Organizations

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is the premier international knowledge network for professionals engaged in strategic business communication management. Sue Johnston has been a member since 1987 and earned the designation Accredited Business Communicator in 1995. She is past Regional Director for Canada East (and Caribbean).

The Canadian Society for Training and Development is the professional association for workplace learning and performance practitioners in Canada. It is dedicated to the profession of training, workplace learning and human resources development. Sue Johnston is one of its 2,000 members.

The mission of the International Association of Coaches is to further the interests of coaching clients worldwide. It offers rigorous and objective coach testing and certification procedures and promotes high ethical standards within the coaching industry.

The International Coach Federation is a professional association of personal and business coaches that seeks to preserve the integrity of coaching around the globe. ICF helps people find the coach most suitable for their needs. ICF is the largest non-profit professional association worldwide of personal and business coaches with more than 6000 members and over 145 chapters in 30 countries.

Toastmasters International is the international association of local Toastmasters clubs dedicated to improving speaking skills.

Increasingly, much of what we do to achieve specific results involves co-ordinating resources and activities over time. In others words, we're involved in project management. The Project Management Institute is an international organisation dedicated to discovering, documenting, promoting and certifying the best practices of successful project management. A broad and diverse membership, a wide range of literature and active education and certification programs provide a wealth of useful knowledge for everyone who finds themselves juggling the three "balls" of time, cost and scope.

6 Seconds EQ - One of the first developers of EQ training provides a repository of heaps of practical information regarding emotional intelligence.

Sue is a certified NetSpeed Leadership training facilitator. It’s a hands-on leadership development program using a blended learning approach, designed to meet the learning needs of managers, supervisors and individual contributors in fast-paced organizations. (The program is offered in Canada through AIM Learning http://www.itf.ca/.)

Blazing Service is a dynamic, interactive training program from the same group designed to ignite great customer service in your organization. Combining the best of classroom instruction with easy-to-use web-based reinforcement tools, Blazing Service inspires in your customer service team both the personal qualities and the practical skills that make exceptional customer service providers.

Sue is an associate trainer/coach with Bergman & Associates, whose workshops, seminars and one-on-one coaching have improved the communication skills of thousands of professionals, managers, sales people, politicians and senior executives. Eric has developed customizable presentation skills and media spokesperson trainnig programs, Presenting With Ease and At Ease With The Media. He also consults on strategy, positioning, issues management and message content. He and Sue have developed Media 101, a 90-minute program designed to introduce basic media relations skills to business groups.

People and sites inspiring our thinking about communication

Donald Norman
Design philosopher, usability champion, and author of Things That Make Us Smart

Jakob Nielson
Engineer and researcher whose focus is on making the Net more usable and useful

Edward Tufte
Designer, author and specialist in graphical depiction of quantitative information

Richard Saul Wurman
Creator of Access™ travel guides and author of Information Anxiety

Diane Gayeski
Author, educator and consultant on performance-based learning and communication

Bart Mindszenthy & Gail Roberts
Consultants and trainers who focus on strategic organizational communication

Shel Holtz
Consultant, speaker, and writer specializing in online technology for communication

Sites inspiring our thinking about business and life

Fast Company
CEO Magazine
Business 2.0
Gallup Corporation
Consortium on Emotional Intelligence
Operation Respect

Other useful links for writers, communicators, and thinkers

Answers.com - Gurunet's fast answers on millions of topics
Wikipedia - the free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit
Dictionary.com
KCI Style Guide
Bartleby - Quotes, thesaurus, dictionary and much more!
MindGenius - Awesome Mind Map™ software

Friends and Collaborators

smArt Business Coaching – Kathy Gulrich, a marketing professional-turned-artist – and an amazing coach and friend – helps people build their businesses while having fun in the process. And if you want to buy a Manhattan condo - she can help you with that, too!

Susan R. Meyer – Executive coach Dr. Susan Meyer specializes in working through transitions, particularly midlife. She’s an expert at designing learning opportunities and has worked in just about every aspect of education. She's committed to helping people make the most of their "older" years and is proof that "60 is the new 40."

Raising the Bar – We met executive coach Nick Ellse when Andrew’s Bermuda employer hired him to coach its senior team – which led us to add coaching to It’s Understood’s service mix. Sales, strategy and teamwork are his coaching and consulting specialities.

A Better Perspective - Donna Karlin has pioneered the specialized practice of Shadow Coaching ™ with more than 130 senior organizational leaders in the public and private sectors. She works with clients in their environments, watching them in action, and works with them to develop their leadership skills and understand their place in their organization and in the world. She's an awesome coach and you can visit her site to learn more.

Kendall Summerhawk - Devoted to helping people love who they are and what they do, Kendall Summerhawk is an amazing coach who is inspiring Sue to translate her ideas into action.

SkyReporter - Veteran journalist and long time friend Arthur Kent has reported extensively from Afghanistan and other war zones since the 1980s. His news video web site, brings documentary reports on the current situation in Afghanistan and tells the background stories we're not seeing on network TV. Art's first book, Risk And Redemption, explores the decline of standards in foreign news reporting, and his own adventures suing the NBC network for libel - and winning.

Bermuda Learning Solutions - Pamela Trott and associated trainers in Bermuda offer an array of public and in house programs designed to develop both technical and interpersonal skills.