Yesterday I got an email from a friend of mine — I’ll call her Rebecca —asking, “Do you have an Amazon account?” I wrote back saying, “Yes. What do you need?” Rebecca replied that her Amazon account wasn’t working for some reason, that it was her niece’s birthday, and she wanted to send her a…
Author: Paul Knight
Rehearsing What I’m Going to Say
I was in line at an ice cream shop several years ago getting ready to order. Once I’d decided what I wanted, I started mentally rehearsing how I was going to articulate my order when I got to the front of the line . . .
The Best Writing Advice
One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever got came in a course on business writing that my company offered. This was a long time ago, but as I remember, the person who taught the course, Padraic Spence, had once worked as a reporter for a small newspaper. Every time he turned in a piece of copy, his editor expected to see a red dot over every word in the piece . . .
Hyphens and Dashes
During the last few years that I was working, I began to notice that some of my colleagues who were otherwise careful and literate writers were omitting hyphens in their business writing. They would refer to “well established principles” or “a fifty year old building” with nary a hyphen in sight. I’m not sure why someone who wouldn’t think of writing “thats all there is” or “their he goes” saw nothing wrong with writing about a “state of the art system,” but it made me a little nuts . . .
The Best Thing About Being Retired
When I compare notes with friends about what books we’re each reading, I sometimes remark that having lots of time to read is the second-best thing about being retired. The first time I said that, I was sure the other person would ask, “So what’s the best thing?” But they didn’t, and in all the times I’ve said it since, no one ever has. Nonetheless, I’m quick to volunteer the answer . . .
It’s Time to Connect
I wrote previously that I miss visiting people, but I’ve nonetheless accommodated to the constraints imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. I’ve gotten pretty darn comfortable with the monastic life — perhaps a little too comfortable. I find I’ve been falling out of touch with many of the people I used to visit or talk with from time to time . . .
A World Without Work, Part 2
Yesterday I described the case made in Daniel Susskind’s new book, A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond, that we are headed toward a future in which there will be many fewer paying jobs than there are people to do them. Today I’ll discuss the proposals Susskind makes for ameliorating the effects of that scarcity of jobs . . .
A World Without Work, Part 1
I just finished reading Daniel Susskind’s new book, A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond. Susskind, an economist, believes that the ability of computers and robots to displace human workers will gradually become so pervasive as to require a complete rethinking of how the fruits of our economy are distributed . . .
Dealing with Email Overwhelm
For several years my retirement gig involved showing knowledge workers and executives how to use little-known features of Microsoft Outlook to better manage their email and organize the large number of action items that arrive in their email inbox. Yesterday one of my former clients pointed me to a video demonstration of a new product…
The Right to Bare Faces
There’s a balance in any democratic society between individual freedoms and each person’s responsibility to their community. Just where that balance lies varies from country to country, but the United States is way over at the individual-freedoms end of the spectrum . . .