800-CEO-READ Blog: Communication

New excerpt up - from Leadership and the Sexes

There's a new excerpt up on our Excerpts blog. It's taken from Chapter 1 of Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science To Create Success In Business by Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis.

From the publisher: "Men and women lead differently. Most businesspeople, from front line employees to CEOs, sense this at some level, but can't quite articulate the differences without falling into the trap of creating male and female stereotypes. In their new book, Leadership and the Sexes gender experts Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis show what the latest scientific studies reveal about male/female brain differences, and explain how these differences impact the ways that men and women negotiate, communicate, lead, and run meetings."

The excerpt we have posted is a good, lengthy, meaty one. It raises a lot of important points about biological differences between men and women, but it also prompts more questions and will have you curious to see how the authors address not only gender differences in leadership, but also societal issues surrounding socialization and gender stereotyping.

Here's a brief passage from the excerpt:

The human brain is hard-wired (genetically coded with) its gender. As gender is not one thing or type, but very diverse, you will find throughout this book that your brain's male/female coding fits somewhere on a wide gender/brain spectrum.

And here's a direct link to the chapter: 800ceoread.com/excerpts/archives/008408.html

Feel free to submit your Crowdsourcing questions

This afternoon I'm interviewing Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing.* Back in 2006, Jeff coined the phrase of crowdsourcing in his article for Wired magazine. Crowdsourcing, a play on outsourcing, is the idea of using crowds to solve problems, invent and generally, get work done. Think, Wikipedia, Threadless, and iStockPhoto. The crowds are changing business as we know it.

And since I'm interviewing Jeff today, I thought it only right to ask you (the crowd) to submit questions you might have about Crowdsourcing.

If you have any questions, submit your questions by 1:30pm CST and I'll make a point to ask Jeff.

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* On bookshelves everywhere on in late August.

Plato and the Question of Beauty

I was browsing new book titles today and one just popped to my attention right away! It's called Plato and the Question of Beauty by Drew A. Hyland. The reason why I feel compelled to talk about this book goes back to my college days and my freshman year, second semester. I don't know if anyone has taken a right class at the wrong time like I did....the course was Communication in Civilization and I found out 3 weeks into it that even though it was a freshman course (# 171), juniors and seniors usually take it. (It was used, I like to think, to weed out those not ready for college). Most students had notes and past tests from alumni and I found out too late in the class to drop it. So, I muddled through.

Boy, was I glad I did! In the communication field, even though it can get a bit liberal as to what is taught, can feature very valuable information. The class I took brought Plato to my impressionable, freshman mind and I will never forget what I read. We only touched on the Symposium, the Republic and Pheadrus, and his lessons about life and skills in rhetoric are useful to us in 2008 just as they were to Plato those many years ago.

Hyland's book talks about those works as well as Plato's Hippias Major and is definitely right in step for today's business environment where people and companies move too fast, communicate too fast and tend to ignore details and the beauty around them. I'm not saying everyone that reads Plato will have this epiphany, but it may open minds to thinking of things in a different way. Plato may even help you when dealing in communication between co-workers, colleagues, etc.

If you do pick up a copy, enjoy it - and let me know what you think!

From MarketingProfs' Business-to-Business Forum

MarketingProfs recently posted two of their podcasts from their annual Business-to-Business Forum.

The first being Dan Ariely's, author of Predictably Irrational, keynote on "Unlocking Customer Behavior...How to Understand and Profit from Predictably Irrational Customers."

The second is from David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, who spoke about "B2B Viral Marketing: How to Trigger Word-of-Mouse that Spreads Your Ideas for Free." For more on that subject, check out David's ChangeThis manifesto.

Globalization and the power of networks

David Grewal recently wrote Network Power on the how globalization and our ever-increasing exposure to new networks affects our decisions and how we communicate. David guest-blogged about the idea over at the Freakonomics blog the other day.

The message:

Think about a measurement system. Sure, some people will claim that the metric system is intrinsically better than the Imperial because it's easier to calculate in a decimal system.

But Britain didn't switch from Imperial to metric just because the latter is base ten. It did so because of what economists call "network effects." The value of any given coordinating standard -- like a measurement system or a language -- is worth more when more other people use it. And Britain's neighbors and largest trading partners generally do. There are "economies of scale" to being part of the larger network.

Globalization has introduced a new coordination game among literally billions of people. With apologies to Thomas Friedman, the world isn't flat. But it is networked -- and we're all heading to Grand Central Station after one fashion or another.

The link to keep reading.

More on Dan Roam...

As Dylan mentioned last week, we're a big fan of Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin.

It seems others are catching on to the Roam trend. Tom Peters deemed him worthy of the Cool Friend title where he was interviewed by another guy we like who uses words like "grok" in regular conversations, Erik Hansen. BusinessWeek mentioned Dan and his drawings last month. And, if you open up to page 45 of your latest copy of Fast Company, you'll find another piece about Dan and his napkin sketches.

5 Steps to Optimizing Your Website

There are countless ways to get the most out of your web site, and even more opinions about the best ways. In Zero to One Million, Ryan Allis offers an evaluation system to determine whether your business idea is viable. Then, he provides strategies and steps for optimizing your online marketing efforts. The excerpt below is from Chapter 10, Step 8: Build Your Online Marketing Strategy.

