D CEO - A corporate web blog allows you to make direct connections with customers. My first column for D CEO in July 2006 asked "Should CEOs blog?" At that time, Mark Cuban was already blogging, as were Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, and Bob Lutz at General Motors.... read more »

The Wall Street Journal -   Words matter. How the public hears a word affects what they think of the issue. Remember how the "estate tax" went nowhere but the "death tax" infuriated people and produced congressional action to restrict this unfair double taxation? The average voter thinks rich people and big c... read more »

D CEO - More and more CEOs are using video to communicate directly with their constituencies. With apologies to Hamlet and Shakespeare, the question for today's CEO isn't "To be or not to be." It's whether or not to be on TV. And, being on "TV" nowadays means more than traditiona... read more »

D CEO - Doing so may be hard-and lonely-but it's the chief executive's job. The economic news is still grim. C-suite residents privately tell me Washington is making bad decisions with far-reaching implications. But your job, as a CEO, is to be a leader-and leaders create hope. D... read more »

Community Banker - Take advantage of opportunities to reach current and potential customers with a positive message. Welcome to the wild world of bad economic news made even livelier by all the new channels of communication and the so-called "social media." Like Charles Dickens' famous open... read more »

Chamber Executive - Last November, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch predicted in BusienssWeek that following the November election, politicians would "embrace a reality that most of them know perfectly well. Business isn't the enemy of people- it is people." His prediction was right on targ... read more »

The Strategist - Fighting Back: When the Internet Threatens Your Company's Reputation and Viability For Business today, the Internet is both a blessing and a curse. And now that Web 2.0 and mobile techonogy have made it possible to communicate anywhere, anytime, business executives are... read more »

D CEO - CEOs need to realize that the risk profile of the business environment has dramatically changed. Business leaders are suffering from an epidemic of tin ear, failing to understand how key audiences will react to words or actions and the damage they can cause. Prevent tin ear by li... read more »

Engineering News-Record - We no longer do five-year plans. We don't do one-year plans. We do five-day plans, says Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay. With the onslaught of new communication channels, the reality is you're only going to get five minutes to get a statement together when a crisis hits. Every first-rate buildin... read more »

D CEO - In an economic downturn, good corporate communications are key. October was barely under way when The Wall Street Journal ran an article headlined "Allaying Workers' Fear During Uncertain Times," which advised management to "communicate often." How? And, ... read more »

D CEO - Putting the CEO out front in your advertising isn't always smart. Chrysler's Lee Iacocca did it. Here in Dallas, Christine Cook of Sleep Experts and Rick Stacy of Stacy Furniture are doing it, too. The question, though, is whether CEOs should play starring roles in their ... read more »

D CEO - The future of office communication is in the palm of your hand. The Consumer Electronics Association recently released a study showing that 81 percent of American households own cellphones. Information and images increasingly are being transmitted person-to-person through... read more »

D CEO - From 'cast members' to 'baristas,' some companies have high-falutin' names for their employees. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." CEOs seem to agree that William Shakespeare was wrong, at least when it comes to what th... read more »

D CEO - It's not really as important as the 'experts' would have us believe. Suddenly, body language is a hot topic. TV's Bill O'Reilly has an expert on the show every week to interpret the body language of people in the news. A Google search shows hundreds of articles claiming t... read more »

The Wall Street Journal - Warren Buffett and Bill Gates play bridge together, team up on philanthropy and appear jointly in ads for private-jet service Netjets. There's something else the two tycoons share: a fondness for sharp-tongued putdowns. In his latest letter to shareholders, Mr. Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hat... read more »

D CEO - From a grocery store to his offices at Deloitte and the boardroom at the DSO, Blaine Nelson has learned how to lead. Blaine Nelson, Managing Partner of Deloitte's North Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas practice headquartered in Dallas, may be the only person who chose public accounting because o... read more »

Illinois Banker - Andy Warhol promised everyone 15 minutes of fame. But what if it hits when you aren't ready for it? Maybe a board member leaked that Google wants to buy your Web site, or your college roommate is implicated in an options backdating scandal. Suddenly cameras show up, people start blogging about yo... read more »

D CEO - CEOs should only say they're sorry if they mean it. And if they have to. In 1949's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, John Wayne gave some stern advice. "Never apologize and never explain," he said. In the decades that followed many American CEOs, no doubt out of admiration for The Duke, ... read more »

D CEO - Executives like Phillip Jones and Lee Jackson have the top spot but not the last say. What to do when your title doesn't befit your duties. The top title carries a lot of prestige, but in some settings, those fancy titles don't empower the holder to do whatever he wants. How do you get th... read more »

D CEO - CEOs have more than mere business books on their nightstands. You should too. As parents, business executives and professionals are ardent advocates of reading for their children. They know that literacy skills and books are linked to a child's educational success. But when these parents ... read more »

D CEO - No one likes hearing or seeing bad news. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be said. A recent story in Business Week titled "Down on Dell" came to a sobering conclusion: "It was clear some time ago that Dell's model was not keeping pace." Current and former Dell managers said people knew the ... read more »

D CEO - Why must CEOs be funny? Blame Herb Kelleher - and several decades of research. Herb Kelleher has been business's go-to funny guy for decades. His antics of challenging competing CEOs to wrestling matches and working out lifting "weights" of Wild Turkey bottles are legend. While the rest o... read more »

