Rechauffees

Upper management once caused a stir at the American branch of a French company I worked at by referring to the (female) customer service workers as "rechauffees." Not speaking vernacular French myself, I was not offended till someone told me that the word meant "re-heats" or "leftovers." Maybe this is particularly offensive in France, where every 4th grader studies la cuisine.

Nonetheless, I was very pleased to look in the refrigerator this morning to find some spaghetti squash and meatballs already packaged for today's lunch. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

YouTube: Christmas Blessing

"Red wine or white?" I was proud to be able to ask Maria, who had only been in the States a few months. That, unfortunately, was the extent of my conversational Russian, and she was my Christmas guest.

Fortunately, between dinner and dessert, we found that there are plenty of Stalin-era movie clips on YouTube. I wish you had seen her smile when we played "Ochi Chornoye," "Podmoskovniye Vechera" and "Kak mnogo devushek xhoroshik."

Christmas blessings to all of you, and especially to those of you who posted clips that made my guest smile.

At Least I Can Copy Edit

Neil Howe made an interesting point in the Washington Post, about what it's like to be the pig's tail in the python.

Lately demographers have been calling me the tail end of the baby boom, but I proudly insist that I am Gen X. Howe makes some interesting points about us

• "relatively large share of higher-order siblings"
• "By the time they entered middle and high school, classrooms were opened, standards were lowered and supervision had disappeared."
• "they arrived too late to enter the most lucrative professions and the cushiest corporations, by now glutted with Boomer yuppies."

Howe calls Sarah Palin typical of my cohort, alas. In general, he calls us "practical and resilient, they handle risk well and they know how to improvise even when the experts don't know the answer."

The article itself is thought-provoking for Americans in their early 40s and people who care about them.

I do hope that whoever wrote the headline was not one of us. "Early Xers..." Howe writes "are impatient with syntax and punctuation and citations--and all the other brainy stuff they were never taught." In fact, I was very fortunate to attend private high school on scholarship, where I learned a lot, and I've gone on to learn a lot more.

The headline "The Kids Are Alright. But Their Parents ... " may pass the Word "spelling and grammar" check, but even this Gen X-er would not let "alright" past her copy desk.

LinkedIn II

An article by Dana Mattioli in yesterday's Wall Street Journal says that LinkedIn memberships have increased 36% in the last six months.

This is a real trend.

LinkedIn

In 2003 a friend asked me to join her social network, but I was dubious. Why would I want friends of friends to contact me, and how did I know that I wouldn't get on a million spam lists? I turned her down, thinking that this idea would die aborning.

Often I am wrong, but rarely so spectacularly.

I signed up for LinkedIn last year but didn't think much about my membership. No one I knew seemed to belong.

This year, though, lots of people I know have joined. Suddenly I am reconnecting with former colleagues and trying to build a network as big as Len's (208). Get in to LinkedIn now while it's hot stuff.

http://www.linkedin.com/

Stick a Fork in These Domain Names

I ordered the following domain names for a project, but I don't need them any more. They have now baked at ICANN for the requisite two months, so they are ready to transfer to you. If you need a domain name that connotes instant service for PCs, or service that keeps PCs running trouble-free, consider the following

• pcindependence.com
• pctogether.com
• steadfastpc.com (PC stays fixed, like the Steadfast Tin Soldier)
• sturdypc.com
• desktop999.com (may work well in countries where you dial 999, not 911 for emergencies)
• pcminuteman.com (do many people in the US know who minutemen were anymore?)

Hmm, not very inspiring, you're thinking? I agree--and I dare you. Think of any domain name for a PC repair and maintenance service. (Helpful hints.) Every good name is taken, except for these.

If you want one of these domain names, drop me a line at katharine@katharinehadow.com.

Christmas Pageant

I was always the narrator and never the angel.

What fun is it to stand up at the lectern, knowing that the grownups chose you because you can pronounce most words right? So you mumble and rush through the story, watching the angels trip down the aisle in their lovely white robes.

Now, though, I'm on the other side of the lectern, coaching the children to SLOW DOWN for heaven's sake.

They've narrated before, they think. Obviously THEY don't need to listen to me. They know the story. Everyone else knows the story. Ho hum.

Besides, it doesn't make any sense anyway, they think. Why should the shepherds be terrified? Angels are just overgrown fairies, right? And, look, the angel appeared to Mary, too. Obviously, angels positively infested Bethlehem, like pantry moths. Big deal.