A note about the author: Ryan Allis is CEO of iContact Corp., a venture-backed marketing and online communications firm that has grown from nothing to over $10 million in annual sales and 80 employees. He is also the Chairman of the web marketing firm Virante, Inc. For more info, visit www.zeromillion.com.

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5 Steps to Optimizing Your Website

The majority of Web site owners have fewer than 10 incoming links to their sites. The search engines view incoming links as verification that your site has quality content. The more related links your site has from other sites (with the underlined clickable text that includes your targeted keywords), the higher your ranking in the search engines will be. Here is a step-by-step overview of this entire SEO process:

1. Select your keywords. Use tools such as the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool, Google's Search Term Suggestion Tool, and Word tracker to determine which related keywords or key phrases it would be best to optimize your site for. Once you have a list of potential keywords, go to Google and type in those keywords. Then see how many incoming links the top few sites have. You can determine this number by typing in "link:http://www.competitordomain.com." Take a look at whether the first few sites have the targeted keyword in the domain name or in the title, or whether they appear often on their page. Use this information to estimate what it would take to get your site above the current sites in the rankings.
2. Ensure that your site has those keywords on it. Make sure that the keywords you are targeting are on your home page at least five times. Having a 5 percent to 15 percent keyword density for your targeted search term on your home page is optimal. Also ensure that your title tag and image alt tags contain your targeted keyword. Add your targeted term to an H1 header tag for added prominence.
3. Build good-quality content on your site. I call this phase the "content campaign." Either write articles yourself for the site or go through the search engines to find related content. If you find an article on another site that you'd like to publish on your site, send an e-mail to the author, site owner, and/or publisher to request permission to syndicate the article on your site. Present it as a win/win quid pro quo in which you receive good-quality content and the author/publisher receives free exposure and a link to his or her Web site in the byline of the article. I'd suggest having at least 25 quality articles on your site before going forward. Optimize your home page for the two or three most competitive target terms. Optimize your in-site pages for the more unique and less competitive terms. You can also outsource the creation of this content to copywriters, using a service such as elance.com, for about $30 per 400-word article.
4. Build links to your Web site. Without incoming links to your site, it will never have a chance at being at the top of the search engines for competitive terms. Use the research you did earlier on the number of links the sites at the top of the listings have or your targeted keywords to set a goal for how many related incoming links you want to build to your own site. To obtain links, go through the search engines and find related Web sites, then contact the owners of those sites and offer to exchange links. Add their links to your Web site and e-mail them to let them know that you've linked to their sites and would appreciate a reciprocal link. I'd suggest contacting them first via e-mail and then via phone if necessary. In your initial e-mail to site owners, include the URL and description of your site, as well as the location of where their links are and which sites of theirs you are referring to. I'd suggest creating a resources section on your site and placing your link partners in the appropriate category within. You can also build links naturally through press releases or by having great content, a useful tool, a viral video, or an interesting blog. If you have more money than time, you can also purchase relevant links from quality Web sites through a service called LinkExperts or purchase reviews with links from sites such as PayPerPost, ReviewMe, and Blogvertise. Ensure that whatever links you build to your Web site have your target key phrase in the anchor text, the words that are clickable and underlined. Finally, text links are much more valuable than image links, as the search engines can follow text links and associate the link text with your Web site, but they cannot do this for image links.
5. Continue building your site's reputation. Once you have built a few related incoming links, the search engines will find and index your site. If your site is new, it can take up to nine months for Google to allow it to show up for competitive search terms. During this time, continue building good-quality related content and work to build as many incoming links from related Web sites as you can.

From the book Zero to One Million: How I Built a Company to $1 Million in Sales...and How You Can, Too by Ryan P. Allis

An Evening of Web 2.0

Last night I attended a talk by Sarah "Intelligirl" Robbins (of Mediasauce) on applying Web 2.0 practices in the B2B environment. Well spoken, with a vast knowledge on the topic (and pink hair to boot), Sarah delivered an insightful hour long discussion on how companies can collaborate and communicate better using a variety of free web based tools. From Google to Second Life, Sarah broke down the business applications into categories that people who've never used these things could wrap their heads around. Those with even a small grasp on the subject could then realize the huge benefit these tools can have for internal communication. On a grander scale, those from interactive companies in the crowd gained more insight into how to apply these tools to client work.

I'm going to admit, I'm still skeptical of Second Life. So, perhaps I'll pick up Sarah's new book, Second Life for Dummies, and see if I can get a new perspective on it.

Regardless, if she comes to your area, be sure to attend. The web is a constantly changing animal, and having experts like Sarah to refer to helps keep us in-the-know.

A Reader Request - Your Newspapers

I first want to officially declare my love for Monocle Magazine. It is a wonderful magazine out of the UK that covers "Affairs, Business, Culture, Design, and Edits (ie stuff)." The design is brilliant with great and plentiful photography, the right mix of short and long content, and a global perspective which is all but missing from stateside media.

The major feature in the November issue is newspapers. Consider these facts:

• Over 11,000 newspapers produced daily worldwide.
• 1.6 billion people read a newspaper every day, up 5% over the last five years.
• Newspapers employ two million people globally.

Those numbers stand in contrast to the doom and gloom you constantly read in the US. Reported in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulation show circulation of U.S. weekday newspapers was down 2.6% from last year.

