Category: career


Marketing Monday: Building your social media strategy, part II

Marketing Monday: Building your social media strategy, part II

When someone asks me how they get can more Twitter followers, it’s hard for me to give a straight answer. Not that I don’t know how to get more followers — there’s research showing, for example, that acting as a source of information instead of just talking about yourself will grow your audience. Hashtags help, as do including URLs and…

Would anybody want to run a business the way we run our country?

Would anybody want to run a business the way we run our country?

Frequently political candidates run on a campaign of running  government more like a business. Presumably they mean things like more accountability and focus on results, as opposed to, say, accounting scandals or taking risks that put the country’s whole economy in peril. Lately as I follow news out of Washington, from the fiscal cliff to the massive budget cuts called sequestration,…

Marketing Monday: How to build a better relationship with the media

Marketing Monday: How to build a better relationship with the media

I’ve been on both sides of the media relationship — I’ve been a reporter and editor getting pitched every day and I’ve worked in public relations trying to get journalists interested in covering University of Michigan. Like any relationship, when it works well, everyone wins. The journalist gets to tell an interesting story she might not have otherwise known about,…

Manage your to-do list by doing less, not more

Manage your to-do list by doing less, not more

Like many people, it’s easy for me to get caught up in my aspirations for more — a bigger home, more money, greater success. Harvard Business Review‘s article, The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, challenges that. Instead of more [fill in the blank with whatever you are chasing here], focus on the right things. Author Greg McKeown starts by defining “the…

Marketing Monday: 5 tips for using email better

Marketing Monday: 5 tips for using email better

Social media gets a lot of buzz as the cool, exciting way to do marketing. I get it. I’m a social media nerd. Tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn give us a way to connect with others faster and more efficiently than ever, and they’re growing like crazy. Mashable reported that Twitter had 200 active users in December, double what…

Marketing Monday: How to blog if you hate to write

Marketing Monday: How to blog if you hate to write

Phone? Check Email? Check Website? Check Blog? No? No blog? It’s become standard marketing advice that a business must have a blog, alongside more standard communications tools like having a phone number and email. The benefits of business blogging are many: You keep your website fresh so you give people a reason to come back You share useful information that…

Marketing Monday: 5 tips for better do-it-yourself market research

Marketing Monday: 5 tips for better do-it-yourself market research

I’m starting a series called Marketing Monday, with tips and tricks on more effective marketing, from market research to social media, from public relations to branding. Eventually I plan to move the series to a new website at colleennewvine.com, but in the meantime, I think improving sales and customer communications is close enough to improving your personal and professional life…

Setting my 2013 goals with help from friends

Setting my 2013 goals with help from friends

How are those resolutions coming? If you’re already stumbling, maybe you need some positive peer pressure. Just after the new year, I spent the better part of a day with two of my favorite ladies working on our 2013 plans. The three of us are at different places in our lives, with different ambitions and different ways of organizing our…

Blogversation 2012: Wrapping up a year of online conversation

Blogversation 2012: Wrapping up a year of online conversation

Throughout this year, several bloggers have engaged in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding.  It’s been an honor to share Newvine Growing with these smart, thoughtful, articulate, committed women: Mary Jean Babic Kay Hoffman Goluska Lauren McCabe Maria Stuart Amy Throndsen Eleanor Traubman Lesley Ware Jennifer Worick Every week, one of…

On reporting the pain of parents who have lost children

On reporting the pain of parents who have lost children

I miss many things about working at a newspaper. Sure, I continue to freelance (and to blog) to scratch my reporting itch, but it’s a different experience from working in a newsroom. I’m grateful I get to interview people and tell stories, but I sometimes miss the exhilaration of working side by side to dig into a big, important story…

Be more effective by making better to-do lists

Be more effective by making better to-do lists

It seems the socially correct answer to the question “How are you?” is no longer “Good,” but “Busy.” Maybe it’s all the technology that keeps us plugged in 24/7, or the never-ending flow of information from social media, websites and blogs, or the added work load on employees left at downsized companies. Whatever the cause, I frequently have conversations with…

Blogversation 2012: Who's your professional female role model?

Blogversation 2012: Who's your professional female role model?

Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012. This week’s question comes from Jennifer Worick, jenniferworick.blogspot.com, on Twitter as @jennifer_worick: Who’s your professional female role model? This is…

Reblog from DailyWorth: Saying ‘Yes’ Pays Off

Reblog from DailyWorth: Saying ‘Yes’ Pays Off

I’ve read many articles about the value of saying yes — but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it in financial terms as clear as this article by Susan Gregory Thomas on Daily Worth: This March when I moved to Philadelphia, I was broke—25 years of living in New York, the past five of it as the breadwinner for my…

How to like your current job more

How to like your current job more

If you spent Sunday evening dreading the arrival of Monday morning, this post is for you. If you spend eight hours a day at work, not even including time spent commuting or eating lunch, you probably spend more time at your job during the week then you do at home, with your spouse or with your kids. So if you…

Blogversation 2012: What would you like to discuss?

Blogversation 2012: What would you like to discuss?

Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012. We’re approaching the halfway point of 2012. We’ve had some great conversations so far this year as part of…