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Here are some New Year’s conversation questions to start conversations and keep them going.
If you’re staying home and keeping the dog company, it’s the perfect time to assess where you’ve been and to chart your course for the new year. |
What does it take to calm an irritated customer, connect people, start conversations, and build relationships? What could do all that? As this story shows, it just takes one person thinking outside the Crayon box.
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PALM SPRINGS, Calif. – AP – A museum is showing artwork collected by a Delta flight attendant who started handing out crayons to passengers after the Sept. 11th attacks. The Palm Springs Air Museum is showing "Plane Art — Connecting People" through Jan. 25. Several dozen pictures are hanging at the museum, and many others are available for visitors to leaf through in folders.
The pictures were collected by Delta flight attendant Jewel Van Valin. She got the idea a few months after 9/11, when the airline began substituting paper for linens as tray table covers.
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She said one passenger Read the rest of this entry »
Kids crack me up! See if you agree.
A criminologist who has spent decades studying the lives of girls and women who end up in prison has some simple advice for parents trying to raise happy, healthy daughters: Listen.
"We need to listen to our daughters, not just talk to our daughters. That what girls tell us," said University of Hawaii professor Meda Chesney-Lind. "They want to be heard. Parents think they are talking with their daughters, when they’re really talking at their daughters." [from the opening 2 paragraphs in Friday's Star-Bulletin story by writer Christine Donnelly.]
My stepfather listened to me. Maybe that’s why I loved him so much. We traded stories: he and his brothers dumped a nest of mice Read the rest of this entry »
Let’s say a colleague did an excellent and speedy job on a project at work. Naturally she’s delighted when you compliment her. But don’t you think she’d be a lot more delighted if Read the rest of this entry »
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If you loved The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, you’ll like Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, What the Dog Saw. It’s a collection of his New Yorker essays. You can buy it as usual. Or you can read all the articles online for f-r-e-e-e-e. You can’t beat the price. |
Click here to read Gladwell’s essays online.
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Thanks for reading my blog. And now I’d like to invite you to get all my posts delivered by email. See the box on the right? You know what to do now….
- Tracey E. Bennett, Queen of Conversation
by Tracey E. Bennett, Queen of Conversation
I’m driving home from the bark park, thinking about my ex-friend Mary Wagner. I’m feeling the hurt of being dumped after 30 years of close friendship. And it’s not a new hurt either; it’s been more than 10 years since Mary announced she was ending the friendship.
Why? On our trip to Guatemala and Costa Rica, I had bugged her with judgments about her singlehood.
Who, me? A couple mentions, yes. But over the top? I had no idea. Is that enough to end a friendship? Read the rest of this entry »
Today I’m borrowing a post from online information marketer Alex Mandossian. He’s sharing the 4 conversation questions that guided his 1,200 tele-interviews. I see another practical application for these great questions.
Not many people get interviewed, but lots of us teach or train others. It could be as informal as helping the kids with their homework or coaching their soccer team. It could be as formal as writing an office manual or teaching our employees to give good customer service.
As you read Alex’s blog post (below) about how to Read the rest of this entry »