Monocle also highlights a number of recent redesigns from around the world, the most significant Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

That got me thinking. I would love to see dailies from around the world. You can see some of them online, but there is no substitute for seeing the object.

So, here is my proposition. Anyone who send me the daily newspaper they read will get a free book sent book to them as a gift. I need to put some limits on this, so here is the process:

2. If you would to participate, email me at t o d d [a t] 8 0 0 c e o r e a d [dot] c o m. Tell me the newspaper you would send me and where it is published. I am looking for global dailies.
3. I will send you back an address to mail the physical copy of the paper.
4. Once I receive your package, I will return the favor.
5. Offer ends November 30th, 2007

I am only going to accept one entry per newspaper, so it is first come first serve.

And I am really looking for dailies from outside the US, but I may accept some of the within the 50 states.

I really want to encourage our global readership to join in. It is often hard to include folks outside the US in our special offers. In this case, we want to encourage it.

Jack Covert Selects - Life's a Pitch

Life's a Pitch: How to Be Businesslike With Your Emotional Life and Emotional With Your Business Life by Stephen Bayley & Roger Mavity, Bantam Press, 256 pages, £14.99, Paperback, March 2007, ISBN 9780593056431

Most of us tend to think of our business and personal lives as two separate lives, and to a large extent, this is true. We all strive for a sense of fulfillment at home and in the workplace, and most of us want some separation and balance between the two worlds. Regardless of how successfully we keep our personal and professional lives separate, some of the skills we use in each are the same. Life's a Pitch addresses these similarities. It is actually two separate books bound together and written by two authors. Both books are about presentation, or how to make a pitch, but they approach the subject from different angles.

Roger Mavity wrote the first book, a more traditional business book. He gets into the nuts and bolts of how to organize yourself and your team, set the message you want to deliver, and how to present that message most effectively. He argues that people respond more to emotion than logic, and that how you pitch yourself is more important than what you're pitching. To put it simply, a pitch is theatre, not information. Stephen Bayley's book, the second part of Life's a Pitch, is far more provocative. He writes about how to present--or "pitch"--yourself in your personal life. He sees life itself as theatre, and writes on how to "design your personality" to be a better actor in it.

They both approach the subject bluntly, some may even say ruthlessly (they dedicate the book to Niccolò Machiavelli, and write that his "ruthless understanding of personal ambition has inspired us both") but they deal with it honestly. They deal openly with topics most of us would prefer to keep at arms length. Bayley references Gandhi and Patton as good examples of presentation in two consecutive sentences, which is bound to make people of all temperaments wince. Similarly, Mavity talks about how the Mafia calls itself a "family" while the British royal family refers to itself as "the firm." This book is more interested in broadening our view of presentation than playing to our prejudices of it. Pacifist and warrior are treated on equal footing here. All that matters is the pitch.

Most of all, this book is well-written and intelligent. Everybody who reads it is bound to get something out of it, whether it is how to make a presentation in a boardroom or how to present yourself at lunch. This book is what it preaches: a great pitch.

Six Essentials for Networking - Rules for Renegades

The following blog entry comes from Christine Comaford-Lynch, author of Rules for Renegades: How to Make More Money, Rock Your Career, and Revel in Your Individuality.

Six Essentials for Networking

Networking is about creating an extended family. It's about developing connections, caring about people, increasing the size of your "tribe." Most of all, networking is not the awkward social ritual many of us think it is--networking is actually FUN!

Here are my top six networking essentials to rock your career and your life.

1. Practice "Palm Up" Networking. When you network, are you giving, or grasping? Palm up networking embodies the spirit of service, of giving and wanting nothing in return. When you network "palm down" you're grasping for personal gain. Palm up = heart-oriented interaction. Palm down = greedy grasping. Which attitude results in building relationships, providing value, and ultimately bestows benefits on both parties? You guessed it. The universe has a perfect accounting system. Give to others, it'll all come back to you in time.

2. Do Daily Appreciation. Appreciate at least one person daily. Sometimes I do this via e-mail so I can be thorough. And often, to my delight, the recipient will tell me that they are saving the message for when they need a pick-me-up. You can also express appreciation over the phone or in person. Simply tell someone how much you appreciate who they are, what they do, whatever about them moves you. They'll be flattered and you'll feel great.

3. Equalize Yourself with Others. I believe we all have one unit of worth, no more, no less. No one can add to it, no one can take it away. We're all equal. Just because someone is powerful, rich, famous doesn't mean they are better than you. Practice equalizing yourself with others--this will enable you to more comfortably interact with others, and to reach out to people of all walks of life.

4. Rolodex Dip. This is a fun practice when you want to connect with someone but aren't sure who. Flip through your contact database and pick a name. Then think of all the things you like about them. Now call them up to see how they are doing. They'll be surprised and delighted.

5. Pick a "Sensei of the Day." Each day I pick a sensei, a teacher. This is someone who has taught me a lesson or reminded me of something important in life. Your sensei can be a person, a pet, a plant, it doesn't matter. The important thing is to acknowledge that there is much to learn and you are being offered valuable lessons constantly.

