Miep Gies, the woman who was the last surviving protector of Anne Frank and her family, died this week at age 100. She's the person who discovered Frank's diary after the Nazis raided their hiding place and took them to concentration camps. The New York Times obituary notes that she preferred a quiet life and avoided public speaking until her own story became known:

Mrs. Gies sought no accolades for joining with her husband and three others in hiding Anne Frank, her father, mother and older sister and four other Dutch Jews for 25 months in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. But she came to be viewed as a courageous figure when her role in sheltering Anne Frank was revealed with the publication of her memoir. She then traveled the world while in her 80s, speaking against intolerance....she began to travel widely as a living link to Anne Frank and spoke on the lessons of the Holocaust, often talking to schoolchildren who were reading Anne’s diary.

That's astonishing, in its own way: She started a public speaking career in her 80s, even though her preference seems to have been to remain quiet. I think that adds to her eloquence, and find myself struck by the power when a quiet person chooses to speak out. Perhaps that's because, as seems to have been the case for Gies, they're doing so not to advance themselves but because they feel passionately about their subject. In fact, the obituary notes that Gies and her husband would stay quietly at home on the anniversary of the raid, preferring to remember their friends rather than participate in public ceremonies. MSNBC has a previous interview with Miep Gies here . (Photos of Gies in 1999, right, and with her husband Jan Gies, on their wedding day in 1941, left, courtesy of the Anne Frank House.)

I've been surprised by and ashamed of my ignorance of Miep Gies, who died this week. But I have been amazed by the story and moved by the many tributes I've seen. Of all of them, I think this is the most eloquent.

If you attend a lot of online or phone-based meetings, chances are you may love Ketchup, a snappy web-based meeting-notes manager that keeps track of agendas, attendees, action items, who said what, and more.

Ketchup seriously couldn't be any simpler to use. It takes seconds to register for a free account, then you're up and running. Just give your meeting a name, record who's invited or attended, drop in any agenda items and you're done.

There's plenty of room for copious notes, and each meeting record can be easily printed out in a couple of clicks. If you want to make your notes public, just tick the box at the top of the page and your notes will be assigned their own unique URL.

Since it's still under development, Ketchup is currently free. Although its creator says paid versions are in the works, Ketchup will always offer a free version for light users.

Ketchup is a pretty bare bones affair and doesn't have a zillion features, but that's part of its charm. When you need an easy and basic way to track the activity at your next meeting, Ketchup could be just the ticket. What features do you look for in a meeting note manager? Talk about it in the comments.

Ketchup [via Download Squad]

Could come in handy for a lot of folks. And a couple of hours later I saw this notice of Timebridge integration with Evernote. Think of how useful it would be to have searchable and universal access to your meeting notes.

Dan tells a story about Clare Booth Luce, the playwright, journalist, and Republican Member of Congress. In 1962, Luce met with President Kennedy, who was, at the time, pursuing an ambitious agenda domestically and overseas. She worried about his diffuse priorities. "A great man," she advised him, "is one sentence." President Lincoln's sentence was obvious: "He preserved the union and freed the slaves." So was FDR's: "He lifted us out of a great depression and helped us win a world war." What, Luce challenged the young, impatient president, was to be his sentence?

From a think piece on Dan Pink's Drive in the Harvard Business Review. Bill Taylor takes Pink's findings about personal motivation and applies them to business. I wonder how many Toastmaster clubs could also state their purpose in one sentence. And I'm talking about the purpose of the twenty people or so who belong to the club, not the universal club mission.

One of my all-time favorite sitcoms is/was the Cosby Show.  I'm a child of the 80's, so I grew up on the parenting of Cliff and Claire Huxtable. 

While there were 200 episodes, a few moments stick out in my mind: Cliff getting pelted with snowballs on the front stoop, Cliff and Theo learning economics with monopoly money where having a girlfriend takes all of Theo's remaining money [first episode], and of course, the Gordon Gartrell shirt.  I often find myself thinking of one particular episode where Vanessa introduces the family to her new boyfriend, Dabnis Brickey, who happens to be significantly older than her.  Not only that, but for the first time Vanessa divulges they've been engaged for six months.  You can watch the introduction here.  While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, Vanessa doesn't do that great of a job with the presentation of Dabnis, thus Cliff proclaims to Dabnis, "We just don't like you."

Watch this video to see how Cliff explains why the presentation is so important.  Click here to watch it on Youtube [embedding was disabled], but make sure you come back!.  If you want to go directly to the quote, fast forward to 1:15.

Jon Thomas draws an important lesson for speaking from an old episode of the Cosby show. While his concern is with preparation and rehearsal, I think you can also learn the importance of a good introduction from this clip.

Just how does one become a better public speaker? I mean let’s be serious here, you do want to get better, don’t you? Pretty much any book that you read on the subject or class that you attend in order to build up your skills will tell you the same time — if you really want to get better, then you’ve got to take the time to watch the pros at work. Great, just where do you find such pros and how can you get admitted to their speeches to watch them at work? Good news — I’m going to tell you how (and it’s free!) …

The Accidental Communicator shares a useful but easily overlooked tip and references some related posts that look interesting as well. Shared on Twitter by @JaniceTomich.