D CEO - Blogs let businessmen like Mark Cuban share their thoughts with the massess. Enter at your own risk. Mark Cuban blogs. Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman, blogs. Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystem's new CEO, blogs. Is everybody blogging? Should you? If you hadn't heard, the word "blog" ... read more »

Environmental Protection - Managing public opinion about your business's effect on water supplies is becoming increasingly important Water is the hot issue of the next 25 years. You know it, I know, but the American public doesn't. Why should they? American households spend less than any other indust... read more »

United Press International - Should a doctor be able to apologize for an "unanticipated outcome?" Should a business person or company? A fresh, new debate is underway among lawyers about what constitutes an apology and what it means to the law. But by failing to recognize some key issues in communication, lawyers may find ... read more »

United Press International - We all know the old saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words," but sometimes just a few words change the whole picture. Economics may be the "dismal science," but Philosophy is the dangerous one. Do the ends justify the means? That debate has occupied countless philosophers over the... read more »

United Press International - Southwest Airlines' business model changed the airline business 34 years ago. They set out to make travel by air as convenient and commonplace as it was by bus. They succeeded in that and in an unplanned but equally effective revolution, they made it good business to make the workplace fun. No... read more »

United Press International - A much longer war than the one in Iraq is being waged by Yale Professor Dr. Edward Tufte. To his admirers, Tufte is bigger than Bono. If you haven't heard of him, you will. He is best known as the foundation for a fast growing backlash against PowerPoint, but he has really declared war on fuzz... read more »

United Press International - The old saying, "What Goes Up Must Come Down," can be rendered in this age of globalization as "What Goes In, Will Come Out," meaning that it's a mistake to think that anything can be kept secret. That's what former AIG Chairman Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin ar... read more »

United Press International - General Motors (GM) has pulled $10 million in advertising dollars from the L.A. Times out of pique over a review of a new Pontiac by the paper's automotive columnist where he called the car "entirely adequate" and GM's CEO "entirely inadequate." The question this raises is when you hate... read more »

United Press International - Many articles about Pope John Paul II mentioned his ability to communicate. Leaving doctrine aside, are there lessons for business leaders? We find ten, a nice Biblical number. Sincerity: in Dr. Seuss' book, Horton Hears a Who, Horton the elephant says, "I say what I me... read more »

United Press International - Recently, one of our corporate clients observed that our communication techniques had changed his business life and asked if they work on spouses or in personal communication. They do – and they're even more important. As in our analysis of communication in the workplace, we start w... read more »

Environmental Protection - Given the odds that something bad will happen at your facility at some point in the future, now is the time to prepare for dealing with an environmental crisis Readers of this publication are typically highly trained and credentialed professionals; many have graduate degree... read more »

United Press International - The jury that found Bernie Ebbers, former WorldCom CEO, guilty also rendered a verdict about how we listen and hear. They also sent a clear message of their own to the managements and Boards of Directors of American companies and the other celebrity CEOs on trial for taking their companies into w... read more »

United Press International - Do reporters hate public relations? Or, are they uninformed and unwilling to learn? The media's "What should Martha do now?" coverage was exemplified by CNN's decision to interview a woman CEO of an advertising agency about what Martha should do to "improve her image." The advice?... read more »

United Press International - Poor Barry Bonds. Not because he's rich, famous and about to break Babe Ruth's home run record. Barry's to be pitied because there's no one close to him who will tell him the truth. He struck out at his first press conference at the start of spring training. His comments have mad... read more »

United Press International - CNN executive Eason Jordan is not a victim of lunatic bloggers. He's a case study of the new, immutable dynamics of communication, lessons everyone should learn. Mr. Jordan was forced to resign from CNN over remarks he made on an off-the-record panel at the annual World Economic Fo... read more »

United Press International - Stupid mouth. All of us have had the disease at some point. We opened our mouths and the most incredibly stupid, or hurtful, or ridiculous words came out. Lt. General James Mattis caught it this week. This is a case where only those who have never sinned have the right to criticize – or as my ... read more »

United Press International - This column is about tyranny, but it's not about interest groups. This is about PowerPoint, and the tyranny of the right hand margin. This is not a trivial matter. Tens of millions of people in all walks of life are using PowerPoint to inform, to market, to sell. Students today use i... read more »

United Press International - President Bush made a mistake. Early in his second inaugural speech, he said, "Our duties are defined not by the words I use," but he then proceeded to use words which carry powerful commitments and raise expectations. He advised other governments that "success in our relations wil... read more »

United Press International - Social security. Franklin Roosevelt understood that language is a significant tool in defining public policy. Most people think it is a trust fund, a myth further propagated this week in a front page story in The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Alas, it is not a fund, and the trust tur... read more »

United Press International - Stingy. When U.N. official Jan Egeland charged that the United States was "stingy" in the amount the U.S. committed following the tsunami, he triggered a communication war. Mr. Egeland actually said, "It is beyond me why we are so stingy." He also included Europe with the United States ... read more »

United Press International - New Year's is a time for prediction. Here's one. Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had the effect of legalizing abortion in the United States, will be overturned. How do I know? Because the pro-Roe coalition split following the 2004 election. In fact, the division is so sharp ... read more »