6. Do the Drive-By Schmooze. Parties, conventions, groups of all sorts are great opportunities to network, but sometimes you'll be tired, not in the mood, or have too many events in one evening (like during holiday season!). This is when you'll want to use the Drive-By Schmooze. Here’s how:

a. Timebox your networking. Decide that in 30 minutes you'll do a check-in to determine if you need to stay any longer.

b. Set your goal. Determine the number of new connections you want to establish. Remember, your goal is meaningful connections, not simply contacts.

c. Let your intuition guide you. OK, this may sound flaky, but it works! Stand near the door, in a corner, out of the way. Stop your thoughts. Internally ask to be guided to the people you need to connect with. Then start walking. You'll be amazed at who you meet.

d. Connect. You'll always resonate with someone at an event. When you do, ask questions about them, such as: How did you get started in your field? What's your ideal customer? We all love to talk about ourselves, and these questions will not only help you form a connection with this person, but will also tell you how to help them.

e. Offer help and follow through. If you can provide help, jot down ideas on the back of their business card, commit to follow up, and then do it. If you've had a fruitful conversation and want to take it further, offer to meet for lunch or coffee. People say life is 90% about showing up. Nonsense! Life is 90% about following through!

For more tips and helpful info on networking, see the Cool Resources section on www.RulesForRenegades.com.

Christine is author of the book Rules for Renegades: How to Make More Money, Rock Your Career, and Revel in Your Individuality. She's CEO of Mighty Ventures (www.MightyVentures.com), an innovation accelerator which helps businesses to massively increase sales, product offerings, and company value.

Excerpt from WATCH THIS, LISTEN UP, CLICK HERE

Yesterday I posted a new excerpt on the Excerpts blog. It's from Chapter 1 of WATCH THIS, LISTEN UP, CLICK HERE by David Verklin and Bernice Kanner.

"This means that we're exposed to an estimated 3,000 ads a day. That's counting highway billboards, posters in trains, buses, and bathroom stalls, commercials in movie theaters, holograms on buildings and taxis, "talking" grocery shelves, and stickers on food (CBS has stamped eggs with ads for its shows). But that doesn't take into account all the bumper stickers, t-shirt slogans, and ads on people's anatomy that we see (yes, Dunkin' Donuts paid college kids to panel their foreheads with messages about great coffee). And that 3,000-ad tally doesn't count the now almost ubiquitous product placements embedded in films, TV shows, and games.

No wonder some are calling this the Age of Interruption. Commercial avoidance has become a high art. Seven out of 10 people wish they could will the ads away. But it's not the advertising they hate as much as the uninvited disruption."

Here's a direct link to the excerpt: http://800ceoread.com/excerpts/archives/007181.html

And the book: http://800ceoread.com/products/?ISBN=978047005643

If They Give You Lined Paper...

I like books about writing and language. Could be the technical writer in me. Or the linguist. Either way, I'm always intrigued by the writing books that come across my desk. Once in a while they trick me, though.

Last week I received a copy of If They Give You Lined Paper - Write Sideways by Daniel Quinn, the author of Ishmael and Tales of Adam, among other books.

A good portion of the book is the transcript of a conversation between Quinn and an inquisitive fan. The two tackle all sorts of world issues, from poverty to religion to cultural mythology to questions of good and evil, and Quinn takes on the role of challenger--challenging his fan to tease out her ideas and reasoning.

The narrative reveals Quinn's thought process and inspires readers to take more creative approaches to life. The appendix contains two never-before-published essays, "The New Renaissance" and "Our Religions." If They Give You Lined Paper - Write Sideways will definitely intrigue readers who enjoy stimulating, intellectual conversations about solving problems.

Even though it wasn't what I expected from the title, this book offered an interesting approach to getting a point across. Which is, I guess, what has made Daniel Quinn such a successful author and visionary.

Excerpt from Profitable Marketing Communications

Check out Chapter 8 of Profitable Marketing Communication on our Excerpts blog.

'Think Different' should be the slogan of all marketers who want their marketing communications to deliver a return. There is no point in being identical to the competition and saying the same thing - only perhaps a bit louder and across more platforms. As Jason Frost, Managing Director of Publicis Blueprint, points out: 'Any successful brand has found a way of differentiating, whether it's through accident or design.'

Profitable Marketing Communications: A Guide to Marketing Return on Investment encourages businesses to view marketing not as a cost, but an investment and added value. "The book introduces investment disciplines and strategies to marketing practices and gives insight into how marketers have delivered outstanding marketing return on investment. Finally, it provides a blueprint to maximize the returns from marketing communications" (Kogan Page, publisher).

Here's a direct link to the excerpt: http://800ceoread.com/excerpts/archives/007160.html

The Internal Attack of the Ego

Yes, fighting can be a great creative tool when ego doesn't get in the way.

On that note, Josh explains that ego often gets in the way of collaboration. To this, Audrey responds that for any successful collaboration, we must let go of our false sense of control.

The art of telling stories

Storytelling is an art. It entertains, teaches and shares. From the time we're told the tale of the boy who cried wolf to the stories in newspapers and magazines, our lives are inundated with stories.

Research supports storytelling. People tend to remember facts more accurately if they encounter them in a story rather than in a list, studies find.

Storytelling helps authors write. It helps businesses communicate ideas. It helps parents teach children lessons.

