Ric Morgan was in a receiving line at a fancy dinner honoring him for his nonprofit work. He was shaking hands with ambassadors and other Washington dignitaries when an elderly lady came up and congratulated him. After chitchatting for a moment, she placed her hand lightly on his chest, leaned in and said, "You certainly do dress well . . . for a fat man."

Ouch.

Here's a handy template you can use when leaving voicemail messages:

"Hello, this is [X]. Could you call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX? It is regarding [X]. Thank you. Goodbye."

Guidelines for using the above template:

Often quoted, often misunderstood. Bruce Tuckman's classic description of the stages of group development is easy to understand and remember, but it helps to go back and look at what's behind each stage.

Bruce W Tuckman is a respected educational psychologist who first described the (then) four stages of group development in 1965, soon after leaving Princeton. Looking at the behavior of small groups in a variety of environments, he recognised the distinct phases they go through, and suggested they need to experience all four stages before they achieve maximum effectiveness.

He refined and developed the model in 1977 (in conjunction with Mary Ann Jensen) with the addition of a fifth stage. Since then, others have attempted to adapt and extend the model--although sometimes with more of an eye on rhyme than reason.

A powerful trend taking form in the world of collaborative communication is "social curation," which is where individuals collaboratively contribute to edit, refine, and compile valuable information resources. A prime example of this trend is a newly launched service called Pearltrees.

You can use Pearltrees to keep handy the contents you find everyday on the web, to discover new contents from people who have similar interests, and to share your contents with people who have your interests.

Howard Rheingold talks about the coming world of collaboration, participatory media and collective action, and how Wikipedia is really an outgrowth of our natural human instinct to work as a group. As he points out, humans have been banding together to work collectively since our days of hunting mastodons.

Meetings get a bad rap in business today and for good reason—very little gets accomplished in them. I can recall a Dilbert cartoon in which several people sat around a table while the meeting organizer said, "There is no specific agenda for this meeting. As usual, we'll just make unrelated emotional statements about things which bother us . . ."

Southwest Airlines uses Myers-Briggs Assessment test to help teams build their communication skills.

“It's not what you know or who you know, but who knows you.” Susan RoAne.

The Guy Kawasaki Theory of Schmoozing version 1.0 was ad hoc: get to know the people that you need for a specific deal. It was short-term and focused.Version 2.0 is ad infinitum--maybe even ad nauseam. It's taken me twenty years, but I've figured out that it's much easier to make a sale, build partnerships, create joint ventures--you name it--with people that you already know than with people you just met.

The key is to establish a relationship before you need it. And this is why I'd like to provide the art of schmoozing.

The IT Method is an exercise to help you develop the content of your presentation.

The IT Method is a five-step process:

“A significant amount of communication occurs through body language. Though we can’t see our own, everyone else does. If you’re saying one thing and thinking another, your body language may well give you away.”

When it comes to body language, simply avoiding the most common mistakes and replacing them with more confident movements will make a big difference. Here you will find eight body language killers that will leave your audience underwhelmed and unimpressed. Train yourself to avoid them, and you’ll see that simple changes can make all the difference.