A STORY & A BIAS It's Just A StoryJoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group21 May 2020 It was a warm and sunny day in May, the temperature was 72 degrees. It’s not a common occurrence in the northeastern United States. In my 40 years of existing on this planet,...

The combination of ignorance, gullibility, imagination, and fantasy is a truly beautiful thing. Before I go any farther than that first sentence, please allow me to explain something: There's a distinction with a high degree of clearly discernible difference between...

SUN & SELFYou Get What You GiveJoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group14 May 2020We have several client companies that develop software for the insurance industry. From time to time, they mention dissatisfied customers. In most instances, those customers are...

That hush you hear is the vacuum in which all the palaver about digital transformation used to be. In April of 2018, I wrote the first installment in what's turned out to be this two-part series. In it, I expressed my wonder at the phrase — digital transformation — my...

NORMALCY & NEW BEGINNINGS The First Day JoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group7 May 2020 At the beginning, I liked to think it would end at some point. Knowing there is a light at the end of the tunnel makes the process easier. But the longer it goes on, the...

Last Thursday morning, I had to don the obligatory N95 mask and nitrile gloves and head out to a local diagnostic lab for some routine bloodwork. Considering the fact that the list of tests to be performed on said blood was longer than I am tall, I have to imagine the...

I don’t know if there’s yet a definition of or a clinical diagnosis for the derangement caused by coronavirus and its associated emotional and psychological manifestations. And I don’t know if any such diagnosis yet appears in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of...

HALLUCINOGENS & QUARANTINE The Other SideJoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group23 April 2020 Jim Morrison, lead vocalist for The Doors took psychedelic drugs. Some of the songs he wrote were about his hallucinogenic experiences. One of his songs, Break on...

What a difference a pandemic makes. It’s that time of year in which companies in all industries would be gearing up for trade show season. But this year’s festivities have been rudely interrupted by COVID-19, which means many shows are being cancelled or postponed....

SPRING & REBIRTHA Springtime RuminationJoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group16 April 2020A 60-degree day in early Spring can feel like summertime when the sun isn’t hiding behind the clouds. As a burst of serotonin flushes through my brain, my body quickly...

Does anything lend itself to satire any better than Harvard Business Review (HBR)? I don't think so, either. It's almost as if the editors are trying to let us know HBR has become a parody of itself without coming out and telling us HBR has become a parody of itself....

DARKNESS & NEW LIFE Darkness Brings New LifeJoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group9 April 2020   The sunshine was peeking through the curtains as I opened my eyes. I’m in my warm, cozy bed with my son curled up in my left armpit and my daughter curled...

It's the end of the world as we know it. No. I don't mean the coronavirus. More of us will survive that than not. No. I don't mean the economic nightmare caused by the coronavirus. While it will take time to recover, recover we will, along with many much-needed...

FIERCE & FREE I Choose FreeJoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group2 April 2020 Last week, I wrote an essay that was published by BizCatalyst360 entitled, Live Free or Die, which is my take on the current coronavirus situation, our history as a nation, and...

Because I value my cogntive capacities so highly — and because I recoil in morbid fear at the prospect of my brain being turned to oatmeal — I avoid local and network newscasts with the same fervent determination with which I avoid drinking myself into a coma while...

TELECOMMUTING & YOU Two Tips from a Tenured Telecommuter JoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group26 March 2020 After taking an Enneagram Personality test, I’ve uncovered something I’ve known for years: I’m a Peacemaker. “No [personality] type is more devoted...

At some point before the coronavirus kicked in, two dudes submitted an article to Harvard Business Review (HBR) called, "How to Get People to Actually Participate in Virtual Meetings". Because the editors at HBR have been practicing cognitive distancing since long...

GOLDEN RULE & MORALITYGolden Rule PartnersJoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group19 March 2020 The Golden Rule: Do unto others and you as you would have them do unto you. But what if they don’t like it the way you do? Since we’re brand managers, we have...

As an accomplished practitioner of Advanced Procrastination, I take exception to a recent article published by BBC Worklife. The offending missive is entitled, "Why procrastination is about managing emotions, not time." Here's the point at which its author and I part...