One storyteller, who has been around since he was 19, is none other than the famed Mr. Ira Glass; now he has 1.7 million people listening to his show, This American Life. I ran into this link a few weeks ago and finally had a chance to watch it. It was worth my time. In four YouTube videos, Ira talks about his art:

(1) On the Basics
Use anecdotes. Raise questions from the beginning; build that tension (or as Dan and Chip would say, build that curiosity gap).

(2) On Finding Stories
It'd be great if every story ended up working. Chances are, they won't. Ira and his expert story-seeking team spend half the week looking for stories. In the end, they kill a half to a third of the stories they find. By killing it you will make something even better live.

(3) On Good Taste
Put in that extra effort; your stories will reflect it.

(4) Two Common Pitfalls
Faking it and a poor personality can both detract from a good story. Ira encourages you to be yourself. No one else can be you.

If you have a half hour, check out Ira on storytelling. If you run across other good storytellers, drop me a comment. And enjoy your long weekend!

Power of a Positive No

Each month Random House's Bantam Dell imprint podcasts with two of their authors. One you may be interested in is a podcast with William Ury, author of The Power of a Positive No.

Negotiation expert William Ury describes the "Positive No" detailed in his new book The Power of a Positive No: How to Say NO and Still Get to YES, bringing the technique to life with stories of Stephen Spielberg and Hugo Chavez.

Listen to it here.

On Writing...

Awhile ago Tom recommended Stephen King's On Writing for current or aspiring writers. I ran across an interesting summary/excerpt and thought I'd point you to it.

Takeaway formula:
2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.

You're Already a Citizen Marketer

The second event in our LeaveSmarter Series took place last Thursday afternoon. We're crazy busy around here (just ask inBubbleGuy) so we haven't had a chance to blog about it, but we'd be remiss not to mention how enjoyable Ben McConnell's presentation was. He even took a few technical glitches in stride, showing off his shiny red sneakers to keep the momentum going.

One of the strongest messages I took away from the event is just how powerful social media are. Ben showed us some pretty cool (and, in a few instances, kind of scary) examples of the videos, blogs, and other online content that citizen marketers are creating. I particularly liked the fan version of Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" music video.

Using our nametags as a talking point, we shared with each other the products and services we're citizen marketers for. For instance, I wrote down Sala da Pranzo, a great little Italian restaurant on Milwaukee's East Side. inBubbleGuy promoted the bacon-wrapped water chestnuts we provided --one of the driving attractions to the series. Todd talked about More Space.

The name tag idea was Ben and Jackie's, and I highly recommend it as a way to get people mingling at your next event. Speaking of the next event, we would love to see you at our final LeaveSmarter event on May 16. Nikos has a powerful message that we're sure will bring this season to an inspiring end.

We'll have some photos from the event up on our Flickr site very soon.

Kicking some _______.

Todd and my lunch conversation yesterday turned towards work [as tends to regularly be the case]. The specific subject being this -- the blog. He brought up a post by Kathy Sierra over at Creating Passionate Users on helping your users kick ass.

"Where there is passion, there is a user kicking ass..." and by "kicking ass" we mean "being really good at something."

It leads to the question, how can you become the teacher? Or what I'd call, the enabler [read in deep Hollywood announcer voice]?

What I'm curious about is how can we help you kick ass and rock your customers' world? Todd and I both decided we do a fair job of giving you the facts but what else can we be telling you?

On a side note, here's another post from Kathy I found insightful on adding randomness to your service/product.

8cr's Social Styles workshop

Yesterday our team partipated in a Social Styles workshop, led by Erika Andersen, author of Growing Great Employees and founder of Proteus International.

By the end of the day we had mapped ourselves out across four social styles: Analytical, Driver, Expressive and Amiable. Now, understanding our social weaknesses and strengths, we have new ideas for how to interact with one another and develop a stronger workplace. It was a really valuable experience, one we'll be talking about for a while.

See more photos from the workshop here: www.flickr.com/photos/800ceoread/

Improv-e it.

There are a lot of different ways to improve public speaking. You could "buy Knockout Presentations, a book by speech coach Diane DiResta for $19.95 [$15.96 through us] or three CDs from hypnotist Tom Nicoli for $59.77. At the other extreme, you can spend $1,995 and three days on an American Management Association seminar or hire a coach who charges about $9,000 for six months of personalized guidance." [I can't find the link but the article was in the 2.6.07 edition of the WSJ: "Improv Troupe Teaches Managers How to Give Better Presentations"]

Or, for an interesting twist, you could try your talent out with improv via Chicago's famous Second City. Each year they teach run a presentation-skills workshop for $595. It's so high in demand that in 2007, the workshop will be presented five times.

As one actress and director explained, learning improv works because "'Skills, methods, philosophy and ideas we use to create successful scenes on stage...are the same skills required for successful communications in business.'"

Speaking of the State of the Union...

I found this interesting and fitting, seeing as Tuesday was the State of the Union address; it explains the beginning of pulse testing (a way to gauge the public opinion on specific parts of political speeches).

Tuesday, I ran across a review in the WSJ [paid subscription required] of Dr. Frank Luntz's Words that Work. The reviewer, Clark Judge was part of the speechwriting staff under President Reagan.

