“Manage her time: You may represent only 1% of her problems, don’t make it as if it is 100%. Yes, you have preoccupations, problems to solve and issues to tackle. However, while your time is entirely devoted to them, do not expect your boss’s time to be also.”

“Today I moderated a very good panel at a conference, and while this experience is fresh in my mind, I want to explain how to kick butt on a panel. At any given conference, there are about three keynote speakers and twenty five panelists, so the odds are much higher that you’ll be a panelist than a keynote speaker. Thus, I hope this entry appeals to a broader audience. Superficially, a panel looks easy. There are four or five other people on it–all of whom you think you’re smarter than–and it only lasts sixty minutes. How hard could it be? Herein lies the problem: everyone thinks a panel is easy so they don’t take it seriously.”

“Sometimes the best presentation is… no presentation. Ditch the slides completely. Put the projector in the closet, roll the screen back up, and turn the damn lights back on! Especially if the slides are bullet points. Or worse… paragraphs… The second you dim the lights and go into ‘presentation mode’ is the moment you move from a two-way conversation to a one-way lecture/broadcast.”