Helping businesses send the right messages in a consistent voice.
St. Catharines - Ontario
I have now been retired for a whole year and am primarily writing short stories and then adapting them to screenplays which I will be submitting to independent production companies.
956 articles
Over the past two years, recovering from some pretty serious spinal surgery, I started to wonder if the four months I spent in hospital and the surgery itself had affected my writing ability. So in ad...
I write a lot of stuff here on social media. Sometimes I hit big because I strike a nerve. Sometimes I hit small because what I’m writing makes people uncomfortable. That’s life in the world of social...
(The 80/20 rules, as it applies to work situations is also known and the Pareto Principle.This is my own take on it.) Most of the time, I'm pretty serious as a writer. But every now and then, maybe 20...
One of the key things I have learned from talking to both clients and people in the communications business over the years is that they believed that hardest thing to do was to develop a methodology o...
These are brief descriptions of all the stories in my various collections, as well as my first actual novel. I have formatted them to make them easy to read on virtually any device you have. If you wo...
For the better part of the last decade, I have been on LinkedIn where I would average close to 3500 views for many of the posts I did. Several of them went viral, A lot of them were blog posts in whic...
I have been ‘retired’ for about seven years now. But by no means have I stopped writing. No. Writing is a blessing and a curse and it’s something, I am finding out, that doesn’t get time off once you...
1. The quality of your life is only what you make it. We all have the ability to live like good human beings and help others do the same. 2. Know that politicians are only attracted to politics becaus...
A lot of people, especially those who are environmentally aware, are leaving their cars at home a lot more and getting around on bikes. I have been a bike rider for more than 70 years. I have probably...
JIM: I have spent the Lion’s share of my adult life in the business of advertising. When I started in 1971, I was part of the third generation of modern day creative people. My mentors were the people...
If you fancy yourself a writer and cruise around on social media for any length of time, you will invariably come across offers to publish your book directly and forego all the drudgery of finding a l...
This is the second column in our recently reformed collaboration. PHIL: Okay, Jim, so the other day I was ruminating over where all this hubbub over Chat Bots, LLMs, and purported artificial intellige...
Preface: For those who may not know, over a period of three years a while back, Phil Friedman and I collaborated on a series of 33 discussion posts on a broad range of topics. We got quite a kick out...
As the 21st century really starts to take hold, one of the most important places where huge differences will be made is in the investment community. And this change is built around the idea of ESG, wh...
The last couple of decades in the life of planet Earth have been very strange ones indeed. As a writer and observer of as much of the world as I can learn about without extensive travel, I have seen t...
My friend, and former client, photographer Michael Kohn, who is a very bright guy, posted an interesting quote from Malcolm Gladwell in which he was referencing Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. “Conn...
There is a war going on in the world that is much more insidious than any war waged with conventional weapons. It is the battle for control of what you think and believe. And I’m not just talking abou...
(This was originally written in 2020) We’re having the worst snowstorm of the season so far as I sit here and write these words. I’ve shovelled twice and will doubtless be shovelling more. According t...
(This is from my Couch Potato Chronicles column Circa 2000 AD.) We’re having the worst snow storm of the season so far as I sit here and write these words. I’ve shovelled twice and will doubtless be s...
I can’t speak for all writers, because I’m only this one and that’s really all the opinion I am entitled to. For the past 55 years, all I have ever really known myself to be is a writer. And one of th...
(I wrote this post after the 2016 election and updated it after the 2020 election. Sad to say these people have not wised up since) Since Donald Trump’s election to president, or perhaps a little befo...
Whenever I write anything about America I have to take into account that it is actually two countries, and these days it’s becoming more and more transparently obvious. One America is made up of liter...
Two years ago I returned home from a four month ordeal that included major spinal surgery, that took away my ability to balance due to a growth on my spine that started out as a simple e-coli infectio...
This is the third in a series on writing, which is something I have been doing professionally for more than 50 years. Hope you enjoy it and find the insights useful. A couple weeks ago, I spent an hou...
