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November 30, 2009

50 in 50. #16: Effective Apology

I have to give John Kador credit. He has written an entire book on apologizing (Effective Apology: Mending Fences, Building Bridges, and Restoring Trust) without once sinking to the level of mentioning the Elton John and Bernie Taupin song. You know the one: “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.”

Must because he’s a better person than I am. He’s certainly a thoughtful guy, who believes that an apology is not just lip service. “Apology,” Mr. Kador writes, “is humanity’s perfect response to imperfection. Yes, it’s an obligation we owe to those we have mistreated, but apology is also a gift that benefits those who owe the apology. Practicing apology is not easy—none of us likes admitting we made a mistake—nor does it come without cost, but apologizing pays off for the apologizer is surprising ways. Apology sends the clearest signal that we have the strength of character to reconcile ourselves with the truth. Apology is the most courageous gesture we can make to ourselves.”

All that may be true, but an entire book about apologizing? Effective Apology does have some padding, but it’s very well researched and complete. For instance, Mr. Kador provides a framework for the most effective apology: recognition (“I know what I did.”), responsibility (“I take ownership.”), remorse (“I am truly sorry.”), restitution (“Here’s what I’m doing to make it up to you.”) and repetition (“I promise it will never happen again.”)

The book also contains dozens of examples of public apologies, and even provides advice on how to gracefully accept an apology.

Effective Apology would be a useful book for speechwriters, public relations people, senior leaders, politicians, or for anyone who might need advice on how to apologize effectively.

Posted by Alison Davis at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2009

50 in 50. #15: SUPERCORP

Yesterday at our Thanksgiving feast, my mother brought dessert. At my request, she made her famous apple pie with crumb crust. It was wholesome, fulfilling and delicious.

It was also unsurprising. Traditions are like that. They reinforce and reassure, but they certainly don’t shake you up or rock your world.

And that’s the problem with Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s latest book, SUPERCORP: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth and Social Good. Like the vanilla ice cream I put on my piece of apple pie, this book is bland, predictable and unmemorable.

Beyond the obvious awkwardness of the title (I can’t stop thinking: “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s SUPERCORP!”) is the fact that this book doesn’t have a unconventional thought in its 300-something pages.

As evidence, I quote from the premise: “Vanguard companies are ahead of the pack and potentially the wave of the future. The best of the breed aspire to be big but human, efficient but innovative, global but concerned about local communities. The best have business prowess and clout with partners and governments but try to use their power and influence to develop solutions to problems the public cares about. . . The leaders of a vanguard company espouse positive values and encourage their employees to embrace and act on them.”

Nothing to argue with there. Just like motherhood and apple pie. But nothing to sink your teeth into, either. I kept waiting for the book to tell me something I didn’t know, something that hasn’t been written a million times already in books and business magazines.

It never happened. SUPERCORP is deeply conventional and, ultimately, profoundly boring.

Time for a piece of leftover apple pie. It may not be exciting, but it tastes good.

Posted by Alison Davis at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

November 25, 2009

50 in 50: #14: Mayflower

I love Thanksgiving, and the incredible story of the Pilgrims . . . so devout, so determined and so completely unprepared to leave the comfort of Holland (where they were holed up after leaving England because of religious differences) to start a new life on the harsh coast of Massachusetts.

That’s why I love Pilgrims: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. It’s a fascinating retelling (and truth-telling: Mr. Philbrick debunks many myths) of the people who arrived in Plymouth in 1620, surviving almost impossible odds and leaving their mark on our heritage.

But I have to confess: I abandoned the book before the end. Mr. Philbrick isn’t content to conclude with the successful settlement of Massachusetts; he feels compelled to recount the sordid tale of King Philip’s War of 1675, when the now-established colonists, hungry for more territory, massacred 60 to 80 percent of the Native Americans living in the region.

Especially at Thanksgiving, I prefer to focus on the positive parts of the story: the intrepid Pilgrims and the generous Massasoit Indians giving thanks for the bounty of the land by breaking bread together.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by Alison Davis at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2009

50 in 50. #13: Honest Signals

What do speed dating and poker have in common with leader communication?

Why do remote members of a team often have difficulty connecting to each other?

Why is e-mail so much less effective than face-to-face communication?

The answers can be found in this amazing book, Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World by Alex (Sandy) Pentland.