But for one person in the audience, this will be the first time to hear the story. And if that one person can see a miracle instead of juvenile ennui, we will have succeeded.

It's my job to make sure that they tell the story again for the first time.

I guess it's not too different from my day job.

Delete Delete Delete

I'm so proud. I brought the number of unread emails in my inbox under a hundred.

I guard my email address zealously. I am only on a few email lists, mostly for organizations that encourage me to think of myself as I would like to be.

• Expert (ok, conversant) on businesses in New Jersey--NJBIZ.com
• New media mogul--GoDaddy.com
• Self-supporting freelance writer--eLance.com

Boy, do they send me a lot of emails! And if I get busy for a few days, which often happens, I can't even sign in to my account, let alone delete unwanted messages. After more than a few days, I hate to even scroll down my messages.

A salty old salesman I once worked with filed by the "foot method." He piled his paperwork up. When the stack was two feet high, he threw away the bottom foot. I take a similar approach to my emails. I sort by "sender" and delete the old unread messages. Annoyingly, some of my accounts put entirely different senders on various email messages, making this approach more difficult.

I also get emails from companies to which I have applied online. If I lose my job, I don't want to have to retrieve my account information for all of them. This has a handy side benefit. I'm sorry to say that several of my friends are out of work. When I get an email for a job that looks right for someone, I forward it to them. Here's hoping that I don't need those auto-alerts myself for a long time, and that they can help someone else.

Targeted Marketing I Like Best

You don't need a bazillion customers. In fact, you only need one.

A friend of mine asked me to help her with my favorite kind of marketing: writing her Match.com profile.

The requests have increased since I met my own husband on Match.com. We've been married nearly a year and a half now. I didn't have to move out of the school district, and he and I have never fought. We are living proof that Match.com works.

The first thing I enjoy about writing profiles is that, like writing someone's resume, you hold up a flattering mirror to your friend. Unlike resume writing, you can be more creative and the stakes are lower. (It's easier to live without a significant other than without a paycheck.)

My random thoughts on Match.com profiles:

1. Do your research for a good username. This is a tough one. They ask you to create a username up front, before your creative juices are flowing. Your username is like your brand, so make it sizzle. Try to find out first what other women in your area are doing. Otherwise you will end up with a very dull one like mine (first name + area code. Zzzzzz.)
2. Get at least one good picture before you start. Your picture is more important than your written content, in my opinion. Potential mates deserve to know what you look like. I recommend Sears Portrait Studio. They have enhancers they don't tell you about when you take your rosy-cheeked children in for portraits. They can diffuse the focus to obscure your crow's feet, and brighten your skin. I'm all in favor of truth in advertising, but definitely put your best foot forward. If you buy the CD you own the copyright.
3. People want to see your eyes. Forego the sunglasses in your primary photo. And even if the shot makes you look buff, don't use it if a shadow obscures your face.
4. If you have a great sense of humor, why not hold up today's newspaper in your photo so people can tell that the photo is current?
5. Be honest. I once met a 60-year-old woman who convinced herself she could pass for 40. (Not so much.)
6. When I was in real estate, they told us to tune to WIFM (What's in It For Me?) Sure, it's gratifying to write all about yourself, but then read what you write from the perspective of your potential mate. You want him or her to be able to picture him- or herself joining you in your activities and having a good time.
7. Use your spell checker. Please.
8. It works on Craigslist, but not on Match. When I was newly single, I had a set of heavy mirrors that I wanted to bolt to the studs in my apartment. So I tried using the headline "I need a studfinder." This was too risque for Match.com, which changed my headline to a tepid, "Hello, there." You can be funny on Match.com, but only up to PG-13.
9. Yes, you will meet weirdos. The latest friend I helped with her profile emailed me to say that men had contacted her with inappropriate suggestions. (Not lewd, fortunately, but looking for too much information, too soon.) This happened to me, too, at the worst time, when I was just putting feelers out there and was very unsure of my dating prospects. Some people play the numbers. They contact every new subscriber hoping that they will find one or two gullible or needy enough to accept faux intimacy. You only need one Match, but he or she must be the right one. Keep tweaking your profile and don't let the gamers get you down.
10. I have heard of people who use SEO. When you change your profile, it springs to the top of the searches. You can make teensy changes every day and see what happens. Some people even take their accounts offline for a time, to imply that they are dating someone, and then go back online. I haven't heard if that ultimately found those people their Princes or Princesses Charming, but it's worth a try.
11. Go for the six-month account. In my experience you do not find the right person within a month.