Reagan's State of the Union address was the first to be polled by pulse testing (a.k.a. dial testing). Here's what happened:

Forty or 50 randomly selected voters had been assembled to watch the State of the Union address. Each was given an electronic response device. Twisting the dial to zero meant that the listener hated what was being said and 10 that he couldn't get enough of it, with the numbers in between registering gradations of response. Results were averaged and appeared as a temperature chart line over a linear printout of the text.

That's now a regular practice. When a part of any speech receives a "twist" of 10, that piece is used over and over again in a number of marketing campaigns. Author Frank Luntz deemed these parts as "words that work." He's the man renowned for giving the Republican party a number of key terms (from "estate tax" to his "death tax"). You may also know him in his role as an adviser to Ross Perot during the 1992 election and Newt Gingrich's success in House in the 1994 elections.

: : :
If you're curious for more, check out an excerpt.

Breakthrough Questions

In a new book called "Simple Solution" are a few questions that the authors suggest will help middle managers make an impact and stand out. They state:

"Here are some examples to practice asking breakthrough questions. After reading them, formulate at least three breakthrough questions that would initiate radical change in your department.

What would have to be true for us to lower production costs for this product by 50 percent?

What would have to be true for us to sign up 5,000 new customers next year?

What would have to be true for employee turnover to be zero?

What would have to be true to produce accurate financial statements within two days of month's end?

What would have to be true for customer service to respond to each customer call within three second?

Those are some great questions that I know I will use. You can use them for free.

Peanut Butter Manifesto

Brad Garlinghouse's Peanut Butter Manifesto depicts a unfocused and siloed Yahoo!. The manifesto was the subject of a page one article in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday. Garlinghouse a senior vice president at the company, shows a way out, calling for focused vision, restored accountability, and a radical organization.

I post it here because Tom and I think it is good, focused business writing. Another example that comes directly to mind is Berkshire Hathaway's shareholder letters.

New Business Mags

While everyone seems to lament the state of newspaper and magazine publishing, there are others who see opportunity. My friend Andrea sent this post about a new London-based magazine called Monocle:

The founder of Wallpaper, Tyler Brûlé, is returning to the magazine business with a new title, Monocle, focusing on geopolitics, business, culture and design. The magazine, set to debut in February, will be published 10 times a year. Brule hopes the magazine will entice readers of more staid publications with slick visual content and a slightly futuristic sensibility. Given this hip aura, the choice of title is a bit curious, summoning images of riding crops and spiked Prussian helmets. But the technical definition of "monocle" as a simple lens works quite nicely: "a device used to converge or diverge transmitted light and to form images."

It seems that Brûlé is tired of the talk as well.

"I'm so tired of hearing from all corners of the media that print is dead," proclaimed Brûlé. "Well, it's not. It's a time when magazines should be pulling up their socks and turning out more fabulous, more confident, more robust products." [WWD]

It also reminded me of Condé Nast's entry into the business segment. Coming in May is Portfolio. This is their description from the news release:

Condé Nast Portfolio will feature the high caliber of writing, photography, and design that readers of Condé Nast magazines have come to expect. Early circulation efforts will capitalize on the company’s newsstand authority, and will also take advantage of Condé Nast’s existing relationship with millions of top management readers, as well as the database of American City Business Journals, a unit of Advance Publications.

I wouldn't bet against them. They make beautiful publications. They own properties such as Wired, The New Yorker, Architectural Digest, and Vanity Fair. I wonder what would have happened had bought Fast Company...

Dale Carnegie and Public Speaking

Tarcher imprint at Penguin has been putting out some interesting reissues of classic books. I liked what they did with Think and Grow Rich.

They now have a new edition to Public Speaking for Success by Dale Carnegie. The introduction starts:

When people are asked what their greatest fear is, the most frequent response is dying and the second most frequent is speaking in public.

The book was originally published in 1926 when Carnegie was teaching public speaking. This edition includes three essays that Carnegie included in the original edition-- Acres of Diamonds, A Message to Garcia, and As a Man Thinketh. I love the Carnegie's introduction to A Message from Garcia:

This is not a speech. It originally appeared as an article in the March 1899 Philistine Magazine. It is given here because it is representative of the messages popular in the business world.
About a million and a half copies of this article were distributed by the New York Central Railroad. It has been translated into all written languages
During the war between Russia and Japan, every Russian soldier who went to the front was given a copy of the "Message to Garcia."
The Japanese, finding the booklets in possession of the Russian prisoners, concluded that it must be a god thing, and accordingly translated it into Japanese.
And on an order of the Mikado, a copy ws given to every man in the employ of the Japanese government, soldier or civilian.
Over forty million copies of "A Message to Garcia" have been printed. This is said to be a larger circulation than any other literary venture has ever attained during the lifetime of the author, in all history.

Keeper or Deleter?

A friend of mine forwarded me an article from the WSJ awhile ago (indicating that perhaps I stray towards the side of being an email hoarder). It's on how what goes on in your inbox reflects your lifestyle. I'm sure we've all been in the position of feeling overwhelmed from the emails sitting in our inbox. Or perhaps by the number of email reminders popping up on the lower righthand part of your screen.

There's a lot to be learned from how emails are handled. It can reflect what's going on in other areas of your life. Jeffrey Zaslow (writer for the WSJ) has two categories for inbox owners:

1 ) HOARDER:
According to psychologist Dave Greenfield, who founded the Center for Internet Behavior in West Hartford, Conn., "If you have 1,000 emails in your inbox, it may mean you don't want to miss an opportunity, but there are things you can't pull the trigger on."

