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Karen Nicholas

I'm a professional communicator who loves stories, effective communication tactics, and cats. Subscribe to my newsletter for grammar tips, communications advice, and things to make you laugh/cry!

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Drama Dots: What's the new No. 1 emoji?

DRAMA dots . . . Creating engaging, effective communications! Check Out Past Newsletters For the first time since 2021, there is a new No. 1 emoji. Two long-time favorites are no longer the most used: 🤣 and ❤️. The new top emoji? None other than 😭! Loudly Crying Face took the top spot because it became the default reaction for when something was too funny/embarrassing/cute to cope with; using a laughing emoji is no longer enough. We NEED more drama. Image from The New York Times Among...

DRAMA dots . . . Creating engaging, effective communications! Check Out Past Newsletters We had Barbie summer and Brat summer…is this year “Nostalgia” summer? If you spend any time on Threads, you would have noticed that it was completely taken over by Gen X women…trying to get their $16.99 ESPRIT sweatshirts from Costco. They sold out online in a matter of days, and were rapidly disappearing from Costco stores. (Full confession: I bought one for myself and my high school friend!) Camp Snap...

DRAMA dots . . . Creating engaging, effective communications! Check Out Past Newsletters I was stopped at a stoplight, and there was a truck pulled off on the side of the road in front of me. His entire truck was covered with bumper stickers. I wanted to read some of them, but there were so many…I didn’t know where to look. It was information overload! It made me think about a conundrum I was having earlier. I was editing a document, and there were so many calls to action that the message was...

DRAMA dots . . . Creating engaging, effective communications! Check Out Past Newsletters If I said, “soup to nuts,” would you know what I meant? I stumbled upon a Threads post where a woman shared this idiom and said she didn’t know what it meant. She asked people to share other idioms that they frequently hear. The first comment said, “Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” A number of Threads users did not know what this phrase meant. How many of these do you know? Soup to nuts –...

DRAMA dots . . . Creating engaging, effective communications! Check Out Past Newsletters Chefs who work in open-kitchen restaurants, where they can see patrons' meals, tend to cook better food, according to research. Because they can see their customer’s reaction, they understand how their efforts create an enjoyable experience for other people. Their work matters. Additionally, those chefs also report more satisfaction in their jobs. 🌟 🌟 🌟 Data gathered by Great Place to Work showed a...

DRAMA dots . . . Creating engaging, effective communications! Check Out Past Newsletters Have you heard about the Staples Baddie? If you’ve been on social media in the past few weeks, you might have encountered TikToker ✨Oblivion✨ @blivxx, an employee at Staples. She started recording herself while at work, sharing things that she thinks people should take advantage of in the store. Staples wasn't paying for these TikTok videos – in fact, the company didn’t even know about them at first. But,...

DRAMA dots . . . Creating engaging, effective communications! Check Out Past Newsletters Parents were huddled in the back of the cramped classroom, staring at the three students in the front. We were surprised when they began singing the Sesame Street theme song as they walked in a circle around a table. Occasionally, they would pause and sing words like “Bishkek” and “Pyrolysis” with jazz hands. They presented in a program called Future Cities and used a skit to introduce us to their city...

DRAMA dots . . . Creating engaging, effective communications! Check Out Past Newsletters Do you ever read a phrase, and you can actually feel or hear it? “…the slam of his childhood screen door.” You can visualize that, right? I can hear the door slamming. The phrase was included in The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith. It made me think about words – and how many good descriptive ones there are out there. I tend to get stuck on common, overused ones…said, is, were, go, good, lovely, etc....

DRAMA dots . . . Creating engaging, effective communications! Check Out Past Newsletters Dick Bass was the son of a Texas oil baron, and he was known for taking mountain-climbing expeditions and talking about them… a lot. He was seated next to a man on a plane, and he spent the entire flight talking exhaustively about his adventures on Mount Everest and Mount McKinley. As they were landing, Bass realized he hadn’t introduced himself. He turned to the man next to him and formally introduced...

DRAMA dots . . . Creating engaging, effective communications! Check Out Past Newsletters These are the subjects from a few unsolicited emails I’ve received lately. Can you spot the theme? Is Your Brand Invisible to AI Search? AI in Action: PR Leaders Reveal Their Frameworks, Tools & Tactics Exciting Update – Salsify Now Connects Directly to AI (ummm….who is Salsify?!?) If you guessed an AI theme, you are correct! I’ve opted not to write too much about AI because the AI fatigue is REAL. But,...