16 things to check when you edit

From www.thinkingandmaking.com

Be vicious when you edit. Vicious. Follow these recommendations with zealous fervor. They help your writing say what it should in a way we’ll understand.

1. I think, I’d say, im my opinion, what I’ve found, in my experience… Yeah. We know. You wrote this. These are your thoughts. If they’re not, provide a reference. If they’re yours, the byline is enough to remind us.

2. Delete all adverbs and adjectives unless they’re absolutely, totally, inherently necessary. Each unnecessary word weakens your impact and clarity.

3. Remove prepositional phrases. Prepositional phrases are less important than your main point. If it’s not important enough to deserve its own sentence, it’s not important enough to read.

4. Active not passive. Kill “to be” verbs. All of them. Always.

5. Kill -ing words. Restructure your sentence so the -ing is an active verb.

6. Lead with the bottom line up front: BLUF. Then include an example, re-state the bottom line, include an illustration, and when you end restate the bottom line. For every point you make, follow this pattern. That’s bottom line, example, bottom line, another example, and then the bottom line (again).

7. Telegraph and signpost what you will say and why we care. We’re not reading mystery novels. We want to know who died, how, who killed them, and why we care up front. That way, we know why we want to read before we begin.

8. Use clear, informative headers. Cute or artsy might be pleasant on the first read, but when we reference it later, the cute header makes it a pain to find things. What you’re writing is worth going back to, right?

9. Introduce new terminology in the intro. If you’ve created a new term or applied a new phrase to describe something, define it at the beginning, and use the new terminology throughout your writing. Readers need the entirety of your piece to learn and assimilate the new phrasing.

10. Typically, sometimes, often times, usually… Yeah. We know. You don’t have to tell us.

11. Say “you” and “your”. Don’t use nouns when talking about your audience (like “User Experience Practitioners”). And don’t use “one”. Speak to us.

12. Ditch clunky words. Instead of “via”, write “using”. Instead of “upon”, say “on”.

13. Remove cliches and common phrases. Every time you take a common phrase shortcut, you’re telling us it’s not worth our time.

14. Use contractions. Write with proper grammar, and people will read. Write like you talk, and people will listen.

15. No pronouns. Repeat the noun over and over again. If you get tired of that, use synonyms.

16. Delete your best lines. We don’t care about poetry, wit, or slyness. We care about what you want to say.

After you edit…

The finished piece should be so tight, terse, concise, and clear that it’s boring.

Boring.

Then sand off the rough edges.

Write like you talk. Where the concise feels awkward, add conversational. Where tight lacks nuance, tease details. Where terse is cold, be warm.

The first 16 recommendations remove fluff and force you to think and communicate. Once you’ve finished editing’s intellectual work, go back and make sure you write like you talk. Writing begins a conversation. If we feel like you’re talking to us, we’ll listen.

Knock It Out of the Park Speech Preparation

Here's a great article for speakers in the HBR Blog by Dan Pallotta

Checklist: (read the article for details)

1. Know your goal.
   
   
2. Memorize your speech.
   
   
3. If you don't want to knock it out of the park, don't follow rule 2.
   
   
4. Practice the transitions.
   
   
5. Don't fear silence.
   
   
6. Never, ever, ever use PowerPoint as your speech notes.
   
   
7. Give something of yourself.
   
   
8. Be yourself.
   
   
9. Don't speak in abstractions.
   
   
10. Feel what's happening in the room
    
    
11. Make eye contact until it scares you.
    
    
12. Don't miss your own talk.
    
    
13. Come from a place of love for your audience.

The Secret to Ensuring Follow-Through: Handoff Checklist

From a Harvard Business Review blog article by Peter Bregman.
He got it from a HBR IdeaCast podcast by Dr. Atul Gawande, surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital and author of The Checklist Manifesto.

When the ball gets dropped, it's usually because of handoff failures. Here is a simple checklist to prevent those failures.

Handoff Checklist

* What do you understand the priorities to be?
* What concerns or ideas do you have that have not already been mentioned?
* What are your key next steps, and by when do you plan to accomplish them?
* What do you need from me in order to be successful?
* Are there any key contingencies we should plan for now?
* When will we next check-in on progress/issues?
* Who else needs to know our plans, and how will we communicate them?

A Different Breed of Cat

Reader's Digest November 1964; Vol 85, No 511
"We Are a Different Breed of Cat.
Sir" about the United States Air Force Academy by John G. Hubbell.

My Favorite Quotations

“Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” — Lewis Carroll

"Championships are won in the off-season." - Charles Daugherty quoting a t-shirt

"The [obvious] issue is never the [real] issue. - Kim Pagel
...
"Be slow to attribute to malice or guile, that which can be explained by ignorance, incompetence, or muddling through." - My modification of Hanlon's Razor, stolen from Heinlein's Razor, stolen from Napoleon.