Mr. Pentland, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has extensively studied what he calls the “social signals” that shape how human beings relate to one another. Part body language, part verbal cues, these signals offer insights into how we think and behave. And understanding the signals can help you be a better leader, manager, communicator and influencer.

This book has so much great content that it’s hard to select excerpts to share with you. But here are a few highlights:

• If people at a meeting are sitting quietly in their seats, that’s a bad sign. According to Mr. Pentland’s studies, when people are really interested, their activity levels increase. When people aren’t moving, they’re probably checked out.

• Job satisfaction is strongly dependent on a combination of face-to-face and e-mail communication. When people have to rely on e-mail alone, their satisfaction (and feelings of interaction) declines.

• Managers who spend a lot of time with their teams “reading the signals” are more successful—greater engagement and productivity—than managers who are more removed.

Honest Signals is not a how-to book, but it offers many suggestions on how you can apply behavioral science in your work. I highly recommend it.

Posted by Alison Davis at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2009

50 in 50. #12: How to Write Fast Under Pressure

What a great premise: How to Write Fast Under Pressure. I picked up this book from the pile, thinking: “I could really use this now,” just 12 books into my journey to read 50 in 50ish days (Believe me, I know I’m slipping behind schedule).

And the author Phillip Vassallo does offer some helpful advice on how to make your writing more purposeful and efficient. For example:

• He suggests you start with what he calls “Direction.” “Hit the ground running with the end in mind,” writes Mr. Vassallo, by “knowing the road ahead, committing your ideas to writing, and devising a document plan.”

• Mr. Vassallo also gives advice on how to revise a draft. In 30 minutes, he promises you can improve the purpose, the structure and the style of your work in progress.

However, the book was not the silver bullet I hoped it would be, for three reasons:

1. Mr. Vassallo uses an annoying convention of telling the story of two fictional characters, “Mopey Mo” and “Speedy Didi.” I know he was trying to bring his concepts to life, but I found the characters irritating instead of illuminating.

2. He insists that all writers should take the “draft it fast and then fix it” approach to writing. I’ve known for years that I can’t write that way: I am someone who has to figure out the first paragraph and get it fairly polished before I can proceed to paragraph 2, etc. So Mr. Vassallo’s advice is not very helpful for a writer like me.

3. Too much emphasis is placed on overcoming procrastination. For some people, this is a very real problem, but for many of us, this is not relevant.

Still, Mr. Vassallo offers many tools and techniques, and it’s easy to cherry pick those that you might find useful. So, if you’d like to write faster, I recommend giving this book a quick read.

Posted by Alison Davis at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2009

50 in 50. #11: Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

I’m a big fan of Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D. and, if it wasn’t cheating, I would review Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion for my 50 in 50 odyssey, even though I’ve already read the book several times. (I've already cheated once, so I'm trying to reform.)

See, Dr. Cialdini is a master at helping his readers understand how people think and feel, and using that knowledge to be more persuasive. My only criticism of his work has been that, even though his writing is clear and simple, there’s not enough advice: Okay, I understand the concept of “social proof,” but how do I use that to make my communication more persuasive?

In Yes! 50 Scientifically Proved Ways to Be Persuasive, Dr. Cialdini and his co-authors (Noah J. Goldstein, Ph.D. and Steve J. Martin) have solved my problem. As a matter, there’s so much good advice that I have inserted Post-It Notes in every other page.

Here are just a few highlights:

Social proof—the fact that other people’s behavior influences us—is a powerful force. That’s why testimonials are an effective marketing strategy. But did you know that we are more influenced by testimonials of people like us than we are if, say, a movie star endorses a product? That makes “real people” testimonials a powerful communication tool.

People prefer their behavior to be consistent with pre-existing attitudes and actions. And as we get older, this consistency becomes more important to us. But you can still “change” people’s minds to try something new by praising their previous decision as being correct at the time they made it (with the evidence they had then) and then demonstrating how the new thing is still aligned to their overall values, beliefs and practices. In other words, honor the past.

Commitments that have been made actively—for example, by writing them down—have more staying power than those that have been made passively—for example, by listening and nodding in agreement. That’s because, according to the book. “people make judgments about themselves based on observations of their own behavior and they infer more about themselves based on their actions than on their nonactions.” That’s why it’s a good idea when conducting behavioral training to include an exercise where participants write down their intended action steps.