Hoodwinked

Reality can be ugly enough. The story in the Star Ledger about the man who shot his girlfriend and boiled her head made me want to read something light and fluffy.

So I went to the library looking for a diversion and found some chick lit, You Had Me at Goodbye, by Tracey Bateman.

The problem with browsing at the library is that the call numbers cover up the colophons. Had I been able to see the full spine I would have known that this was Christian literature disguised as ordinary chick lit.

I wanted to read about how a heroine improbably solves her problems with skinny lattes and stilettos.

I was hoodwinked.

Authority

A website I wrote copy for last summer is up at last. I'm proud to see that my words are hardly changed.

Because I wrote it as an subcontractor for an independent contractor, I must disavow my relationship to it in exchange for cashing the check.

That's one of the difficult things about writing: some of the best things I write are anonymous. I have no byline. I have no authority.

On the other hand, that's why I enjoy writing this blog. Here, you know who wrote it. So thanks for visiting.

1600 People Voted for Non-Candidate

My local elections distressed me: two people I know and like were running for the same position.

Fortunately for me, one of them solved my dilemma by dropping out of the race. It was too late for his name to be excised from the ballot. I knew that he was not running, but I was surprised to see no notification at the polls.

"Norman's not running," I chatted with a poll worker. She was aware of that. "Can't they at least cross off his name with a china marker?" (Our ballots are touch screens.) She suggested I call the county clerk. I didn't. I figured that if I knew that Norman had dropped out, most other people did, too.

After all, I am not a politico. I try to follow the issues, but people who really get them leave me in the dust. Still, I read in the Star-Ledger yesterday that more than 1600 people cast their votes for Norman.

Potential reasons that people may not have been aware that they were voting for a non-candidate
1) of course, Norman had no incentive to inform voters of his changed status after he dropped out
2) loyal voters may just have voted along party lines
2) voters may have been concentrating on the state and federal elections, and may have been figuring that local elections were not important enough to follow

If they don't keep up with local politics, they may just think that their candidate was defeated, instead of understanding that they wasted their ballot.

I bet Norman is kicking himself right now.

Customer Service at the Blood Drive

Just in time for Hallowe'en, my thoughts on blood drives:

I read a lot of business books. The authors that make me impatient are the ones who describe the perfect, seamless customer service experience they crave. They want hotels to remember that they like dark, not milk, chocolate mints on their pillows. Or local wine shops to keep a database of their customers who enjoy zinfandels, so they can send out a special mailing when they get a new shipment.

What narcissists, I think. Of course we would all appreciate special treatment. I wish the salespeople at Nordstrom would call me whenever they got shipments of comfortable size 12 shoes. In reality, even if they call me, I will still only buy shoes a few times a year. If my total spend on shoes per year is only a few hundred dollars, it is not worth the salesperson’s time to call me. It would be unrealistic and selfish of me to ask them to keep me at the top of their minds.

People who get that kind of personalized service should be prepared to pay well for it. Since I’m not so prepared, all I ask is that the lumpencustomer not be treated too badly.

In one area, though, I really think that customer service could be improved: blood drives. I have heard that blood is worth $200/unit by the time it gets to the hospital. So why can't we treat donors a little better? Here are my narcissistic demands for blood drives:

Take donors’ time seriously. I learned a long time ago that there is no use making an appointment for a blood drive. If you show up at your appointed hour, but there is a long line, you queue up with everyone else.

Similarly, don’t encourage women to donate blood every 56 days. Blood banks know that women have hematocrits lower than men’s, lower, on average, than the donation threshold. It obviously takes me longer than 56 days to rebuild my iron level to the threshold, because 50% of the time my blood is rejected for a low hematocrit. Donating every 56 days may be appropriate for men—the statistical donor is a college-educated man between 30 and 50—but for women it may not be appropriate. So tailor the donor appeals accordingly.

Here’s a radical idea: give me the finger-stick when I walk in the door. Let me flash my donor card and offer me the option to test my hematocrit before I do all the paperwork. If I fail the iron level again, at least I haven’t lost too much time.

(On the other hand, when I attended blood drives with babysitters, I didn’t care if I failed or not. Free babysitting when your kids are young is free babysitting. I could still eat the cookies, even if I couldn’t donate that day.)

If the donor says he or she has special blood, be prepared to act on that claim. The NY-NJ Blood Center randomly tested my blood once. They determined that I have special proteins in my blood, and that I am CMV-negative. This means that my blood can be transfused to newborns.