"If you are going to shoot, shoot. Don't talk" -Tuco in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

Anything by Lazarus Long. e.g "Never try to teach a pig to sing- it wastes your time and annoys the pig." and "A motion to adjourn is always in order."

"The product is Service. You only sell hardware to provide installed base." - Probably from Barb Gatti

"My ancestors did not fight and claw their way to the top of the food chain so I could eat tofu and bean sprouts." - motto of PETA [People Eating Tasty Animals]

"Eighty percent of success is showing up" - Woody Allen

"If you can't fix it, then feature it!" - Gnarly old Collins Program Manager [probably Jim Lockwood]

"It's not really flying unless you are upside-down at least once." - Me

"The worst case is [simultaneously] being out of altitude, airspeed, and ideas...unless you add inverted." - Old pilot's aphorism

"The last red pen always wins." - Me

"In the long run, we are all dead." - JM Keynes

"The markets can be irrational longer than you can be solvent." - JM Keynes

"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
--Dilbert

"Don't ask the question if you cannot stand the answer." -unknown

"I never saw an emergency that was improved by screaming" - an ER doctor

"Maintain control, analyze the situation, take the proper action" - Air Force basic flight manual

"When playing poker, if you cannot tell who the mark is...it's you." - Bob Sevier

"You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other Allied Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her Armed Forces." - Roosevelt to Eisenhower. An example of a proper command from political authority to the military. Then get out of the way.

Good judgment comes from experience. Unfortunately, the experience usually comes from bad judgment. - Will Rogers

Government spending does not have a multiplier effect on the economy. It is at best neutral. What creates growth is private investment, increases in productivity, and increases in population. That's it. Tax increases have a negative multiplier.
- John Mauldin

Government Imapct

By John Mauldin
Government spending does not have a multiplier effect on the economy. It is at best neutral. What creates growth is private investment, increases in productivity, and increases in population. That's it. Tax increases have a negative multiplier.

My Favorite Books

The Bible (NIV or NASB),
Getting to Yes, Getting Past No,
Winning Teams, Managing Transitions,
Atlas Shrugged, any Heinlein except Job,
My Utmost for His Highest, Herding Cats,
Don't Sing Songs to a Heavy Heart,
Shogun, Whirlwind, Noble House,
Dune, The Foundation Trilogy,
The Five Points of Calvinism,
Practicing the Presence of God,
The Mote in the God's Eye, Godel Escher Bach,
The theory of Games and Economic Behavior,
The Light and the Glory, From Sea to Shining Sea, The Civil War:A Narrative (triology),
Real World Intelligence
The Pyramid Principle
E.M. Bounds on Prayer

My Favorite Movies

Casablanca, Gandhi,
Animal House, Patton,
Honeysuckle Rose, Star Wars I-III,
Apocalypse Now, Sin City,
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,
The Searchers, African Queen,
In Harm's Way, Streets of Fire,
Gladiator,
Hero (AKA Ying Xiong 2002 in Chinese with English subtitles),
Curse of the Golden Flower
Godfather I+II+III, Lord of the Rings,
Lawrence of Arabia,
All Monty Python, both Blues Brothers,
Casino Royale, Saving Private Ryan,
Big Trouble in Little China,
anything with Diane Lane,
anything with Kathleen Turner,
Once Upon a Time in America,
Mash, Blazing Saddles,
Flashdance, Death Hunt,
Swimming to Cambodia,
Real Genius, Top Gun,
The Man Who Would Be King,
Driving School, Urban Cowboy,
The Name of the Rose, Young Frankenstein,
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

My Favorite Music

Reveille, First Call, Charge
In My Quiet Room (Harry Belefonte Album )
Beauty and the Beast (Ann Margret / Al Hirt Album)
Teach Me Tiger (April Stevens)
One Trick Pony (Paul Simon)
Rhapsody In Blue
Scheherazade
Gus: The Theatre Cat (Cats!)
Memories (Cats!)
I Don't Know How to Love Him (Jesus Christ Superstar)
Everythings Alright (Jesus Christ Superstar)
Man of La Manca (Linda Eder)
Another Suitcase in Another Hall (Evita; Madonna)
I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You (Evita; Madonna)

One of the root problems

from an opinion article by Phil Kerpen

Published October 22, 2010 in FoxNews.com

Prosperity depends on economic freedom. An abundance of historical and international evidence shows that countries that embrace economic freedom—including labor mobility, free trade, low tax rates, low government spending, and strong property rights—have significantly higher living standards than less free countries.

For the past ten years, the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal have measured economic freedom and charted the connection between economic freedom and prosperity. In the 2010 edition of their report, they noted: “The positive relationship holds true at all levels of economic freedom but becomes even more dramatic as economic freedom increases.”

10 Tips for Giving an Important Speech

Get ready to fearlessly step onstage in front of a large audience.