2) DELETER
On Deleters, Greenfield says, "If you have only 10 emails in your inbox, you may be pulling the trigger too fast and missing the richness of life."

--
I found this story interesting. If you've emailed Scott lately, now you know what happened to your reply:
Zaslow profiled a "inbox paralyzed" Scott Stratten in Ontario who had hundreds of old unanswered messages in his inbox. What did he do? Deleted all his messages and explained to his contacts that his faulty Internet service was the reason for not responding.

"Mr. Stratten describes what he did as "pure evil," but he also calls it a turning point. He realized he had to find a better way to ease his guilt over not coming through for people. He is now hiring an assistant who will handle his email."

---

Marilyn Paul's advice on how to handle your emails is to:
Try organizing your emails into folders based on subject or necessary follow-up. Then go through it each week at a certain time. Also try alphabetizing by sender.

------
From The Wall Street Journal; Hoarders vs. Deleters: What your inbox says about you; By Jeffrey Zaslow; 2006-08-10.

Lost Essentials - Fierce Conversations

In my pre-8cr days, I wrote alot on my A Penny For... blog. In moving things over to the Astronaut Projects site, I found some entries over there that I thought you all might be interested in. This first book is one that still sits on my shelf...

***

What is at the basis of everything?

It is conversations that people have or don't have with each other.

I really like Fierce Conversation by Susan Scott. I originally got the lead from a posting on the FC Now blog by John Byrne. I was drawn to the questions Susan says you should be asking those around you:

• What is currently impossible to do that, if it were possible, would change everything?
• If you were competing with our company, what would you do?
• What topic are you hoping I won't bring up?

Those questions cut to the chase. They don't dance around sensitive subjects. They are truly powerful.

I worked on a team about six nine years ago where those questions were common. We had fierce conversations daily about the project we were working on. I think it was the best work experience I have ever had. We accomplished something rare: a successful software implementation.

I also like the book because it applies to life. Susan says the conversation is the relationship. Think about the quality of the conversations you are having with those around you. It reflects the quality of the relationship.

Here it is in Susan's words.

***
[The original APF post]

Chasing Daylight on iBW

Chasing Daylight is the book on inBubbleWrap today.

Everyone who reads it says it is the most important book they have read all year.

What they really want

I had an interesting customer service experience yesterday. It got me thinking about what we really want as customers. But I think there's more to it than just viewing ourselves (as the customer) as being the center of the [choose noun here: salesperson, designer, waiter, etc.] universe for that split second. There's a certain amount of respect we must demonstrate to the people that are assisting us.

Here are two different perspectives:
FROM PROSPECT TO SALESPERSON

Jeffrey Gitomer has a column in Business Journals called the Gitbit. It's kind of like Dear Abby but with Gitomer and more business-focused. One of his readers wrote in about his exposure to salespeople.

What the reader wants from a salesperson:

..a salesperson and a company I can rely on. It makes my job easier if we know we have someone we can call who will make things happen for us.

My time can be spent on more important things when I have a trustworthy, reliable source.

One of my biggest disappointments is knowing that every time I order something, I will have to try a new company and possibly have an unpleasant experience.

We buyers want to come back to you for more services or products. All you have to do is prove yourself.

Gitomer's Analysis (in summary):
Don't waste your prospect's time. Tell them what they need to know. Do it truthfully. Explain how your product/service has helped others and how it could help your prospect. And, finally, understand that pricing isn't everything. People want consistency. If you prove that your product is reliable and worthwhile, price won't matter.

FROM DESIGNER TO CUSTOMER

Just as a customer is looking for a good experience, the service provider is equally doing so. Earlier this week, Seth blogged on what designers want you to know. The tips, while focused on design work are applicaple to many sorts of outsourcing (to consultants, designers, engineers, etc.). The most important being #13.

Word of the Day

From The Dictionary of Corporate Bulls**t: an A to Z Lexicon of Empty, Enraging, and Just Plain Stupid Office Talk:

hate 1. intense animosity 2. a feeling you thought you had given up a long time ago, as it's an unsophisticated and juvenile emotion more suited to a grammar school--"hate is a strong word"--and beneath a rational and fully realized adult such as yourself 3. something you feeling with deep, unmitigated, unwavering, and uncomplicated conviction toward whoever tortures you at work (your boss, a particularly evil coworker, etc.) or toward your job or company in general, as it places you in an environment of injustice, petty power plays, and humiliation on a daily basis. WIll make you say extremely venomous and strikingly inspired things about people that in the past you might have felt guilty about saying, but now celebrate and take great pleasure in expressing. Feels so good.

Blogs -- there are no rules!

Blogs are a fairly new medium and evolving rapidly. There are plenty of good guidelines for blog usage – e.g. write in a conversational tone, be honest, be open to criticism, etc.

But there are no rules. You can do whatever you want to do – whatever works for you.

Some examples:

Many bloggers insist you can never delete a post. Even changing text requires you strike a line though it and add the new text so the change is apparent. NONSENSE. It's your blog – do whatever you want.

Some will claim that only "pure blog writing" (my term) belongs on blogs, BALDERDASH! I know people who use blogs to publish their somewhat formal newsletters. Guess what? It works.