This is the second in a series on branding strategy for authors. But in actuality, it applies to virtually anyone out there working to develop their own business. Other posts in this series can be fou...
(This is the first in a series on writing, which is something I have been doing professionally for more than 50 years. Hope you enjoy it and find the insights useful) A while ago, I had a prospect, an...
Many businesses used the COVID epidemic as an excuse to to reduce service and goad people into becoming more and more dependent on online solutions as opposed to in-person service calls. My wife recen...
This is 12th in a series of posts I have created to help people improve the quality of their communications. Other posts in this series can be accessed in my blog repository at https://ca.bebee.com/be...
Every so often I come across something that just riles me up. Although admittedly I am pretty easy to rile and let’s face it there so much bullshit out there that if I wanted to I could stay completel...
This is the 11th in my series on smart marketing for small businesses. You can find the other articles in this series on my beBee.com page at: https://ca.bebee.com/bee/jim-murray Developing or retooli...
If you pay close enough attention you can see that the Biden government in the US is actually doing great things for the country in terms of the economy, employment, disaster relief and hopefully, inf...
I’d like to say there was a time in my life when the truth was distinguishable from the lies. But I’m not sure there ever was. When I was a kid in the1950s, I remember seeing newscasters like Walter C...
This is part of my series on smart marketing for small business. Other posts in this series are available at the bottom of this post, on my beBee blog wall. When you are starting your own business, or...
This is part of my series on smart marketing for small business. Other posts in this series are available at the bottom of this post, on mt beBee blog wall. One of the things that you pick up if you h...
This is part of my series on Smart Marketing For Small Business. Other posts in this series can be accessed via my BeBee wall, at the bottom of this post. There are literally hundreds of thousands if...
There’s an election coming up here in Ontario Canada where I live. I knew that early on in the year and since I do a lot of reading on things political, I decided to get myself informed. A lot of peop...
Other posts in this series are accessible at the bottom of this post, by clicking on the ‘View Blog’ link Does Your Company Have A Consistent ‘Voice’? One of the most effective ways to make sure your...
Other posts in this series are accessible at the bottom of this post, by clicking on the ‘View Blog’ link A few years ago I posted a series of articles on my history in the advertising agency business...
You can find the rest of the articles in this series on my wall at https://ca.bebee.com/bee/jim-murray "> https://ca.bebee.com/bee/jim-murray One of the recurring themes in business media has to do wi...
This is the third post in my series on Smart Marketing For Small Business. Other posts in this series include: https://ca.bebee.com/producer/part-2-the-communication-strategy-BhroKLKzss3B https://ca.b...
This is the second in my series on Smart Marketing For Small Business. The communication strategy is not only a useful guide to getting your communications program started and moving forward, it’s als...
One of the most difficult things about managing your communications is getting yourself organized to get the right messages out to the right people. This is list of things you need to understand, to h...
1. That the COVID plague has connected us all in a strange and deadly way, and it is only through universal cooperation that we will conquer it and put processes in place to prevent further plagues fr...
When I left the ad agency business, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (ie last century), I was, thanks to the creative people I worked with, the people who mentored me and the account guys I did fr...
The world we are living in today is changing constantly. Many of us are being pulled in several directions at the same time. Hardly any of us understand what’s real and what’s not anymore. There are s...
Being woke is something I have been accused of several times. I find it odd that it’s an accusation, especially when you consider the modern definition of woke. So first of all I’d like to clear up an...
When I was younger, much younger, I used to think it would be great to move to the United States of America and become a citizen of that country. I grew up in a border town and spent a lot of time in...
I grew up spending a lot of time in America, as I lived in a border town. That was back in the 1950s and 60s, and Americans didn’t seem to be all that different from us Canadians. The American culture...
The first thing Charlie McQueen did after waking up in the morning, was to listen. He listened carefully and silently for a good couple of minutes. He knew his house and could pretty much identify eve...
The good old USA is showing signs of unraveling. It took a long time but now the current confluence of events very much appears to be the beginning of the end of whatever this country called itself. A...
