This is so not good: From the Washington Post

The FDA is considering changing the definition of chocolate to include those products that do not contain cocoa butter or even cocoa solids. It has come up with a 35 page petition proposing the change in food standards, which has been signed by juice producers, meat canners and the chocolate lobby.

In response to this the chocolate lovers have undertaken a grassroot letter-writing campaign to the FDA to inform the agency that they are against such a change in the standards.

To join the protest, go to Don’tMesswithOurChocolate.com. (Thanks to Patti Shock for the call to action!)

The Boston Marriott provides us with a wonderful example of why punctuation matters in this sign. Why does the lack of an apostrophe matter? Well, not only does it make the hotel look, well, dumb to guests, in this day and age, it also makes it look dumb all over the Internet. I saw it first on Seth Godin’s blog, and have since seen it in about 15 other sites.

This is why every bit of printed matter, however humble, should have a proofreader. We can never say this enough. (I only wish I had a proofreader for this blog—I’m sure I make tons of mistakes even more egregious than making up a new word for more than one person of the female persuasion).

It happens all the time: A speaker gets on a roll and goes over his time limit, then a sort of domino effect happens, with each subsequent speaker falling further behind until your whole schedule ends up dragging and you either cut a session or two, or find other ways to make up the time, or just let it drag on. But just think about what this is telling your attendees. From Seth Godin:

At a conference I recently attended, the group was 50 minutes behind schedule after only 2 hours of the program. For the speakers, the message was, “I’m important, as important as the last guy, so since he went over ten minutes, I will too.” For the audience, the message was, “this is a conference about the guys on the stage, not about us.”

I doubt this is the message you’re trying to get across. Yet another reason to have the hook ready—and use it.