Others say "if you don't allow comments it's not a blog." ABSURD! While I believe a feedback mechanism is great for blogs, it doesn't HAVE to be via comments.

The "If whatever, then it's not a blog" is the silliest thing I've ever heard. Sometimes it's "it's not a real blog" or "true blog."

Blogging for business is about business results. It's not about whether you have a "real" blog or what some "holier than thou" blogger thinks.

Blogs are a tool. Use them well and your business will benefit.

Thanks 800CEOREAD! Over and out.

Post Titles are critical!

The titles/headlines of your posts (and blog) are very important.

Not only can they “grab� people and entice them to read, but they can also generate search engine traffic, and an incredible amount of Internet traffic, including for blogs, is driven by search engines. Many blogging platforms also use the blog title to help generate the filename they store the post in, making it even more important to search engines as they consider file names in their rankings.

“Look Better Naked� is an interesting title. The local health club is using it in their advertising. Hey, fit people look better naked. I think it’s brilliant – offline.

Online, it has problems. It both contains no “keywords� or “ key phrases,� things people would search on when looking for a health club, and it’s too generic. People might look because it’s cute and sexy, but it doesn’t particularly appeal to someone looking for a health club, and it won’t help get search engine traffic.

Let's improve it by adding keywords. The follow two titles are infinitely better:

1. Exercise – Look Better Naked


2. Health clubs help you "Look Better Naked�

So, what keyword is best, “exercise,� “health club,� or . . .

There are simple tools that will help you out. I like the “Keyword Selector Tool� (or look in the "Resource Center" at overture.com) - it’s free. Other keyword tools include the well-regarded wordtracker.com (free trial available).

The keyword selector tool tells you roughly how many times a term has been searched on in search engines in the past month. It’s the relative numbers that matter.

1. exercise has been searched on 116437 times


2. health club has been searched on 333616 times


3. gym has been searched on 183545 times


4. world gym has been searched on 14572 times

Since this happens to be a “World Gym,� and that phrase includes “gym,� I’m going to pick “World Gym� and the final title is . . . World Gym – Look Better Naked.

No it’s not exact science! Health clubs help you Look Better Naked would be fine as well.

Now in the post, include the other keywords and phrases as well to please the search engines and help people find your no-doubt great content. Make sure you include them in a natural way – i.e., write for the reader, not the search engines. DO NOT write something like the following garbage. People, and the increasingly intelligent search engines, will hate it!

Health clubs and gyms are great for exercise to look better naked. Everyone should exercise in a health club or gym. Give a health club or gym membership as a present to a loved one. I love to exercise in health clubs and gyms because I love exercising in health clubs and gyms . . .

Some hints:

1. Keywords at the beginning of a title are better than keywords at the end of a title.


2. Put keywords early in the post.


3. Don't obsess over this!

One final hint: if you’re writing about a local establishment, for example the Worlds Gym in Seabrook NH, make sure you include “Seabrook NH� at least once or twice in the title and/or body!

Your customers are talking about you and you're not listening?

Are you insane? Don't you want to know what they're saying about you?

Knowing could be very valuable – if something is great, you've got strengths to play on.

They love your tropical flavored dingalings? Hmmm, maybe you should add more tropical flavors or offer a tropical flavored variety pack. Maybe you should send your non-tropical flavor dingaling eaters a coupon so they can try them and fall in love with them too!

If something is wrong, the faster you find out the better. Better than finding out via decreasing sales or maybe on the 6PM news or Sixty Minutes!

Your three handled family gradunzas are often arriving damaged and getting returned to dealers? Maybe your new packing, or new shipping arrangements, aren't up to snuff. It's better to know immediately, than several weeks down the road when your dealers start returning them to you.

The blogosphere can contain information that is hard to get anywhere else, especially about your customers, products, industry, and even competitors. Sure, some of this information can be obtained in other ways, for example customer feedback via surveys and focus groups, but this information is so fast, easy, and cheap to gather via the blogosphere, how can you justify NOT looking at this info?

Companies that use blogs are gaining a competitive advantage, whether they blog or not. Companies that are ignoring the blogosphere are missing out on a critical source of business intelligence.

Blogging Benefits for Non-Bloggers

Blogs have enormous benefits for non-bloggers.

Let's be serious, most people don't and may never blog. Many of you reading this may never blog.

Most inhabitants of the blogosphere don't blog. But they keep reading blogs. Why? What are the benefits?

Blogs are an enormous and effective information source. I can think of many stories that the mainstream media didn't get quite right, but that blogs did. Often these are admittedly in niche areas, but hey, we all live and work in our own niches!

I know a great salesguy – the kind you want to buy from because he doesn't waste your time and is always trying to offer you value. He wouldn't dream on calling on a company without doing basic blog research – reading any official company as well as non-official employee blogs, and looking for any recent mentions of the company and their products in blogs. He benefits from the blogosphere, and I don't see him ever blogging.

One big company I've work with has no immediate plans to blog, although I set them up to regularly monitor the blogsphere using tools like PubSub and Technorati to see what their customers are saying and get a lot of valuable feedback that way, as well as keep up on industry trends and sentiments.

Most people don't write books, but a lot of us benefit from reading – probably everyone here. Blogs are getting a greater percentage of people to publish information, and th