“Hey!” my husband said. “I have special blood, too! In Chicago my blood used to be packed into tiny bags to be given to babies.” Every time we go to a blood drive together now, he tells the intake workers that. Yet somehow his blood has not been tested on the East Coast. He’s disappointed that his blood is no longer “special.”

Now, just because I donate blood regularly does not mean I love pain. I’m old enough to remember when the phlebotomists shook the needles to get rid of the excess citric acid on the tips. Now, they just jab it in. Ow! That Country Time lemonade stuff really hurts! I know it’s supposed to prevent clots or something, but how much can my blood clot in the 15 minutes I’m allowed on the gurney? So shake it off, or don’t be dismayed when your donor numbers drop.

On the positive side, I am pleased to say that finally the Mayo Clinic has adopted my idea of telling donors how many calories they lose when they donate a unit of blood. Every nursing mother knows that she expends about 500 calories a day nursing Baby. Why, instead of giving a thin-lipped smile, couldn’t they have told us before now that each pint of blood is about 650 calories? That’s a hefty slice of cheesecake!

Speaking of sweets, when you go to a really good blood drive—usually these are organized by churches—the juice table features plenty of homemade cookies. Not much says, “We appreciate your donation today,” better than cookies lovingly baked in someone else’s kitchen.

And here’s to the stalwart Red Cross volunteer who made me sit with my knees squarely under the table. If I fainted, she wanted me to pass out into the plate of cookies so she wouldn’t have to pick me off the floor.

Happy Hallowe'en!

The Debate I Wish I'd See

I wish I'd see McCain and Obama in a cafeteria debating for middle scholars. They could explain how they believed that their intended policies would affect these children in 20 years. Including Sarah Palin's children, and Barack Obama's.

I wish I'd hear them explain how the federal government will repay its 2008 fiscal year deficit of $455 billion (up from $162 billion in fiscal year 2007). If the government does not intend to repay it, then Obama and McCain had better justify the red ink to their creditors.

More about debates.

Surveys in the Big Box

I have long thought that it would be cool to work for the Census department. For some reason I have been lucky enough to answer the long form once. I have also lived in an apartment with a special longitudinal census. For that census they asked me everything: how big were the cracks on my walls, how far did I live from public transportation, did my toilet flush most of the time?

The idea of collecting and aggregating so much information fascinates me.

That's why I was really looking forward to yesterday. In the past I have enjoyed conducting consumer research. You go to a retail outlet and promise a consumer some incentive if they will answer your questions. People like free gifts, and they like talking about themselves. I like listening.

In reality, yesterday was not amusing. I worked at a big box store. Even though I wore orthopedic shoes, the concrete was very hard on my feet; the shoppers were uncomfortable, too. The survey did not take 10 minutes the way the company promised. It was closer to 20. The company wanted pictures of shoppers, too, but at the end of the surveys I was too embarrassed to ask.

It was a concrete lesson in keeping surveys to the bare minimum. Sure, when you're sitting in the office and thinking about all the things you would like to know from consumers, it's easy to let your imagination run away with you. Don't let it.

I am sure of one thing: no one who took my survey yesterday will ever consent to take another one in the big box store.

Semantic Stretch

I have written here before about how exasperated I feel when people overuse a term, wringing all the meaning out of it before handing it back, limp, to the people who originally coined it.

Now I have learned that there is a term for that. It's called "semantic stretch." Authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath included it in their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

Semantic stretch has encouraged a lively debate about the use of four-letter functionals in Churchmarketingsucks.org.

McCain on Fannie Mae

I caught the early parts of the presidential debate last night.

Because it was a town hall style debate, ordinary people from the audience posed questions. One ordinary person was Oliver Clark.

McCain speculated that Clark had never heard of Fannie Mae nor Freddie Mac before the financial crisis. Did McCain think that Clark had never bought a house nor taken a student loan, nor had a relative who worked in real estate? McCain patronized Clark.

But it was even odder that McCain said that buying up bad loans would help Alan stay in his home. Alan wasn't the one who asked the question. Oliver was. Was it coincidence that Alan was Caucasian and Oliver wasn't?

Thanks to CNN.com for transcript below:

Clark:

Well, Senators, through this economic crisis, most of the people that I know have had a difficult time. And through this bailout package, I was wondering what it is that's going to actually help those people out.