For some reason, this view out my bathroom window, with long icicles hanging down over it, made me think about winters in Fort Erie when I was a kid in the 1950's. It wasn't unusual to get a foot or t...
First of all, let me preface this piece by telling you that I am a white guy. But I am also a Canadian white guy and have honestly never really believed that there was any sort of difference between w...
After my stay in the hospital, I somehow lost interest in watching TV, and by TV, I mean the programming offered by the major networks. I’m not exactly sure what brought this change about. Maybe it wa...
After two decades in the advertising agency business and another three on my own as an independent consultant/advisor/mini agency, I have picked up a fair bit of insight into the one word that forms t...
Over the past few months we have seen the impact that an attempted fascist coup of the United States has made. Social media sites, just about everywhere, are now starting to (finally) clamp down on ha...
Sometime in the spring of this year, I started a new screenplay. It was about a young man named Jeremy Sand, who invented an AI program to get this masters at MIT. This program turned out to have amaz...
Fifty years ago this year, I was 24, and married a young lady, three years younger than me. It was also the last time I ever wore a tie. I didn’t consciously avoid wearing ties. In fact I had several...
A lot of the people who know me on social media as a blogger. And that’s fair because for the past 15 years or so I have been writing traditional blogs. A while ago I added up the number of blog posts...
I don’t know about you but I am coming up on twenty years of being on social media. And during that time, I’m sad to report, that I have seen a real deterioration in the civility of human beings towar...
When I was a young warthog, in grade 13 at David & Mary Thomson Collegiate in Scarborough, I wrote what turned out to be my first marketing piece. The client, oddly enough, was me. The piece in questi...
Back in another lifetime, I was fortunate enough to have met and talked one on one with Bob Dylan for about half an hour. This was back in the 70s when he was just about the biggest thing out there. T...
This will likely be the last post I write on my experiences over the past two years. It's time to move on and get back to my normal stuff. On the day I left the hospital in Hamilton after having spina...
I have always been impatient. I think it may have a lot to do with my metabolism. It seems like I am always in a hurry to get things done. Before I actually got proficient at writing, which is mostly...
Other posts in this series can be found at https://ca.bebee.com/bee/jim-murray/blog Sixteen months ago I was operated on to remove an e-coli infection that had lodged itself in my upper spine. In orde...
This is the third article in this series: The other two articles are available on my blog page: https://ca.bebee.com/bee/jim-murray/blog I grew up in the advertising business in Toronto when there wer...
There is a wave of hatred and divisiveness spreading around the world. If I were a religious person I would solemnly proclaim that this is the work of Satan and his minions here on earth. I am not rel...
This is the second post in a series. The first post can be found here: https://ca.bebee.com/producer/things-lost-found-part-1-0JBaYMVRuHek I have never been what you would call a people person. When I...
One of the advantages of being in my early seventies and not senile or afflicted with anything that affects my brain, is that you can look back on all the years you spent and see what we have gained a...
In a way it’s funny because certainty in this life is often defined in uncertain terms. For example, it’s a certain that we are all going to die. But it’s uncertain exactly when that will take place....
They kept to themselves more or less. They drank a lot most nights. Mostly beer. They drove around drunk and probably had their share of fender benders. They quit school before finishing high school....
There is uncertainty all around us. You don’t always feel it, and that’s a relief. If you did it would make you a paranoid and nobody really wants to live that way. The uncertainly I feel around me co...
Sometimes I lay down in the dark, close my eyes and try to figure out what's wrong with the world. And it all keeps coming back to one thing. One thing that causes all the strife. One thing that cause...
Everything I Know About Getting Business Now that things are coming back to whatever will pass for normal, I’m starting to see a lot of videos from people who want to teach other people all the ins an...
It’s a Thursday. I am beat from a rather grueling valuation day yesterday at Shaver where I’m doing my rehab and I’m only halfway through. We finish up there on Friday and won’t be able to go back for...