By Alyssa Danigelis | Oct 19, 2010

The better part of a million dollars was on the line. Every year the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge in Amsterdam gives away 500,000 Euros for the best idea for a green product or service. In 2008, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre presented their alternative to synthetic building materials.

"In terms of a high pressure talk, that was probably the hardest in my memory," Bayer says. He practiced the talk out loud in front of his computer, making changes to his slides as he went. In the end the talk was a success. Bayer's team won the coveted check.

Since then, Bayer has became CEO of Ecovative Design, a company he co-founded that makes green packaging materials derived from fungi near Troy, New York. He's been invited to give many more speeches, including at the annual Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine, and the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference in Oxford, England.

With self-directed, local "TEDx" talks taking off, more communities will be inviting local innovators to speak. Presenting at this kind of event is an opportunity to capture the energy of a packed auditorium and translate it into a boon for business.

Those preparing for this kind of talk have heard "practice, practice, practice" and "less is more," but there are still speakers who make audience members fight to stay awake. With that in mind, experienced presenters offer these key steps for rallying a large, influential audience of peers around a central idea.

1. Be Your Passionate Self

Audiences are perceptive. They can even sense enthusiasm from back in the nosebleed seats. "Even if you're reading off the slide but you're really excited about it, the audience will give it to you," Bayer says.

Nan Crawford is an executive coach based in the San Francisco Bay Area who primarily works with female leaders on their presentation skills. Crawford coached Elayne Doughty, a psychotherapist who was raising money to go to the Congo and participate in the international V-Day movement to end violence against women and girls. Doughty expected she would need to do several events to raise enough money for the trip, according to Crawford.

"I coached Elayne on her stories," she says. Crawford drew out what had grabbed Doughty about the cause, asking her when and how it had captured her attention. She also framed fundraising as an opportunity to shift away from fear and invite others to invest in a solution.

"She gave an impassioned presentation," Crawford says. At the end of the first event, Doughty surpassed her fundraising goal by 25 percent.

Dig Deeper: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Presenters

2. Tell a Helpful Story

Speakers are usually advised to try to know their audiences. Taken a step further, Crawford suggests that speakers make sure they understand not only who is in the audience, but also the challenges the audience faces. Then, the talk should address those challenges with a personal and powerful story that resonates.

Daniel Pink, author of the books A Whole New Mind and Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, is a former speechwriter for Al Gore. He says he's seen the opposite happen too many times. "The biggest mistake is people think it's about them rather than about the audience," he says. "They spend too much time talking about themselves."

Instead, an effective presenter will focus on the challenges without giving a laundry list of accomplishments. Anthropologist, filmmaker, and National Geographic explorer Elizabeth Lindsey is frequently invited to speak about leadership through an anthropological lens. "The more we talk about the things that matter to us, and less about our achievements, people breathe a collective sigh of relief," she says. "All of us want to be better. Human nature is always seeking advancement."

Dig Deeper: Get Publicity and Bolster Profits Through Public Speaking

3. Use Fewer Words Than Usual

Less really is more when it comes to big talks. But putting that into practice is far easier said than done. Giving a talk is an opportunity to amplify your message in a way that books and articles can't. Being a different outlet, it has different requirements.

"If all you have for me is information, invite me to buy your book," Crawford says. "But when we stand in front of an audience we have an opportunity to share not just our information but our energy."

For Bayer, seeing how slowly he can give his talk helps him communicate better. "Typically what feels best to the communicator is to give as much information as possible," he says. "But what you really want to do is tell them the idea in a simple way three times or more. If you blast them with detail they get this mushy feeling in their heads."

Pink emphasizes that speaking is a relatively small window, and the audience has a limited attention span. "It's far easier to make seven small points than one big point," he says. "You have to think to yourself, what do you want to leave people with, what do you want them thinking, and what do you want them doing?"

Dig Deeper: Writing and Organizing a Winning Speech

4. Engage the Audience Early

Don't wait for a Q&A at the end to go for audience participation. Start right away, Crawford says. Ask questions so that audience members can stand up instead of raising their hands. Invite them to take a minute, turn to a neighbor, and share a thought. Ask one person to describe theirs.

"Great, how many people share that same concern?" Crawford suggests asking. "Sometimes when you ask that question everyone will stand." Getting responses can help focus a talk, even for an extremely large audience.

Pink describes watching symphony conductor Benjamin Zander give a presentation years ago. "He actually used his piano and brought the audience into the talk, had the audience do things, and made a lot of brilliant points about leadership and humanity," he says. "It wouldn't have been the same if you had read a transcript of it."

5. Make the Stage Home

Get on the stage where the talk is scheduled and practice there as soon as possible, Crawford says. Move around on the stage and go sit in the back row so that the setting becomes familiar.