McCain:

....But you know, one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis.....That's why we're going to have to go out into the housing market and we're going to have to buy up these bad loans and we're going to have to stabilize home values, and that way, Americans, like Alan, can realize the American dream and stay in their home.

New Media for the Over-40s

Although I would have preferred a less sacrilegious title, I recommend that you read Tynan's Anger on the difference between what Gen X and Gen Y expects of new media and blogs.

No SAT Words, Please

Yesterday I fielded a request to write my web content for the "lowest common denominator." This was a response to some copy that included two-syllable words that a high-school junior should reasonably expect to encounter on the SAT.

The request reminded me of my early career, communicating with corporate headquarters in Paris and with steel mills in "Province" (a region I sought vainly on my map of France and finally concluded was anywhere that was not Paris.)

My colleagues in Paris tended to use the informal "tu." Their sentence structures were clipped, rather American. My colleagues at the mills, on the other hand, used the formal "vous." Moreover they wrote long, flowery faxes and emails that ended with lovely phrases like, "Please accept, Madame, my most distinguished salutations."

Because of the time difference and my own halting French, I preferred to write to them rather than to telephone. I soon learned that I could make my point more effectively if I larded my prose with respectful "Madame"s and "Monsieur"s. Instead of pegging me as a brash and illiterate American asking for yet another favor (such as being sure to ship before the Great Lakes closed), the language I used made it easier for them to give me what I wanted.

I hit the goldmine one day when I found a French-English dictionary published in 1912. It oozed with the unctuous greetings I needed to go toe-to-toe with my French counterparts.

I still have that dictionary. It reminds me that different vocabularies suit different populations. Some readers appreciate and respond well to SAT words.

30 Power Words that Sell by Hogan

Advantage
Save
Benefit
Security
Comfort
Trust
Results
Value
Exciting
Deserve
Fun
Guarantee
Free
Love
Right
Powerful
Improved
Discovery
Investment
Happy
Joy
Money
Safety
Vital
Proud
Easy
New
Proven
Health
Profit
Truth
You

I forgot to write down the title of the book I copied this from, or I would attribute it. Whenever I'm writing copy but I feel stuck, I check this list. Then I feel the power, too!

What Scheherazade Did

Thanks to my colleagues for visiting my blog. Please leave me a comment and I will tell you what Scheherazade did.

Edward Tufte and I...(2)

"No!" Edward Tufte snapped. "That's patronizing."

I had just suggested that despite his despite of PowerPoint, it might have its place, in reaching out to the illiterate and dyslexic. Tufte is quite literate himself. Any array of fewer than 100 figures he prefers to lay out in a simple table in Gill Sans, no rules, and let readers find the information they want. He relies on readers to find their information without fancy graphics.

But what if the reader can't read?

"They can read the sports pages, can't they?" Tufte said. I submit that non-readers do not read the sports pages, nor anything else. They consume their sports on television.

I still marvel that I talked to Tufte at all. His courses last Thursday and Friday in New York were sold out. I counted about 500 people on Thursday. He had no time for questions from the floor. Instead, he made himself available during lunch hour, when he surely would have preferred to eat, for "office hours."

I didn't convince Tufte, but my failure did not halt my train of thought. Susan Pinker writes that 8% of all males have dyslexia.

Two out of every three high school dropouts are male, and many of these dropouts
have learning disabilities, of which dyslexia is the most common.

Pinker writes in The Sexual Paradox (Scribner, 2008). This book pulled together subjects I had been musing over for a long time. Why are males more fragile? Why are more of them subject to autism-spectrum disorders? Why do more of them battle with psychosis?

I once worked with blue collar workers--men, to a one. When the rep from the 401(K) program visited to explain our benefits, he read the booklet to us, every word. I know that the men I worked with were intelligent, capable of installing complex systems. But I suspected that some of them could not read.

Tufte, meet Pinker. There may be a place for PowerPoint and speeches, even if literate people can read two or three times faster than they can process spoken speech. Not everyone is literate.

Mea culpa: in my last posting about Tufte I asked who could forget his graphic about Napoleon’s troops retreating from Moscow? I obviously remembered the graphic, but had forgotten that Tufte did not design it. It was laid out by Charles Joseph Minard.

Diskclean My Brain

Maybe if I can figure out a way to erase useless knowledge and defrag my brain, I can finally actually remember how to take screen shots.

