Real Simple Magazine has just featured one user manual that’s worth reading – how to be plugged in without being impolite.  Hap tip to Yahoo! Shine for the highlights, which contain advice from some of the business in the tech-etiquette business: 1. You’re walking down the street and listening to your iPod when you run into someone you know. ...

  If you talk to me about the speaking arm of my career for more than five minutes, you’ll get an earful about my Powerpoint quandary.  What’s the most impactful way to deliver a speech?  Should I use slides or not?  If I don’t, should I use talking points?  How can I be entertaining while teaching, without giving in to ...

Says my colleague Dan Schawbel on his Personal Branding blog: “Over the past few days, I’ve put a lot of thought into online versus offline personal branding.  We all need to focus on building powerful offline brands, because who knows what will happen to the internet tomorrow?  What if the world loses power or the internet cord is ...

I have to confess, I still haven’t gotten into Twitter.  My Facebook addiction is bad enough.  I fear that if I add Twitter to my arsenal of time-wasting technology tools, I will never finish a book chapter or blog post again.  Nevertheless, Twitter is white hot.  Its chief advantage is being able to meet up with ...

Just when you thought the fad of forwarding silly or inappropriate joke e-mails to colleagues had run its course, along comes YouTube.   Now don’t get me wrong:  I think YouTube is the greatest entertainment invention since Nintendo.  My favorite YouTube video is the Montgomery Flea Market commercial, which I must have watched 100 ...

According to a new national survey by Harris Interactive for The Marlin Company, 10% of U.S employees say their company has used e-mail to fire or lay off employees.  And 17% indicated their boss used e-mails to avoid other difficult face-to-face conversations.   “E-mail has become the new shield of today’s business. Companies hide ...

Over at Slacker Manager (which has a bunch of great new authors), managers are discussing a post from Ask a Manager.  One boss isn’t sure what to do about an employee complained about him on her blog.   Says the boss in question:   Last year, when she was applying for a job with us, the employee mentioned her blog in the ...

I get a lot of e-mails asking me how people should use LinkedIn for business networking.  And the truth is, I’m not entirely sure myself, which is why I’m looking forward to my friend Jason Alba’s book on the topic.  This week, though, I came across a great post from Chris Brogan at Lifehack with some tips for making it easier ...

  Will Schwalbe, a guest blogger at Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist, is senior vice president, editor in chief of Hyperion Books, and has just published a cool new book called Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home.  I’ve yet to receive my copy of the book from Amazon, but I have been following Will’s tips on the ...

A lot of career experts have been buzzing lately about the necessity of having a blog.  Their rationale is that everyone who’s anyone is out there participating in the online conversation, and that if you don’t have something valuable to contribute, employers won’t be as impressed with you.   Personally, I don’t think it’s realistic – ...