Posted by Alison Davis at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2009

50 in 50. #10: Getting Them To Give a Damn

I’ve been carrying around Getting Them to Give a Damn by Eric Chester so long that it’s dog-eared. I knew I needed to read this book (with its great subtitle, “How to Get Your Front Line To Care About Your Bottom Line”). But I never got around to it until my current 50 books in 50 days mania.

Boy, am I sorry I waited. This is a must-read book for anyone who needs to manage and engage Millennials—especially front-line, hourly employees who work in restaurants, coffee shops and call centers. Mr. Chester thinks a lot about these young workers, and he has develop practical advice about how to identify and attract job candidates, make hiring decisions, bring new hires on board, develop their skills and manage them so they’re motivated, deliver great customer service and stick with your company.

Unlike other books on the Millennials, Getting Them to Give a Damn is not a theoretical exercise; it’s a pragmatic guide to how to work with 16- to 24-year-olds. I could imagine a store manager or call center supervisor keeping this book in a drawer and referring to it often.

It’s also a valuable book for HR and communication professionals, and for senior managers who often forget what it was like to be 19 years old (which is nothing like being 49 or 59, that’s for sure).

Read Getting Them to Give a Damn if your traditional ways of motivating employees isn’t effective for young workers, and you need some new ideas.

Posted by Alison Davis at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2009

50 in 50. #9: The Back of the Napkin

Since I love the title of this book, the premise (“Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures”) and even the cover (hand-drawn type and stick figures on . . . you guessed it, a napkin), I was really hoping I’d love The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam.

But . . . no. Don’t get me wrong, the book is interesting, engaging and contains lots of useful insights. But it falls short of its promise of telling the reader exactly how to use pictures to solve problems and sell ideas. And especially for people who don’t think they’re artistic—what Roam calls the “red pens” who say “I’m not visual”—I don’t believe The Back of the Napkin will help them overcome their reluctance to pick up a pen and draw.

Still, this book is worth skimming through. Some key insights:

• Visual thinking is a powerful way to solve problems, and though it may appear to be something new, we already know how to do it.

• Even if you can’t draw, you can use lots of simple elements—basic shapes, lines and arrows and stick figures—to convey information visually.

• There are seven ways to organize information: proximity, color, size, orientation, direction, shape and shading. Using these cues helps make simplify information and make it clear.

Although I didn’t love The Back of the Napkin, I do like the book. And if you need visual inspiration, I think you will like it, too.

Posted by Alison Davis at 02:33 PM | Comments (1)

November 15, 2009

50 in 50. #8: Beat the Reaper

Oh, no, please don’t make me read another business book! Here I am, barely scratching the surface of my misbegotten quest to read 50 books in 50 days and I’m already burned out. Too many facts and figures! Too many challenges needing to be solved! Too much good advice, spread across too many pages.

So I’ve fallen off the wagon and read a work of fiction: Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell. My only (thin) rationale for including this book in my count is that it is set in a workplace: a major metropolitan hospital. So it might have some lessons for us, but for the fact that the hero is a pill-popping, wise-talking, emotionally tortured doctor who used to be a Mafia hitman.

Okay, okay, so it’s not very realistic. But that’s why I needed to read it—as a break from the unrelenting realism of business books.

And Beat the Reaper is a ripping good read. One reviewer called it, “House meets The Sopranos.” You can throw in some Grey’s Anatomy, The Godfather and ER for good measure.

Need to escape the reality of your life? Beat the Reaper will do the trick nicely.

Tomorrow, I’m back in business. Sigh.

Posted by Alison Davis at 04:10 PM | Comments (2)

November 13, 2009

50 in 50. #7: Powerlines

Dumb title, good book. When I think of “power lines,” I think of wires that carry electricity, not of “words that sell brands, grip fans and sometimes change history.” But I suppose the author Steve Cone had to find some clever way to capture what this book was about, and “powerlines” was the best he could do.

(Perhaps acknowledging that he has a problem, Cone writes in chapter 1 that a “powerline delivers an electric surge, a current that charges the mind long after the initial message is received.” Electrifying metaphor, man.)

Title aside, the book is a value tool for anyone who needs to create a compelling phrase.

Cone starts with a definition of “powerlines,” which, he says, tell “a compelling story about an event, person, place, product, or a part of human nature that has lasting impact. Sometimes these lines are just a few words, sometimes several sentences, and once in a great while, must one word.”

Who uses powerlines? Cone provides many examples; for instance:

Government “I want YOU for U.S. Army” or “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires.”