Here is some of the information I will be happy to sacrifice:

slide rules--at one of my first jobs I told a co-worker, only a few years younger than me, that my husband was in the last class at his school that used slide rules. "Katharine," my co-worker said, "what's a slide rule?"

carriage returns--fast forward 20 years. I was explaining to another co-worker how to execute some command. "Hit carriage return," I said. Her blank stare was a bleak reminder of how much of what I learned in my youth is now clogging my brain.

shave and a haircut--yesterday I tried again to explain to yet another co-worker how clever my tag line was, pointing out that her product costs six bits a week. "I don't get it," she said. Okay, I understand that many people do not know that a bit is 12.5 cents, but the well-educated men on whom I have tested the line find it quite droll. So I explained about pieces of eight adding up to a dollar. "I know that, I know that," she said.

Finally, the light dawned. "Have you never heard the song Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits?" I asked. The line depends on the song.

She never had. All I can say is that the loss of a common culture makes life a lot harder for marketers.

Edward Tufte and I...

You know how when the radio station has a contest, no one who has won a contest in the last 30 days is allowed to participate?

I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations has run out on the Wetpaint.com website design contest I won in 2006. Today I learned that I have won an all day course with Edward Tufte, the man who wrote The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

Although the people at The Hired Guns have never yet found me a job, they do occasionally announce intriguing contests. I won the two above thanks to their email bulletins.

I have admired Tufte's work ever since my ex asked for it after seeing it advertised in Scientific American. Who could forget Tufte's eloquent graph of Napoleon's troops dying en route back from Russia?

I look forward to learning how to present my own information more compellingly. Please look for more information over the weekend.

Trusted Internet

I hate to tell this story. It dates me.

When I returned to college after a year off I went to the Comp Sci department and asked if I could, pretty please, have an account on the internet.

“No!” the administrator objected, horrified. “The internet isn’t for civilians!”

I am so old that when I was in college every cable company, telephone company and public library was not offering hot and cold running internet access. You couldn’t duck into Starbucks and Twitter with your latte. Yes, there was an internet, but to get on it you had to go through channels.

In those days the people used the internet because they needed it to communicate about their real jobs. Their real jobs were not about defrauding people, or even day trading. These people had posters of Unix shells on their office walls, and more technical knowledge than I will ever have. They all achieved internet access by passing a gatekeeper.

In those days I did not receive emails offering to enlarge or decrease my body parts. No one in Africa sent me blessings nor offered to share their trust funds with me. In those days the gatekeeper of whatever tiny community granted the internet access would have yanked their privileges.

Now the internet is so vast that there could never be enough gatekeepers to supervise its traffic. Instead of human administrators we rely on secure socket layers to keep our information safe, and to assure us that our interlocutors have been vetted by someone. But as Melih Abdulhayoglu points out, the internet is rife with fraudsters. His dream is for everyone on the internet to have an SSL certificate. Businesses should have extended validation certificates, showing their bona fides, like officers carrying their commissions into battle, to prove that they were who they said their were.

I just need to point out that secure sockets are great, but we still need to use our heads.

In 1984 Larry Pournelle sent a spam on the baby internet, something about a science fiction book. He entered a command wrong, and I received 100 copies of that email. So did all the programmers in Birkenstocks, who universally derided him. They did not want their meager bandwidth clogged by spam, however inadvertent.

Yesterday I read that United’s stock had taken a bath because someone with a short attention span had posted a story about United Bankruptcy filing to Bloomberg News. The people who read it must have had short attention spans, too, because instead of reading the dateline, they started issuing “sell” orders. Had they read the dateline they would have realized that the story was six years old.

The internet magnifies. Mistakes and fraud both travel swiftly and widely. I’m all in favor of enhancing internet security, but we must accompany that security with critical faculties. Even if we trust, we still have to verify.

Website Intimacy

I write this as I wait for the Liquid Paper on my day planner to dry.

The many organizational books I read say to put all your dates onto one calendar and use only that one. This is great in theory, but I really do not want to lug a calendar to church reminding me that I need to send a press release to PCWorld two months hence.

I have not yet found the perfect calendar, but I am happy to share with you my comments on two I really like, grid calendars and day planners.

Grid Calendars, not just for families and more
I used to take my grid calendar to the park and fill it out during football practice. Parents would stop and say, "I need something like that! Where did you get it?"

The beauty of the grid calendar is that the dates run along the y-axis, and along the x-axis. It has four or five columns, one for each family member. Each person reading the calendar has a special personal column, showing his or her appointments.

