A host of variables—well-crafted words, for example—can be used to sway perceptions. According to Newsweek, determining whether someone is right- or left-handed, then influencing their spacial perceptions accordingly, is another way to curry favour.
Signing off an email with ‘cheers’ might be too “mock British” for our US counterparts, but the consensus amongst Lifehacker readers is that it’s perfectly acceptable on this side of the Pacific.
Whether work-related or on personal time, most of us send multiple emails daily, which is why learning how to properly close the correspondence is essential because, as the Washington Post notes, you can pay the price for a “careless closing”.
According to Harvard Business blog, most of our interactions are governed by a simple event-reaction-outcome chain, where our knee-jerk response leads to an often undesirable outcome. For better results, they propose tweaking your thought chain to focus primarily on the outcome.
Apart from the obvious signs, non-verbal gestures and other cues can also help to determine whether someone is telling the truth or not. Forbes outlines 11 ways to potentially sniff out a liar, including a section on catch phrases to watch out for.
Gmail gives you five seconds to unsend an email. Unfortunately in real life, you can’t hit the undo button once you’ve verbalized your feelings. The key then, according to Harvard Business Blog, is to know how to prevent the damaging message to begin with.
Evite seems to be the standard for sending event invitations by email, but it has its annoyances. Mobaganda makes invites dead simple. Head to the site and type in the basics of your event. You’ll get a unique page thrown together for you, which you send as a link to guests via email (or Twitter, or text, or whatever you prefer). They arrive, answer yes or no, and you keep track of replies via RSS, or just checking the page. It’s an elegant alternative to sending sometimes goofy themed emails with no information in them. Mobaganda [via TechCrunch]
Drop for drop, colognes and perfumes are some of the most expensive liquids around, and yet they can wear off before you step out your door. The TipNut blog suggests that moisturising the area where you’ll apply the strong stuff—like with petroleum jelly or any non-scented moisturiser—helps lock in its strength longer than spraying onto dry skin. Combine that with another hint that pulse points are a scent distributor, and your eau de toilette just might earn its keep for the night. Hit the link for more advice, and feel free to offer up your own fragrance suggestions in the comments. Photo by Here in Van Nuys. How To Make Fragrances Last Longer [TipNut]
Shy? Lonely? You’re not alone. If you feel that social situations put you in an awkward position and you are looking to break out of your shell, the Succeed Socially website features articles on everything to turn from geek to social butterfly: advice on meeting new people, getting along with others, starting conversations, being funny (or seeming less weird), making eye contact, overcoming laziness, coping with nervousness, and more. Guys might also appreciate the articles on how to dance, beat shyness, and conquer the video game habit. Other social issues, such as drinking, are addressed. Even if you have some good social skills but feel they need a little brushing up on, the articles contained on the Succeed Socially site should give you some good direction and boost your confidence in any social situation.
How to Have More Social SuccessCustom search site Swicki, just out of beta, combines cherry-picking site searches with social moderation features to make a theoretically smarter personalised search box. Like Yahoo’s search builder or personal search granddaddy Rollyo, Swicki lets you pick topics and sites you want to look through, but has a few more tricks up its sleeve.
The main difference is that a Swicki uses the clicks, keywords and searches from other Swickis with similar interests to rank and sort results, rather than any Google-like system. It also relies on users’ voting results up and down and removing them to train the widget on what to look for. Lastly, Swickis can display RSS, video, and multimedia content, and be embedded in blogs or web sites. Building a Swicki is free, but requires clicking through a few pages to complete the process. For you longtime search tweakers out there, do Swicki’s results seem worth the overall effort? Share your experience with the site (and others like it) in the comments.
Swicki Tour [via eWeek]