A lot of us have been on social media for quite some time and one of the things that we should have learned by now is that opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one. Social media gives you the o...
The trouble with God is that he is a great manager. He creates all kinds of things and leaves them to fend for themselves, confident that his creations will grow and thrive and evolve and that it will...
The Friday Files was a feature I built into my blogging a few years back. It got shunted off onto a spur when I got sick and eventually went into the hospital for spinal surgery. I have been out of th...
In Canada, where I have lived all my life, I am, as labelled by Conservatives, a bleeding heart Liberal. But like a lot of Canadians I was very much influenced by the ongoing political volatility of U...
Developing or retooling a small to medium sized business, as every business owner will tell you, is a lot of work. And it can cost a great deal of money too. But all too often in this process, however...
I grew up in a border town where the American influence was stronger than even the influence of my own country. American news was watched every evening. American music was listened to incessantly, Ame...
For the last several weeks I have been actively striving to avoid writing anything about Trump. I was able to do this because well, he was just another private citizen now, and because he's no longer...
It was the summer of 1964 and I was just about to turn seventeen. I was working as a caddy at the Eriedowns Golf & Country Club, in Fort Erie Ontario, and had just recently been promoted to working in...
First of all let me tell you that I have been a professional writer for close to 50 years. So I’m not cobbling this post together from stuff that I have seen. That’s called editing, and frankly that’s...
One of the things that has always astounded me as I have traveled through life is the attitude that some people have towards money. To me, money has never been the driver in my life. It was always my...
It’s a very easy thing, in this day and age to become blinded by digital science. The technology we have at our disposal today is pretty awesome and it can facilitate our ability to reach people just...
Young angry guy convincingly portrayed by Rowan Murray A lot of people with whom I am connected on social media think of me as an angry guy. And some of them wonder where all this anger comes from. Fa...
This is a re-broadcast of an article I wrote a few years ago. It’s a little after 8:00 AM on a cool October morning. I’m sitting here with a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and doing what I do every single...
I belong to a very small group or Network Sidebar, more like the size of a bowling team, on LinkedIn. It is the only group I still belong to on that site, which has gone pretty steadily downhill from...
This is the fourth installment in a series on blogging and what works for me. It's based on things I have learned throughout the trial and error process of posting more than 2500 articles on Pulse, Wo...
This is the third installment in a series on blogging and what works for me. It's based on things I have learned throughout the trial and error process of posting more than 2500 articles on Pulse, Wor...
This is the second installment in a series on blogging and what works for me. It's based on things I have learned throughout the trial and error process of posting more than 2500 articles on Pulse, Wo...
This is the first in a new series of 4 posts on blogging. I will publish a new post every day this week. Please feel free to share them with anyone you know who wants to write better blogs, or get sta...
First of all, let me preface this piece by telling you that I am a white guy. But I am also a Canadian white guy and have honestly never really believed that there was any sort of difference between w...
Since Donald Trump’s election to president, or perhaps a little before that, there was a class of Americans that nobody defined. These were people who were poorly educated, or at least failed to actua...
Every day I wake up with a different song in my head. Today it was this song by the Canadian group Rush. Rush was a trio of musicians who made a mighty sound coming from just three guys. They were a p...
It’s pretty much a year ago now that I stopped watching network TV. When I quit, I was still in the Hospital recuperating from spinal surgery and rehabbing my legs which were pretty severely affected...
We get around 52 of them every year. And for most of that last 30 or so years, I have never had an office to go to that wasn’t a room in my house, and always used Fridays as a blogging, billing, scree...
For most all of my life. I have looked at America as a country that many other countries could aspire to be like. On the many trips I took there. I saw a pretty amazing place. We watched the network n...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_4uEaZQ2Kg A while ago, maybe two months, I reduced my long format political posting by about 90%. Instead I channeled what I have now come to see as a massive amount...
Listening to artists like Bob Seger always comes with a bit of a price paid in sadness and melancholy. It feels like it was so many years, so many miles and so much insanity and so many experiences ag...
