Taking a risk with venue hire

  As an independent consultant, I’ve often found myself in the position of wanting to run a workshop about a topic that interests me, but not being confident of selling enough tickets to cover the cost of venue hire For most consultants, committing to a venue hire and catering package is a big risk You might need to commit to minimum numbers to secure the venue, which could set an almost impossible ticket-sales target Forget trying to earn some money, you might not even cover your...

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When informality breaks convention

We live in informal times when many of the conventions of the written form are breaking away Emails are more likely to start with 'Hi'  than 'Dear' And the sign-off 'Cheers' is now more common than 'Regards' I quite like a chatty, informal email For me, email sits in the space between a formal letter and a phone conversation But what about a printed letter And particularly, what about a printed letter or notification from a bank I received a notification from ANZ last week, attached to...

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Sweat the small stuff by all means, but don’t lose sight of the big picture

  The latest issue of Offpress (the newsletter produced by the Society of Editors (Qld)) includes an article on ‘The false precision of fetish editing’ by John E McIntyre It was originally published in McIntyre’s regular column for The Baltimore Sun McIntyre makes a point that is easy to miss in the detailed work of editing: ‘… there is the problem when copy editors fetishize minor details; the big errors can be overlooked’ It’s an easy trap to fall into: as editors, we...

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