The organizers will probably want to do a sound check, but see if they will allow it earlier than just a few minutes before the talk. "Even if you can sweet-talk the hotel staff to let you in the night before, that experience of being in the physical space is really important," Crawford says. Walk in as if you're walking into your living room and sitting down on the sofa. Gaining that level of comfort will help calm nerves.

6. Go Beyond Memorization

"A lot of times people look at this and think it's some exalted task with some magic to it," Pink says. "But it's like playing the piano, or laying bricks, or hitting a good tennis serve. It's about knowing what you're doing, doing it for the right reason, and practice, practice, practice."

Bayer practiced what he was going to say in Amsterdam until he could time it down to a second, although he cautions that knowing every line by heart is less important than making sure the message is clear and focused.

"Start developing early," he says. "You don't even have to put slides into PowerPoint, but think early about what it is you want to communicate. You should be able to summarize it in a few words."

Dig Deeper: How to Improve Your Presentation Skills

7. Turn Nervousness Into a Boost

When Crawford coaches speakers who get fluttering stomachs, she asks them to think about their fear in a different way. "There's a physical sensation in our body that's associated with nervousness. The danger is when we think, 'Oh my god, I'm nervous,'" she says.

Call that fluttering something else, she says. Crawford advises her clients to think, "That's the fire in my belly. When I'm done presenting, everyone in this audience is going to have a fire in their belly to make a difference."

Elizabeth Lindsey knows that nervous feeling well. "When we name it, and we speak our truth, we rally," she says. Whenever her heart is pounding through her chest, Lindsey thinks about the elders in her native Hawaii who raised her and didn't have the platform she's been given, she says.

"Even though I'm afraid and even though I feel at times that it would be easier to be in the audience rather than on stage, I know the work that I'm doing is not mine. It's the work that has been given to me," she says.

8. Look With Purpose

Crawford uses her theater background to help clients work on stage presence. In addition to moving around the space and using the whole body to convey the message, she suggests that presenters pay particular attention to their eyes. Instead of "scattering seeds" by scanning one part of the audience and then another, she recommends "planting bulbs."

"I want this idea to bloom in this one person's mind," she says. "Maintain eye contact for one full thought — it might be a phrase within a sentence or two sentences." That eye contact also looks great on camera if the talk is being recorded.

During eye contact with specific audience members, Crawford asks her clients to pay attention to what that person looks like, what they're wearing. A moment ago they were nervous, but as soon as they start describing hair or the color of a shirt, that anxiety level drops, she says.

Dig Deeper: Polishing and Rehearsing for a Perfect Presentation

9. Leverage Fellow Speakers

Look at the roster and reach out to the speakers you're excited about, Crawford says. "You have an opportunity to build that relationship far earlier than people imagine."

Everyone has been invited to talk for a reason, and that can open new doors. Ask the organizers for contact information if you don't have it, Crawford says. Plan to meet interesting speakers for one-on-one time during the conference, whether it's at a dinner or just for a quick conversation.

"If you're sharing the stage you at least have that in common, if nothing else," Crawford says.

And, who knows, maybe knowing your company will only make you feel more comfortable and able.

10. Choose Your Moment to Inspire

Sometimes one has to say no. The idea of presenting should be energizing and enlivening, not draining. Presenters who say yes when they should have declined can cause unnecessary stress for themselves, and for the event organizers.

When the reason is bad timing, offer to present at the next talk well in advance. Sometimes the audience isn't what you're looking for. If you say no, do so candidly, Crawford advises.

"We have this opportunity to spark an idea," she says. "We're lighting fires in the minds of others."

The rewards for a successful talk can be enormous, and not just financial. After giving a presentation once, Lindsey says a woman from the audience approached her. "She said, 'I'm a grandmother and I will never have the opportunity to travel to the parts of the world that you will see, but I want you to know that I go with you wherever you are.'"

Copyright © 2010 Mansueto Ventures LLC. All rights reserved.
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The Five W's of Marketing

When developing a marketing program, it's not enough to know who, what, when, where, and why. You need to keep them in order, says Steve McKee

By Steve McKee

You've heard of the Five W's: who, what, when, where, and why. They're the elements of information needed to get the full story, whether it's a journalist uncovering a scandal, a detective investigating a crime, or a customer service representative trying to resolve a complaint. There's even an old PR formula that uses the Five W's as a template for how to write a news release.

Most of the time it doesn't matter in what order the information is gathered, as long as all five W's are ultimately addressed. The customer service rep's story may begin with who was offended, while the journalist may follow a lead based on what happened. The detective may start with where a crime was committed while details of who and what (not to mention when and why) are still sketchy.

The Five W's are helpful in marketing planning as well. But unlike in other professions, the development of an effective marketing program requires that they be answered in a specific order: why, who, what, where, and when. The reasons may not be obvious, but by following this pathway you can avoid a great deal of confusion, trial and error, and blind alleys, preserving your company's precious time and resources.

