It’s every speaker’s nightmare: a conference audience more interested in its phones, fingernails, or the floor than in what you’re saying. You’ve just made a point you spent days to carefully craft, and all you hear are shuffles and a few coughs.

But there are ways to wake up your audience, capture their attention, and engage them. Here are a few foolproof methods to help.

Know your audience

Investigate beforehand what their goals are. If you’re trying to tell them how to increase their sales, for example, do your homework and f

The pandemic played havoc with so many aspects of our lives, including the team cohesion that was far easier to achieve in the days when everyone worked at the same site.

Now that more of us are returning to in-person workspaces, it’s more important than ever to provide creative ways to encourage bonding among your employees. Such activities foster enhanced communication and employee morale, leading to a more productive workforce.

So here are a few team-building exercises you can offer.

Happy hour

The classic team-building event is the after-w

Thanksgiving is a time to, as the name implies, give thanks to your deity, to the Universe, or to your good luck for all the things—tangible and intangible—that you have. And part of that tradition involves getting together with friends and family to celebrate your good fortune.

One of the things you’re no doubt grateful for is this planet we live on. But, as everyone knows, the earth is in trouble, so here are a few ways to host a sustainable Thanksgiving celebration.

Cut down on waste

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that Americans waste up to 40 percent of the food they buy every year. Translated to Thanksgiving, that means:

• 172 million pounds of

Calling all witches, warlocks, and wizards, all ghosts, and goblins, and ghoulies! The season of Halloween—also known as All Hallows Eve and Samhain—is upon us!

And if you’re looking for the perfect place to host your Halloween bash, it doesn’t get any better than the historic—and famously haunted—Alfred I. duPont Building in downtown Miami.

The most famous ghost

Many people working at the duPont Building have reported seeing strange apparit

There's nothing worse than a killer celebration getting cut short due to the event venue's curfew. Whether you’re holding a Las Vegas Night, Pride parties, a bar/bat mitzvah, a wedding reception or bachelor/bachelorette party, the last thing you want is the venue’s equivalent of a lifeguard blowing a whistle at 9 or 10 p.m. hollering, “Everybody out of the pool!”

Or the host sounding like a bartender who, just as the festivities really get rolling, loudly announcing, “Closing time! You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

An event curfew can be a real buzzkill just as the party is reaching its peak.