Workman
The Sandra Boynton version from Workman is widely available. One flaw: the first column is labeled "Mom." The problem with that is, what if I want to use the calendar in the office? The second is that although last year I resolved to stop giving calendars to my ex, I still do. Even if I still wanted to emasculate him, I would not do it by giving him a calendar that called him "Mom."

Portal
I prefer Portal's grid calendars to Workman's because Portal's grids are larger and their design is subtler. The calendar hangs on my wall after all. I don't want my guests to see dancing hippos. I prefer the muted flowers on the 2002 Portal calendar, the latest version I have. Portal calendars are harder to find in stores. I’m not quite sure they still sell them because you cannot see them online unless you log in to Portal's site?? More on that in a moment.

Day Planners
The Franklin Covey people suggest color coding your day planner to get the best use out of it. Umm....

Apparently, I don't get the best possible use out of my day planner, but I do rely on it. And every year about now I ask myself, "Do I want to spend $25-40 on new planner inserts, or is there a better calendar for me?"

This year when I had to replace my cell phone I tried ordering a BlackBerry, but my carrier would not give me a BlackBerry unless I upgraded my plan to the mobile internet. All I wanted was the darned calendar, but I didn't want it that badly.

I had waited long enough, though. 2009 dates dangled over my head. Yesterday was a rough day and I deserved a treat. So at lunchtime I bought what the office supply store had in stock: the 2009 Day-Timers planner inserts. Woo-hoo, Katharine! Live large!

Now I'm sorry I passed over the $40 Franklin Covey inserts when I first saw them. Franklin Covey is better than Day-timers for two reasons:

Franklin Covey pages are 1/2 inch wider than Day-Timers. You hold the inserts in 6-ring binders. The closer the hand moves to the binder rings, the harder it is to write neatly, so you miss the sacrificed 1/2 inch. (And no, I am not so tidy that I would take the page out of the binder so I can write “Sue-sewing machine” on the task list.)

The Day-Timer pages are infinitesimally thicker. The binder can only fit so many pages, so if I can’t fit in as many pages, I can’t plan so far ahead.

One reason the Day-Timer inserts are cheaper than the Franklin Covey is that the Franklin Covey ones include month-at-a-glance pages with tabs. I happened to have a spare set of Franklin Covey undated month-at-a-glance pages. I decided to use those.

Is there some reason Franklin Covey offers undated pages? I can buy them really cheaply on eBay. I would buy them, if only I didn’t dislike dating my own calendar. I suspect that the reason Franklin Covey sells them has something to do with the fact that Franklin Covey is based in Salt Lake City.

I understand that the LDS are supposed to keep a year’s supply of provisions on hand, for what cataclysm I don’t know. But if there should be a cataclysm, and if no one knows the day or hour, then the survivors will be very glad to have a calendar next to their year’s supply of modest underwear and paper towels.

Since I already had the month-at-glance calendar and I am not saving it up for the end times, I decided to date it myself and use it. Unfortunately, in an undercaffeinated state I copied the dates for April 2009 into the May spread. (Obviously, were I a Mormon, this would not have been a problem.)

Hence the Liquid Paper.

At last, the coffee
I rely on my daily planner, and I rely on my daily coffee.

Yesterday, though, I had a problem with the coffee. I tried to open a new bag, but the adhesive was stronger than the bag. The glue held; I ripped the bag in two places; coffee beans flew all over.

I like Eight-o-clock coffee. It smells good, and it reminds me of grocery shopping with my mother as a girl. I thought the folks at A&P might want to know that consumers were having a problem with their packaging.

I visited the Eight-o-clock Coffee site (the URL was right on the bag.) I clicked on “contact.” And here’s where I started to get peeved. They required me to enter my name and address. They required me to double-enter my email address, just so I could send them a heads-up.

A&P already has too much information about me thanks to my loyal shopper card. I was not about to enter myself into yet another database.

So I cut the product information off the bottom of the bag and mailed it to them with an anonymous note.

Here is where I think A&P and Portal misuse the internet: the internet is great at putting information into customer’s hands right when they want it.

When I opened my coffee bag it was 5 a.m. I doubt that if I had been motivated to call, anyone would have been there to answer. Maybe in the old days I would have written them a letter, but probably not (no full address on the bag). So they would never have known about this potential problem.

Before the internet, I might have called or written to Portal, asking them for their calendar catalog. They would have paid to print and mail it. And by the time I received it I might have lost interest in this subject, and tossed it in the recycling.