Politics: “I like Ike” (Eisenhower) or “It’s morning again in America.” (Reagan)

Movies: “Don’t go in the water” (Jaws) or “Size does matter.” (Godzilla)

Marketing/advertising: “A diamond is forever.” (De Beers) or “Just do it” (Nike)

Cone then goes on to share some advice about how to create a powerline, suggesting that you test your draft by asking five questions:

1. Is the line clearly descriptive and unique?
2. Is it 100 percent true?
3. Is it enjoyable (not bland or humorless)?
4. Does it work in all channels (and is it applied everywhere)?
5. Is it memorable?

I’ve got to give advice about writing for a project I’m working on, and this book has been great food for thought. I think it will help you, too, if you’re trying to create copy that’s succinct, catchy and memorable.

Posted by Alison Davis at 02:58 PM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2009

50 in 50. #6: Why She Buys

I know I’m getting a lot of value out of a book when I keep bookmarking pages with little Post-It Notes. That means I want to go back and revisit the nuggets of wisdom I found there.

So when I tell you that my copy of Why She Buys contains at least 40 Post-It Notes, you can see how much I liked this book. Not only does the author Bridget Brennan provide compelling statistics about women, “the world’s most powerful consumer,” but she also offers tangible suggestions about how to reach women.

Why should you care about the female consumer? These facts probably won’t surprise you:

• 80 percent of apparel purchases are made by women
• 70 percent of health care decisions are made by women
• 70 percent of travel decisions are made by women

But these statistics may:

• 91 percent of home purchases are influenced by women; 20 percent of home purchases are made by single women
  
• 52 percent of new vehicle purchases, including trucks, are made by women
  
• 61 percent of consumer electronics purchases are influenced by women
  
• 90 percent of women participate in decisions that impact their household’s retirement accounts or investments

Despite their economic power, nearly half of women feel that marketers are not doing a good job connecting with them. Maybe that’s because most of the people at the top of corporations are men (97 percent), as are most chief marketing officers (66 percent) and creative directors (97 percent). And Ms. Brennan uses brain science to demonstrate that men and women do think differently, which means that an ad designed to appeal to men often will turn women off.

What can marketers and communicators do differently to engage their female customers (or employees, for that matter)? Ms. Brennan lays out a comprehensive approach. (You definitely get your money’s worth when you buy this book.) Here are a few highlights:

• Women define achievement differently than men. Men strive to be independent; women strive to be indispensable. As a result, think twice before using competitive messages (“We’re gonna win!”) that won’t appeal to most women.

• Women connect with each other by talking about their feelings and revealing their vulnerabilities. So empathy is a valuable tool to persuade women, as is showing appreciation.

• Women have a higher verbal fluency than men. They focus on the details and will talk about their love of a service or product to their friends. That means that it’s better to lead with the practical benefits of a product, not how it works. It also means using stories to bring your message to life.

This book isn’t perfect (some of the assumptions are a bit simplistic) but it is thought-provoking, practical and a good read. I can offer no higher praise than this: Why She Buys is worth your time and money.

Posted by Alison Davis at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2009

50 in 50. #5: Leading Change

Okay, okay, I admit it: I’m kind of cheating. This is hardly the first time I've read this classic book on change by John Kotter.

But I did skim through Leading Change the other day, in preparation for a workshop I’m giving to a client’s leadership team. And I’m here to report that this book is as smart, as useful and as practical as it was when it was published in 1996.

Kotter doesn’t try to dazzle us with academic theory and change models. He presents a simple formula for change management that works. There’s no smoke, no mirrors—just common sense for how to introduce change into organizations and make it stick.

For example, Kotter was the first change expert to talk about the need to communicate a compelling case for change, so that employees understand why change is needed. He also advocates having a vision for the future; otherwise, employees won't know where the organization is heading.

If you haven’t read this book, you should. And if you read it a while ago, it’s worth picking up again.

Since change is hardly going away—as a matter of fact, it seems to be intensifying—you need Leading Change.

Posted by Alison Davis at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2009

50 in 50. #4: A sales pitch masquerading as a book

“I want my money back!” I cried as I reached the unsatisfying conclusion of Strengths Based Leadership, which looks like a book but is actually an advertisement for a Gallup leadership system.

Then I remembered that I hadn’t actually bought the book, so I wasn’t out $24.95 (or even the $14.95 that Amazon charges): It was given to me as a thank-you token for speaking at a conference. (That’s the thanks I get.) Still, I’ll never get that 15 minutes of my life back.