Many marketers instinctively begin with questions about what and where, as in "what" their advertising should say or "where" it should appear. That's what gets them into trouble. They may have some success putting their plans together by relying on intuition and experience, but both can be misleading in a rapidly changing marketing world. These days it's easy for anyone to become confused by (or fall prey to) the latest and greatest trends and tactics.

First, Why Marketing?

Smart companies begin by asking "why"—why are we expending our limited resources in marketing? Why do we believe they're better invested here than in other aspects of our business? These questions, properly considered, force company leaders to clearly define their business and marketing objectives and confront their (often unrealized) assumptions before they get too far down the road.

In some cases they may have unrealistic expectations of their marketing efforts. In others, they may be looking to advertising to solve a non-advertising problem. In still others they may be reflexively reacting to a competitor's moves, or to any one of a number of other marketplace or internal dynamics (see "Who's to Blame When Growth Stalls?"). Beginning with the "why" can be challenging, but starting here is critical to ensuring that your subsequent efforts are on target.

The second question is "who"—who is essential to our achieving our goals? To whom should we be directing our message? Whose hearts and minds must we win in order to succeed? The answers to these questions should be derived from the business objectives identified above so that the target audience(s) for your effort are clearly related to them.

For example, a marketing plan meant to generate significant new top-line revenue would likely focus on new customer attraction. An effort that's meant to enhance margins may concentrate on improving your brand's value equation among existing customers. And a plan to enhance your company's price/earnings ratio would focus on prospective investors and industry analysts as its primary target. The better any company defines its "who"—and the more it can know about their lifestyles, behaviors, attitudes, opinions, wants, and needs—the more effectively it can address the remaining three W's.

Branding Issues

Next comes "what," as in what it is you need to offer your target audiences in order to accomplish your objectives. This, of course, encompasses a host of business decisions, from product to pricing, policy to packaging, and everything in between. But it is also where key branding issues are addressed, including positioning, differentiation, and a determination of the personality dimensions that are appropriate for both the brand and the task (see "Building a Better Brand").

To be sure, as market conditions and customer needs change, the "what" of your offering will be a continually evolving proposition. But by having a solid understanding of the "who" and "why" of your efforts, you'll be more likely to get, and keep, the "what" right.

Finally, the last two W's can be addressed as you dive into the specifics of campaign planning. The questions now revolve around where and when the best places and times are to communicate your "what" to your "who" in service of your "why." At this stage you'll be required to make many tactical decisions, but if you've effectively addressed the first three W's you'll have the context and perspective you need to make the final two work as hard as possible on your behalf.

In some ways the principles of marketing are simple, but their simplicity can be deceptive. Beneath them often lie hidden complexities that you ignore at your peril. The common way of citing the Five W's—who, what, when, where, and why—rolls off the tongue and is a great mnemonic device. But if you want to optimize your marketing efforts, think why, who, what, where, and when. The order makes all the difference.

Steve McKee is president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland and author of When Growth Stalls: How It Happens, Why You're Stuck, and What to Do About It. Find him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Sad, But True

Guy goes into a bar, there's a robot bartender.

The robot says, "What will you have?"
The guy says, "Martini."
The robot brings back the best martini ever and says to the man, What's your IQ?"
The guy says, "168."
The robot then proceeds to talk about physics,
space exploration and medical technology.

The guy leaves, but he is curious...
So he goes back into the bar.
The robot bartender says, "What will you have?"
The guy says, "Martini."
Again, the robot makes a great martini gives it to the man and says, "What's your IQ?"
The guy says, "100."
The robot then starts to talk about Nascar, Budweiser and John Deere tractors.

The guy leaves, but finds it very interesting,
so he thinks he will try it one more time.
He goes back into the bar.
The robot says, "What will you have?"
The guy says, "Martini," and the robot brings him another great martini.
The robot then says, "What's your IQ?"
The guy says, "Uh, about 60."
The robot leans in real close and says,
"So, you people still happy you voted for Obama?"

Public Speaking Tips

Even if you don’t speak professionally, you will find Scott Berkun’s Confessions of a Public Speaker, helpful in navigating any speaking situation.

Most people listening to presentations around the world right now are hoping their speakers will end soon. That’s all they want. They’re not judging as much as you think, because they don’t care as much as you think. Knowing this helps enormously. …The things speakers obsess about are the opposite of what the audience cares about. They want to be entertained. They want to learn. And most of all, they want you to do well. Many mistakes you can make while performing do not prevent those things from happening. It’s the mistakes you make before you even say a word that matters more. These include the mistakes of not having an interesting opinion, of not thinking clearly about your point, and of not planning ways to make those points relevant to your audience. Those are the ones that make the difference.

