM act legally defined SPAM as unsolicited bulk e-mail. However, the truth is that solicitation has very little to do with whether or not someone hits the dreaded SPAM button when viewing an e-mail. The real measure that most people will …

This week I continue my series on e-mail deliverability inspired by the Lyris Inc panel featuring Michael Kelly of Click Mail Marketing, Craig Spiezie of the Online Trust Alliance, and David Fowler of Lyris Technologies.

Beyond Compliance and Authentication

CAN-SPAM compliance defines the bare minimum standards you must observe to keep from being legally culpable.  Authentication guarantees that nobody else’s actions will impact the deliverability of your e-mail.  However, it is entirely possible that your own actions could impact your e-mail deliverability, even if you never …

This week I continue my series on e-mail deliverability inspired by the Lyris Inc panel featuring Michael Kelly of Click Mail Marketing, Craig Spiezie of the Online Trust Alliance, and David Fowler of Lyris Technologies.

In the Beginning

When the internet began, it was dominated by academic and government agencies.  Such agencies had little reason to hide their own identities or mimic the identities of others.  As a result, a system was built that made it easy to apply domain names (like @stanford.edu or @whitehouse.gov) as …

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) recently compiled a list of this year’s top 25 free websites for teaching and learning.

Each site comes with a description of how it can be used by teachers or students, and while some of the sites are specifically academic, many provide online and mixed-technology solutions for anyone interested in collaborative, interactive, or long distance projects and communication.

Here are just a few of their suggestions, and how they could be used in the business world:

Mindmeister

Finally an organizational site for the visual thinker. Mindmeister’s mind map format is easy good for …
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