Did I say 15 minutes? Yes, that was all the time it took to realize that I was being sold a bill of goods. Or a pig in a poke. Or something smelly. While it was true that the book provided a code that allows the reader to go online and discover his/her leadership skills, it’s all a thinly veiled attempt to get you to buy what Gallup is selling.

Which is not very revolutionary, actually: The premise is that leaders should leverage their strengths to be successful. Wow, no kidding.

But just when I was ready to toss the book into the recycling bin, I came across one insight that almost redeemed the whole sorry volume. Part of Gallup’s research explores why people follow leaders: trust, compassion, stability and hope. Although the research is a little squirrely (for instance, so far it was only conducted in English-speaking countries), it has interesting implications for leader communication. For example, are leader messages too factual and not emotional enough?

Still, despite this intriguing nugget, I give Strengths Based Leadership two thumbs down: One for bad grammar (The title is missing a hyphen) and the other for blatant selling.

Posted by Alison Davis at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2009

50 in 50. #3: “The worst thing about new books . . .”

“ . . . is that they keep us from reading the old ones.” That’s a quote from Joseph Joubert, and it’s just one of about 3,000 featured in the book, If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren’t There More Happy People?” (Subtitle: Smart Quotes For Dumb Times) by John Lloyd and John Michinson.

This is a very useful book for people who need to find clever quotes for writing, speaking or just amazing your friends. Quotes are organized alphabetically by subject, and the subjects range from the mundane to the profound: Under “E,” for example, you can find quotes about eggs, ego, electricity, encouragement, ends, enemies and England.

To test the usefulness of If Ignorance is Bliss, I decided to look for quotes to use in a book I’m writing about communication (which I should be working on right now instead of reading 50 books in 50 days). I found quite a few useful quotes; for instance:

“The truth is more important than the facts.” Frank Lloyd Wright

“Personally, I’m always ready to learn, but I do not always like to be taught.” Winston Churchill

“It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated.” John Ruskin

“When I see a paragraph shrinking under my eyes like a strip of bacon in a skillet, I know I’m on the right track.” Peter de Vries.

Lest you think this book is all work and no play, be assured that the authors have a sense of humor. They love witticisms as well as funny dumb quotes. For instance: “You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.” (Al Capone) “, especially when former President George Bush is concerned. “If you fall out of that window and break both legs, don’t come running to me.” (Groucho Marx)

Need a good quote? Buy this book.

Posted by Alison Davis at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

November 07, 2009

50 in 50: #2 The Introverted Leader

Sometimes when you read a book, you think, “That was a really good article.” Meaning, of course, that while there’s enough substance for 2,000 words, there’s not enough for 200 pages.

Such is the case with The Introverted Leader by Jennifer B. Kahnweiler, Ph.D., the second book in my 50 books in 50 days series.

Dr. Kahnweiler starts with a great premise: Even if you’re an introvert, you can still be an effective leader.

She’s even got a nifty four-step strategy for how introverts can succeed in “an extroverted world”:

Preparation. Devise a game plan for every key situation.
Presence. Be focused on the current moment or activity.
Push. Go beyond your comfort zone.
Practice. Practice again and again.

Plus, Dr. Kahnweiler offers tangible tips for how to follow her strategy and examples of how people have done so.

What’s the bad news? By page 24, most readers will get it. So the next 100 pages will seem like filler, especially since the format of the book is repetitious, repeating the 4P advice again and again.

Still, if you’re an introvert and need a strategy for how to show up, Dr. Kahnweiler’s advice is useful. And this slim book is certainly a quick read.

Posted by Alison Davis at 09:32 AM | Comments (1)

November 06, 2009

50 books in 50 days! #1: Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin

I hate lazy authors, who cut up a bunch of blogs or columns, paste them together and put a cover on it. The result isn’t a book; it’s a mishmash. It’s a mess.

For exhibit A, I bring you Seth Godin and his so-called book Meatball Sundae. This volume has been in my pile since it was published in January 2008; every time I try to pick it up, I put it down again in frustration.

But this time, with my new mission in mind (50 in 50!), I persevered. And I discovered that if I plowed my way through Godin’s mismatched collection of columns (which, BTW, offer somewhat contradictory advice), and got to the center of the book, there was hidden some useful information: 14 trends that are transforming marketing and communication.

