[Originally published Fall 2010. This post was featured by Lisa B. Marshall in her The Public Speaker podcast. Thanks, Lisa!] When you’ve been invited to be a guest speaker for an organization’s luncheon or other meeting, you don’t want to be that speaker. And it can be terribly easy to be that speaker: You know, that …
It’s been almost two and a half years since I heard these horrific words from my husband. “It’s about Kyle. He had a seizure. He didn’t make it.” Even typing those words brings tears to my eyes. (It’s hard to type now.) How on earth can a perfectly healthy 22-year-old graduating senior just collapse and …
An Open Note to All of Prof. Nixon’s Students: Welcome back to our Communication Department at Southeastern University; I hope your summer break was a blessed one. I spent a lot of much-needed time with family, along with moving from Florida to Arkansas. To get ready for your Fall 2012 classes, please read the following. Materials …
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You’d think that businesses, especially large ones that have a social media presence, would realize by now that social media is 24/7. Apparently, Papa John’s didn’t get the memo. Minhee Cho, Communication Manager at ProPublica, posted her receipt from her last night’s pizza order at about noon today. Retweets and comments about her treatment …
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An Open Note to All of Prof. Nixon’s Students: Welcome back to our Communication Department at Southeastern University; I hope your Christmas break was a blessed one. I spent a lot of much-needed time with family. Syllabi for my two Spring 2012 on-campus classes are available at my Scribd site. If a syllabus is updated during …
Continue reading “Arrive, Survive and Thrive in Prof. Nixon’s Classes, Spring 2012 Edition”
Of all the years I’ve lived through, 2011 does not rank up there as one of my favorite ones. If you know me, or “know me” virtually, you will probably be able to predict why. But I’ll get to that soon enough. Twitter is a lot of fun and a great distraction for me. I’ve …
An Open Note to All of Prof. Nixon’s Students: It seems like summers get shorter every year. This summer, I was asked to become the Interim Chair of the Communication Department at Southeastern University, so my summer was spent with several days a week on campus preparing for the fall. I hope that your summer …
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An Open Note to All of Prof. Nixon’s Students : We’re almost off and running in our Spring Semester classes at SEU & FSC. You can see all my Spring 2001 Syllabi in my Scribd collection. If a syllabus is updated during the semester, you’ll find out in class, and the current version will aways …
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Shhh. Don’t tell anyone, but here’s a list of nine of my pet peeves. Some are big ones; others are minor irritations. You’ll do much better in my classes if you avoid ALL of these behaviors. But it’s a secret, so please don’t share it. Keep it to yourself. Try to pass off another person’s …
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In reviewing the Personality Profiles written by my PR Writing students over the last several semesters, I’ve discovered that there are several common errors that seem to show up. Avoiding these common errors will help ensure that someone might actually want to read the story you have written. Treating the story as if it’s a pre-obituary… you …
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