No matter how much you hate or love this book, you’re unlikely to be a good public speaker. The marketing for this book likely promised you’d be a better speaker for reading it. I think that’s true on one condition: you practice (which I know most of you won’t do). Most people are lazy. I’m lazy. I expect you’re lazy, too. There will always be a shortage of good public speakers in the world, no matter how many great books there are on the subject. It’s a performance skill, and performance means practice.

The easiest way to be interesting is to be honest. People rarely say what they truly feel, yet this is what audiences admire most. If you can speak a truth most people are afraid to say, you’re a hero.

All good public speaking is based on good private thinking. …This means the difference between you and JFK and Martin Luther King has less to do with your ability to speak—a skill all of us use hundreds of times every day—than it does the ability to think and refine rough ideas into clear ones.

Avoiding Boredom. A speaker must set the pace for the audience if he wants to keep their attention. … Think of your opening minute as a movie preview: fill it with drama, excitement, and highlights for why people should keep listening. Be confident in what you say and do. If your talk consists of several problems important to the audience, and you promise to release the tension created by those problems by solving each one, you’ll score big.

Types of interview questions with examples

(from Steinar Kvale, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks California, 1996, p. 133-135)
a. Introducing questions: “Can you tell me about....?”, “Do you remember an occasion when...?” “What happened in the episode mentioned?”,...

b. Follow-up questions: Direct questioning of what has just been said, nodding, “mm”, repeating significant words, ....

c. Probing questions: “Could you say something more about that?”, “Can you give a more detailed description of what happened?”, “Do you have further examples of this?”,...

d. Specifying questions: “What did you think then?” What did you actually do when you felt
a mounting anxiety?”, “How did your body react?”,...

e. Direct questions: “Have you ever received money for good grades? When you mention
comptetion, do you then think of a sportsmanlike or a destructive competition?”

f. Indirect questions: Projectove questions such as ‘How do you believe other pupils regard
the competition of grades?”

g. Structuring questions: indicating when a theme is exhausted by breaking off long
irrelevant answers: “I would now like to introduce another topic:...”

h. Silence: By allowing pauses the interviewees have ample time to associate and reflect
and break the silence themselves. With significant information.

i. Interpreting questions: “You then mean that....?” “Is it correct that you feel that...?”Does
the expression.... Cover what you have just expressed?”

Nine Stages of Giving

From Brad Leeper

Clipped from: http://www.xpastor.org/articles/leeper_generosity_new_normal.html

• A consumer – a person that utilizes the church resources, but does not have the spiritual maturity to give. We want as many people as possible to enter the journey here, as this entry point often is their first step into engagement with God. We do not want them to stay here, but to grow in their understanding of God. Based on my frequent analysis of church-giving data, about one half of your people are here. Many never get past this stage.
• Minimal giving – people give because there is some level of emotional attachment, because they are growing spiritually, and because they are asked to give. Consistently reviewing church-giving data finds about 25% of your people park here.
• Involved giving – a person gives consistently because he or she is involved and has a strong emotional and spiritual motivation to give. Most churches have the standard 25% of people engaged at this level.
• Giving as much as possible – rare, but you will find that person or couple that choose to live purposefully to fund Kingdom work. All income levels can embrace this value.
• Giving to maximize tax advantages – giving as much as possible to legally take advantage of charitable tax laws.
• Giving beyond regard to tax advantages – these people give because they want to give and sometimes in places that do not always provide a giving statement for tax purposes. For example, a family chooses to consistently give to the single parent family that is financially strapped.
• Giving a percent of wealth – a person realizes how much he or she can give away and still live contentedly in our culture. A person does not have to be wealthy to give a percentage of their wealth. Some prefer different terminology, such as “becoming a percentage giver.” Every season, the family or person chooses to give an increased percentage to the church.
• Capping wealth – I still remember the first successful businessperson who explained to me how he lived on a budget and capped his personal income well below what he could have received. He gave away the balance. I was stunned that someone could even think this way, countering the American dream.
• Estate giving – while still leaving an appropriate amount to heirs, a person determines to give the bulk of the estate to the church and Kingdom purposes.

Five Marketing Plan Questions

Here are five questions your marketing plan should answer:

1. What/who are your targets?
2. What do they care about? What outcome are they seeking?
3. Where do you find them?
4. What or who influences them?
5. How do they want to engage and (eventually) buy?

Phony Psychic Techniques

From The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading by Ian Rowland.
See also Mind Control Wiki, 38 elements of cold reading

First is the Rainbow Ruse—the “statement which credits the client with both a personality trait and its opposite.” (“I would say that on the whole you can be rather a quiet, self effacing type, but when the circumstances are right, you can be quite the life and soul of the party if the mood strikes you.”)

The Jacques Statement, named for the character in “As You Like It” who gives the Seven Ages of Man speech, tailors the prediction to the age of the subject. To someone in his late thirties or early forties, for example, the psychic says, “If you are honest about it, you often get to wondering what happened to all those dreams you had when you were younger.”

