20 Easy Ways to Write Better for Business: Bits of wisdom from a copywriter — now available instantly on Kindle!

Scott Flood

Jury service

jury service at murder trial

Few people react to a jury summons with excitement. In fact, some people don’t register to vote largely because they’re afraid of being called to serve. Hate to disappoint you, but that’s not the only way prospective jurors are selected. Have a driver’s license? Own property? The state taps into all sorts of data sources … Read more

The kindergarten conundrum

kindergarten student

Much of Indiana’s local government owes its structure to our state’s early days. Hoosiers are a generally conservative bunch (and yes, that includes your neighbors who are Democrats … and there are more of them than you probably realize). As a group, we don’t like to see things we’ve known go away, even when they’ve … Read more

Blaming the wrong people

wrong people

It happens every year when property tax bills appear in mailboxes. If you’re a regular visitor to the Government Center in Danville, you’ll notice a slightly larger police presence … and some remarkably furious folks. They make their way to the Auditor, Assessor, and Treasurer’s offices and wait for their chance to scream at the … Read more

Simple steps for safer schools

safer schools

In a past column, I wrote about concerns about school safety and the simple fact that one of most-requested measures – metal detectors – is a fundamentally flawed solution. The same is true for some of the high-tech wizardry you’ve seen on the news, or calls to arm teachers. (Why do I think arming teachers … Read more

Why no shop classes? 

how shop classes were

I’ve written before about education myths. One of the most persistent is that Indiana schools no longer offer many vocational classes (now referred to as career and technical education, or CTE for short). In reality, our public high schools offer more CTE classes than ever before — far more than when you were in high … Read more

Indiana’s biggest small-town killer

sputnik. Image by Andrew Butko

Drive the back roads through most of Indiana’s 92 counties, and you’re bound to encounter dead or dying small towns. You’ll arrive at a crossroads surrounded by a few rundown homes and crumbling storefronts that haven’t offered anything to buy for decades. And in most of these communities, you’ll find brick or limestone buildings that … Read more

Local government and work horses

horses

It would probably surprise you to know just how much of your daily life is influenced by the amount of time it used to take a farmer with a horse-drawn wagon to get from Stilesville to Danville. If you’ve ever looked at a map of Indiana’s 92 counties, you’ve noticed that while shapes vary, most … Read more

Leveraging white papers to navigate complex supply chains

white paper supply chain

If your company operates within a complex supply chain with multiple tiers, a white paper can be a powerful tool to communicate your message across various audiences. For example, let’s say your company produces replacement gaskets for automotive, truck, and industrial engines. Rather than selling directly to the service technicians who install these gaskets during … Read more

Mrs. Bloom’s Litterbox

litterbox

Mrs. Bloom was my first-grade teacher. As she and Dick and Jane helped us discover reading, she also dealt with all the realities associated with six- and seven-year-olds, from accidents to tears to post-recess vomiting to my classmate Chuckie, who ate a lot of crayons. There were no litterboxes in her classroom. Nor were there … Read more