Press the "play" button to hear.

Press the "play" button to hear.

Published in Consulting Engineers of Ontario Newsletter - March 2009

We all have run into that old client that we are so pleased to see and hear their news – family, work, and other interests. You shake hands or give a warm hug, look at each other with a smile, and say, “It is so good to see you!” Then one of you says the fatal words: “Let’s do lunch”. This is equivalent to saying: “It was nice seeing you, have a good life.”

Published in Backbone Magazine - January 2009

“New torments and new tormented souls I see around me wherever I move, and howsoever I turn, and wherever I gaze.”

In Inferno, the Medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri took readers on a harrowing journey through hell. The route included nine circles, but if Dante had been writing in the current century, he might have added a tenth: an over-heated, under-ventilated dark room filled with uncomfortable chairs facing a screen on which gibberish rendered in micro-type is projected while a disembodied voice drones and mumbles for eternity. Those thrown into this terrible place would be forced, beforehand, to consume vast quantities of carbohydrate-rich food, then warned that they must stay awake no matter what.

Published in Consulting Engineers of Ontario Newsletter - December 2008

In the last six months, I had the pleasure of being invited to speak about influential communications at both CEO and FIDIC conferences. In my conversations with the delegates if I heard “engineers are terrible communicators” one more time, I was going to scream. As it were, I don’t think anyone would have heard me because these engineers were all too busy communicating!