Emily Post's Great-Great-Grandchildren Provide Modern-Day Etiquette Tips

MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- There's a renewed push to get our manners in check, and that includes lessons in modern-day etiquette from one of the most legendary names in the game.

If there's ever a time to mind your manners, it's while meeting Lizzie Post.

"Etiquette nowadays is so much more towards the individual, how you want to present yourself," she says.

Post and her cousin, Dan Post Senning, are great-great-grandchildren of the iconic Emily Post, who literally wrote the book "Etiquette" back in 1922.

With their weekly podcast and business seminars, Lizzie and Dan now run The Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vermont, where they also update the original book with modern manners like prioritizing people over cell phones.

Dan says, "We travel and speak and promote etiquette in person in a world where it's easier and easier to get information but that human connection is really at a premium."

Nearby, at the University of Vermont, all undergraduate business students are required to take three courses in the "soft skills" you can't learn from a textbook.

According to Amy Tomas, Director of Undergraduate Programs at the Grossman School of Business, "they're focused on things like networking, things like dressing for success, things like business etiquette, how to introduce yourself, how to shake hands."

Students say it's the little things they're learning that go a long way, like what to wear at a meeting, when to write a thank you note, or should you order dessert at a business lunch.

"So many people learn these hard skills in class," says Amanda Levi, a junior at the university, "You learn how to make a balance sheet, you learn how to make an excel spreadsheet, but you don't learn how to interact in a professional manner. That is really what sets you apart."

Lizzie says etiquette is still very much alive: "It will never die. As long as two people come together and their behavior affects one another you have etiquette, according to Emily Post."

Society has changed since the days of their great-great-grandmother, but the Posts say kindness and courtesy never go out of style.

The cousins are now working on the 20th edition of "Etiquette" for the 100th anniversary of the original publication. Most of the topics they cover in their podcast each week come from submissions of listeners themselves.