For example, Trend 4: “Extremely short attention spans due to clutter.” Writes Godin, “The death of mass marketing is partly due to the plethora of choices and the deluge of interruptions. As a result, complex messages rarely get through.”

Or here’s Trend 7: “Google and the dicing of everything. Google and the other search engines have broken the world into little tiny bits. No one visits a Web site’s home page anymore—they walk into the back door, to the page Google sent them to. By atomizing the world, Google destroys the end-to-end solution . . . replacing it with a pick-and-choose, component-based solution.”

These may not be completely new, but Godin describes them in a compelling way. And he offers lots of examples for how companies are capitalizing on these trends to get customers’ attention and build business.

So what’s my bottom line? If you see this book in a library or someone’s office, by all means take a quick look at the center section. Otherwise, save your time and money.

Posted by Alison Davis at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)

November 04, 2009

50 books in 50 days

It’s time to admit I have a problem: Way too many unread business books. I have a stack of 19 on a chair in my office. Another 27 on the floor behind my desk. At home, there are seven in a pile on the dining room table, 15 in a canvas bag behind the door in the den, and nine in a magazine rack next to the couch. Oh, in the trunk of my car is a box with 12 new books I just acquired.

In case you think I’m not paying my mortgage because I’ve squandered all my money on my books, I have to say (in my defense) that I got almost all my books for free. My husband is a business writer who reviews books, writes articles about their authors and uses them as research for books he writes. So I grab the ones I’m interested in after he’s done with them.

Still, “free” is taking its toll on me. These books are taking up space. They’re cluttering up my mind. They’re scolding me: “Why haven’t you read me yet?” They’re weighing me down.

Last night I resolved to stop the madness. My plan is to adapt a technique used by organizational consultants to help their clients de-clutter: It’s called “one and done.” I’m going to pick up each book once and read it/skim it to see if it has any value/relevance to me. If not, I’m going to pass it along or donate it. If it does, I’m going to shelve it on our office bookshelves. My goal is to go through 50 books in 50 days.

Along the way, I’m going to write a brief review of each book in this blog, on my LinkedIn page and on Amazon. That way, other busy people will benefit from my maniacal quest to solve my book overload problem.

By December 18, I plan to be smarter and neater. Look for the first review tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Posted by Alison Davis at 01:58 PM | Comments (1)

November 02, 2009

E-mail newsletter worst practice

Like everyone else, I get a lot of e-mails, including e-newsletters in one form or another. And many of them are a complete mystery to me: I didn’t sign up for them, yet one day they show up in my in-box and keep arriving every week or day or (eek!) hour.

(In case you haven’t guessed, my experiences are similar to those employees have: What is this newsletter? Who is this person sending it to me? How is it relevant to me?)

Because I’m naturally curious, I’m not quick to hit the “unsubscribe” button. After all, maybe I’ll learn something, either about the topic being covered or about how to create and distribute e-newsletters.

Sometimes the lesson is a negative one: a worst practice in what not to do. And that’s the case of a periodic e-mail I just started to receive from a person named Pace Lattin.

The subject line of today’s e-mail reads, “When you work, work” and the message begins like this:

“How are you? About seven years ago, when I was around 27 years of age, pretty sure that I knew everything about business, the world and all that, I had the opportunity to sit down with a group of major CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. I’m pretty sure that at the time, the next youngest person in the room was probably around 45, and there I was, a baby-business person with no idea about the enormous opportunity that had befallen me. I learned a lot that day, but one thing that I remember hearing from everyone didn’t resonate with me until many years later.”

Whew! It goes on like this, in total stream of consciousness, without drawing a breath or even breaking into paragraphs, for nearly 1,000 words. (If you want to read the whole thing, go ahead, but I warn you: It gets worse.)

There are three main problems: First, the piece is not audience-centric; it’s author-centric. (As in: “I find myself fascinating.”) Second, if you’re going to take 1,000 words of my time (a very long length in today’s Web 2.0 world), you’d better have something ground-breaking to say—unfortunately, that’s not the case here. And, third, if you must write 1,000 words, you’ve got to have structure. It’s okay to write a 20-word instant message that rambles a bit. But a 1,000-word blog-like, newsletter-like essay? Not so much.

I feel a little bad trashing this missive—someone worked hard on it—but I’m made cranky by the fact that there’s no “unsubscribe” option I can find. So I’m going to keep receiving these long, rambling, navel-gazing messages forever.

Thank goodness for the “delete” button.

Posted by Alison Davis at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)