Lack of agreement on global warming?

Doesn't it sometimes seem as if global warming is the crisis of the moment? How can the uneducated person be sure it is really a serious crisis and not another overblown media crisis like Y2K? Why can't the finest scientific minds agree on whether there is global warming and how serious it might be? This article suggests some reasons why peer review is not infallible. Sometimes skepticism is healthy, but you are left to figure out how much.

What's your work image?

You may not agree with everything Penelope Trunk writes in her blog Brazen Careerist, but it is interesting in any event. For example, she thinks you should consider bringing cupcakes to work. Why? Because if you are well liked at work, it will make your work easier. She even suggests that you forgo the Krispy Kremes and bake your own offering. The point is that your work image should show compassion, caring, and humanity, and bringing in homemade treats is one way to convey that. It's probably easier than doing a blood drive or collecting for a charity.

Shame on them for not consulting a dictionary?

OK, so you are a legislator and you have been trying to get a bill passed for 20 years with no luck. So rather than using a commonly known word, you use a less well known word that means the same thing, slip your content into a related bill, and it passes. Is this ethical? Are the legislators who didn't read and check the content to blame? The committee chair in question has been stripped of his position, but the bill will probably be signed by the governor, sanctioning midwifery in Missouri for the first time.

Look at me, look at me!

Slideshare.net ran a contest for great presentations. The winners were announced today. There were both adjudicated winners and popular vote winners, and you can see them all at that site. All use lots of variety in image types and fonts, plus short bits of text. All tell stories of various kinds. Watch some and see what you think. The Slideshare site is set up to share presentations. Use it for inspiration (but don't borrow without credit!) when you are creating your next presentation.

How to Avoid Turning into "Ketchup Trousers"

Here's a great cautionary article from Fortune Magazine about the perils of email, and how to avoid some of them. There are several unfortunate tales in the article, including one about an executive who demanded his secretary pay his small dry cleaning bill because she spilled ketchup on his pants. She forwarded the email, and he got a new nickname. Remember that your email is out of your control once you hit the "send" button, and don't put anything in email that you would not be comfortable wearing on a sandwich board. The article also talks about how new software can analyze volumes of email looking not just for obvious key words like "insider trading" but also less obvious signs of a problem, like late night mail, purposefully ambiguous wording ("that thing we talked about"), and signs of anxiousness.