I recently came across a video on bbc.com called, "Crossing Divides: How to cope when your boss is younger than you." In an effort to be helpful, the video was presented with this text snippet: In a society increasingly fragmented by age, work is one place where...

SPAM & PROFESSIONALISM Professional VulnerabilityJoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group5 March 2020 Dear JoAnna,   Did you read my last email? How about the first six that you ignored? I am sooo excited to begin our relationship together. I know you’ll...

In 1999, I was working at a small public-relations firm in Avon, Connecticut. My dentist was in the next town east, which, oddly enough, is West Hartford. (Everything is relative.) Exiting I-84 on Prospect Street, I drove north on Prospect, intending to turn left onto...

Now that Chicken Little has taken over at Harvard Business Review (HBR), she has a message for you: "GDPR and the End of the Internet’s Grand Bargain". It's not a typical children's story. But it is a fairy tale. And along the lines of Hansel and Gretel and Little Red...

In case you missed it, or you haven't been keeping score, it's official: PETA has now completely run out of things to do. If that weren't the case, they wouldn't have jacked up the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club in an attempt to get Phil replaced by a robot. You think...

The only thing I wanted to do less than write this post was read the article that prompted it: "In Silicon Valley, some men say cosmetic procedures are essential to a career". It's really tough to imagine humanity ending well when we've elevated first-world problems...

TARGET AUDIENCE & PREFERENCES The Bubble Club JoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group6 February 2020 Have you ever started to read a book and couldn’t finish it? Or maybe you started watching a new television series and didn’t get into it. In those cases,...

Some things are so completely screwed, you just have to write verses about them. Case in point: "A $1 Billion Solar Plant Was Obsolete Before It Ever Went Online". Get a load of this: SolarReserve’s Crescent Dunes received backing from Citigroup and the Obama Energy...

That thing rushing up at us is the bottom of the barrel, kids. Yep. Unless you happen to live in that barrel — with the lid sealed tight — you've likely heard the story, nearly ubiquitous by now (its ubiquity is its one and only point), that Mr. Peanut will allegedly...

QUOTES & REFLECTION MLK's TimelessnessJoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group23 January 2020 We’re in the third week of January. If you live in the U.S., you likely observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day this past Monday. While listening to the radio and...

One of the five million or so things I love about life is coming across a headline so incredible, so fantastic, so laden with unintended consequences that it causes your mind to reel, even as it causes your heart to sink and your stomach to churn. Exhibit A: "Uber and...

INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE & FAMILY COURTDear Jennifer ...JoAnna Bennett, O'Brien Communications Group16 January 2020Out of the 246 intimate partner homicides in Connecticut during the years 2000-2017, 213 were women. That means 87 percent of the victims of...

The day after The Guardian published the article, "You’re not alone: how to survive your horrible boss" (about which I wrote last week), Training Journal published this: "How to avoid triggers in the workplace". Apparently looking to one-up The Guardian on idiocy and...

In the middle of November, The Guardian published an article entitled, "You're not alone: how to survive your horrible boss". It was one of those articles you know you should approach with trepidation because you can reasonably suspect it's in some way connected to...

If you're anything like us, you might find yourselves looking for some recreational activities in which to engage during the downtime afforded by the Holiday Season. Here at O'Brien Communications Group World Headquarters, we find it engaging, enjoyable, and...

I'd like you to think about something. And because I'm not a beat-around-the-bush kind of guy, here it is: Digital transformation is more than a buzzword for modern businesses—it's a necessity for remaining viable ... Despite its critical importance, a surprising...

Whew! By any measure, this came along just in the nick of time: "Spiking Health Problems in U.S. Millennials May Make Them Poorer".  Since we seem to be catching on to The Four Hs of Climate Change — Hyperbole, Hysteria, Hubris, and Hypocrisy — our knickers were in...

Several months ago, I wrote a story on Medium called, "The Big Why". In it, I wrote this, in part: It’s become popular ... to ask people, “What’s your why?” All of that is attributable to a young British chap named Simon Sinek, who’s managed to turn our cataclysmic...