The Barnum Statement, the assertion so general that anyone would agree.

• “I sense that you are sometimes insecure, especially with people you don’t know very well.”
• “You have a box of old unsorted photographs in your house.”
• “You had an accident when you were a child involving water.”
• “You’re having problems with a friend or relative.”
• “Your father passed on due to problems in his chest or abdomen.”

The Fuzzy Fact, the seemingly factual statement couched in a way that “leaves plenty of scope to be developed into something more specific.” (“I can see a connection with Europe, possibly Britain, or it could be the warmer, Mediterranean part?”)

The Diverted Question takes a piece of solid information and extrapolates unspoken details that are very likely to be correct. The solid piece of information could come from a direct question, or noticing the type of car the client drives or any friends they might be with.

Some psychics are well versed in how an expensive purse is different from a lookalike knock off purse. This says volumes for the reading.

"I see that you have a keen eye. First your eye is always set toward quality. You know what a good name brand is worth but your eye is also very shrewd to finding the best deal."

The Russian Doll is a way of "peeling the onion" so to speak, when a statement doesn't give you hit.

"I'm getting the impression of that you're making a move right now. Does that make sense?"

"No."

"Oh this could be not you per say, but someone close to you."

"No."

"Oh, not so much a physical move but really a transition... a major change of sorts."

"Well, my brother-in-law is finally getting a job."

"That's why this sticks out in my mind so much, this is long overdue!"

It took three attempts to get a hit and the misses fall by the wayside.

The key to the Russian Doll is if something doesn't match up then expand it into a different context.

The Jargon Blast can often be described as the "baffle them with bullshit" tactic. It does two things. First it establishes you as an authority in your method of reading (astrology, tarot, palmistry, etc.) by spewing out terms of your field most people have not put in the time to learn.

Secondly, as you use these terms to describe the reading the client will put whatever meaning to it that best fits.

"The two of swords is a card of the mind. In fact, it means that there is a decision that that is being weight. The five of wands goes well with this as it indicates there is a struggle... not a major one... but a bothersome one. These are conjoined cards which means that the struggle is affecting this decision. I don't know if this makes sense to you."

You are welcome to throw in completely unrelated jargon like "form a divergence" or "Conjoined cards"

The Good Chance Guess is a guess that has a better-than-normal chance of being correct. Example You were quite active as a child and people were concerned about your well being. You have a scar on your left knee. (BTW, you would be surprised how accurate that guess is!)

The Vanishing Negative
“Moving on to career matters, you don’t work with children, do you?”

No, I don’t.

“No, I thought not. That’s not really your role.”

Of course, if the subject answers differently, there’s another way to play the question: “Moving on to career matters, you don’t work with children, do you?”

I do, actually, part time.

“Yes, I thought so.”

Push Statements – stories that are made up out of whole cloth and usually don’t make sense to the client. The client goes away and ultimately tweaks the story until it fits something in their lives. The point being that he is such a good psychic that he even knows stuff that at first doesn’t make sense.

Fine Flattery statements are designed to flatter the client in a subtle way likely to win agreement. Usually, the formula involves the client being compared to “people in general” or “most of those around you”, and being declared a slight but significant improvement over them:

I have your late sister with me now. She tells me she wants you to know that she always admired you, even if she didn’t always express it well. She tells me that you are… wait, it’s coming through… yes, I see, she says you are in many ways more shrewd, or perceptive, than people might think.

Psychic Credits are character statements which credit the client with some form of psychic or intuitive gift, or at the very least a receptivity to others who possess such gifts:

This card, the King of Wands, is generally indicative of a perceptive or even a psychic ability of some kind. Of course we all have these gifts, but they do vary from person to person. In your case, it’s the second card in the higher triad, which is devoted to your personal profile. This suggests you have very strong and vivid intuitive gifts, and good instincts which will serve you well if you learn to trust them.

Sugar Lump statements offer the client a pleasant emotional reward in return for believing in the junk on offer. In general, the Sugar Lump relates to the client’s willingness to embrace the psychic ‘discipline’ involved in the reading, and to benefit from the insights thereby gloriously revealed:

Your heart is good, and you relate to people in a very warm and loving way. The tarot often relates more to feelings and intuition than to cold facts, and your own very strong intuitive sense could be one reason why the tarot seems to work especially well for you. The impressions I get are much stronger with you than with many of my clients.

The Greener Grass element is based on the fact that we all retain some fascination with the options in life that we did not take. You could say they form their own sub-set of the Jacques Statements referred to above:

I see indications of material success and professional advancement which are a credit to you, and which reflect your own drive and ability to get things done. You are the sort of person who delivers results, and this characteristic has brought its rewards. However, it has also brought its penalties. Although you would not necessarily advertise them too openly, I sense some feelings here of a potential desire for more domestic security, and a more stable home life. I would not go so far as to say this has been a serious problem for you, but I believe your loyalty to your career has not always delivered the returns you expected.

