ly made a complete fool of myself, but also destroyed any credibility I might have had with every person in the room. I've learned a lot since then. Hopefully, I can help others learn from my mistakes. What did I do wrong? Everything. First and foremost, I did not speak with respect. Forget about respecting people because of their positions. I don't believe in that. I mean specting people because they are human beings. If anyone ever talked to me the way I talked to that roomful of executives, I'd get up and walk out. Yet somehow I felt justified in speaking to them like I was their father. I also got emotional. I looked down on the whole group and then started ranting. That will never get you where you want to go in the business world. So, how do you talk to management? How do you translate your internal engineer's rage into useful business-speak that will get the results you want? Here are some tips: Document your idea If your idea is sound, your boss will want you to give him something that he can show his boss. This should be a short document outlining your idea, along with the benefits of its implementation. It should begin with an executive summary containing a minimum of technical jargon, followed by a few pages of concise technical explanations relating the details. Include timelines and budgets-even estimates are better than nothing. If you don't know how to do these things, enlist the help of someone who does. Alternatively, a nice PowerPoint slide deck will probably work equally well. Why not do both? Be grammatically correct When producing documentation, make sure that everything you write is gram- matically correct. Make sure you use a spellchecker on your documents and proof- read them at least twice. Have someone else proofread them as well, and then proofread them again yourself. You'll be amazed at how many mistakes you'll find on even the third reading. How to Sell Your Ideas to Management I've had the pleasure of working with some very smart people. I've worked with CCIEs, PhDs, teachers, docto