Forking. If the client seems to reject the initial statement, the psychic can develop the same theme in the opposite direction, like this:

But this tendency is one you have learned to overcome, and these days it rarely comes to the fore. You have learned to accept yourself, and to be reconciled with your own special mix of gifts and skills. You have learned how damaging it can be to be too self-critical, and all credit to you for having matured past the self-critical stage.

Contractions in Postmodernism

Rosenau (1993) identifies seven contradictions in Postmodernism:

1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.

2. While Postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.

3. The Postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.

4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.

5. By adamantly rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgment.

6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.

7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.

Leadership Guidelines in Turbulent Times

Great article

In January 2009, founder and chairman of India’s Satyam Computer Services—the “largest publically traded company you’ve never heard of”—Ramalinga Raju confesses to massive accounting fraud and resigns. In a five-page letter to the board, he described the problem saying, “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.” In an instant, he left behind him, chaos, distrust, and plummeting moral among his more than 53,000 employees. But Riding the Tiger is not about how the Enron-like tragedy occurred, but how a leading through learning strategy calmed the chaos and helped the company recover and rebuild.

Authors and former Satyam employees Pricilla Nelson (Global Director of People Leadership) and Ed Cohen (Chief Learning Officer) share the take-away lessons learned on the road to recovery and renewal. Step one was what they eventually called the “Lights On” strategy. That is “deciding exactly what must be done to keep the business moving and doing only that which is critical to help the organization stabilize.” They describe 6-steps—beginning with hold everything and build an adaptable stop-stop-continue plan—based on the two pillars of learning and communication.

Nelson and Cohen write, “Learning is critical for stabilizing the organization, providing guidance to leaders, communicating with employees, and keeping the business open.” Communication is critical. “The leaders who lead out loud—those who maintain transparency, approachability, and integrity—are the ones with whom people want to work, in good times and bad.”

Venkatesh Roddam, Director of VenSat Tech India was the CEO at Satyam BPO (a Satyam subsidiary), reflects on the resilience at Satyam, “To be faced with a crisis the magnitude of what Satyam dealt with and then one year later to be reborn and vibrant in a new avatar speak volumes about the value of a strong leadership culture. This resilience is the result of years of painstakingly implemented leadership strategies.” The authors stress the need for developing leadership guidelines in order to leverage learning and to assist leaders with the complicated people and relationship dimensions of the business. You can use these 12 guidelines as a basic for coaching conversations:

1. Understand that we will never get back to normal: While it is comfortable to want to seek the status quo, “normal” in times of a crisis is constantly changing. Leaders need to move on to seek better ways of doing things, letting these new ways become the new normal.
2. Take care of one another: Listening reduces anxiety. Provide regular updates on what is happening across the organization and expand inclusivity.
3. React…pause…respond: The right response will be made once information gathering, integrity, an open heart, and seeking to understand have been considered.
4. Talk—even when you don’t believe there is much to say: Overcommunication is essential during turbulent times. Consistent and continuous messaging prevents rumors from spreading and demonstrates the leaders’ approachability and transparency.
5. Be visible—now is not the time to play hide-and-seek: People become fearful when the leader goes into hiding. As a leader, be present, inform comfort, and provide strength for others.
6. Maintain integrity and high value morals: Current circumstances should not influence or distort your definition of integrity and other core values.
7. Optimize costs, with retention in mind: Make cost optimization decisions keeping employee retention in mind. This allows leaders to assess risk and make more informed decisions.
8. Be a brand ambassador: The organization needs people who are brand ambassadors. As brand ambassadors, you are responsible for representing the organization both internally and externally in a positive manner. This means you must refrain from making statements that might cause further turbulence.
9. Assess and rebuild trust: Rebuilding an injured organization requires making difficult decisions that not everyone will understand. For this reason, you and other leaders must continuously asses and rebuild trust.
10. Remember, leaders are human, too: Though there will be difficult times during a crisis, as leader, it is important to remain composed.
11. Think like a child: Try to live “in the moment,” not allowing business to consume every moment. Work/life balance can exist, even in a crisis.
12. Take care of your emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being: Don’t put any aspect of your well-being on hold. While change and uncertainty at work are draining, you cannot allow them to take over your life.

The authors say that 87% of businesses fail to recover from devastation such as this because they have “not correctly aligned their priorities for recovery, and more importantly re-growth. Too often the immediate focus is put on salvaging customer relationships and brand identity. The relationship with employees does not receive the same priority. Leaders do not communicate as much as needed leaving them wondering what the future holds for them and their colleagues. This dichotomy results in major turnover, far more than companies in crisis can withstand, and ultimately contribute to their failure.”