As it was, I found both sites right away. I was ready to interact with them on the spot. In Portal’s case, I would have put a link from the blog right to their calendars. They both lost me by “requiring” too much information. I can’t be the only person around who would rather use a .42 stamp than include themselves on one more database.

At least, I hope not.

Bob Parsons' Comments

Picking domain names is so much fun, all for less than the price of a new pair of shoes.

I just enjoyed watching Bob Parsons' video blog about Top 10 Tips for Picking a Domain Name. I think you will enjoy it, too.

News Wh... er, Hound

I have a new job, in Jersey City. I take the train to it. This is the perfect opportunity to read the morning paper, and when I am done with the paper I put it in the recycling bin at Hoboken Station. So much less paper to bundle up on recycling day--great!

Unfortunately, it only takes me about half the train ride to read the Star-Ledger. So now I am a news who... er, hound.

When I board the train, I scan the seats for commuters with large stacks of riffled newspapers beside them. I'm picky--I want the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, not the Star-Ledger or the Daily News. "Oh, is this your paper?" I ask my seatmate.

"Sure, you can read it."

The Star-Ledger costs about 1/4 the price of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, so I don't expect as much. I know that the Ledger is having financial problems. They recently cut out Diesel Sweeties (don't miss it) and Miss Manners (do). What I don't get is why their national and international coverage is so much less readable than the Times's or the Journal's. I read for days about Russia's incursion into Ossetia before I thought I understood what was going on. (And for the record, I majored in economics and political science.)

Where the Star-Ledger excels is in covering New Jersey. Makes sense. Maybe the editors think that anyone really interested in life outside New Jersey will also read the bigger papers? But yesterday two of the big front page articles were about parks in western New Jersey, and the death of a Perth Amboy police officer. I had to go to page four to learn that President Bush and Nouri Al-Maliki were discussing a pullout of US troops from Iraq by 2011.

Now maybe the insignificant position of the article and the analysis were the editors' way of pointing out that whatever President Bush negotiates, our new president will likely renegotiate it in 2009. That's fine. But then shouldn't the editors say so on the op-ed page?

I'll keep looking for answers. Sometimes you may find me bereft of reading material, with the other gold-diggers at the recycling bin outside track 17.

Craigslist Boot Camp

I am always glad to meet polite, purposeful young men. I met a 14-year-old at the Craigslist Boot Camp for Non-Profits on Saturday. He waited patiently for his sister to finish her one-on-one consultation with an expert to learn about funding her start-up non-profit enterprise.

He and I discussed whether the boot camp would be suitable for other 14-year-olds. His opinion: yes. Especially if they were planning to be Eagle or Gold Scouts. As you might expect, though, most attendees were in their 20s and up.

At the boot camp I participated in three breakout sessions:

• Branding
• Low- and No-cost Technology for Non-profits (please check the podcast when it comes out; some of my suggestions are included)
• Social Networking

I am particularly happy to have made contact with grassroots.org. Their volunteers design websites for non-profits. I have the URL already for my choir website. I sure would be glad to let them take over the design.

Finally, it really is a small world. At the boot camp I was surprised to run into Ron, a co-worker at my brand-new job, and Lina, an alumna of my high school (Emma Willard).

At the Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp I learned and I networked. I'm glad I went; I hope next time I go I will meet some of you.

Labor Day Challenge

A challenge to writers: can you write a novel in three days? Over Labor Day weekend I plan to participate once again in the 3-day novel contest. Last year I wrote a 99-page double spaced novel. Perhaps it wasn't the most riveting of oeuvres, but I'm happy to say that I finished it and that it had a character arc.

Hope some of you will join me in this endeavor.

Avatar Voiceovers

Want to add video to your site at a fraction of the expense? Consider using avatars, animated GIF cartoon characters who move their mouths at the same time as your words (more or less). I had fun adding one to my website. Sometimes people tell me that I would do great voiceovers. After hearing myself on the recording, I'm not so sure.

Contesting Cybersquatters

An article in this week's NJBiz reminds us to keep domain names short and sweet. Obviously, the fewer characters in your domain name, the less opportunity you give your visitors to misspell it.

The ideal domain name is your brief and easy-to-spell company name, without any information about its legal structure, with a .com extension. For example, I was once involved with a software company called Adox Incorporated. For us, the perfect URL would have been Adox.com--short, and phonetic. Unfortunately, that name was already in use, by Adox Fotowerke, founded in 1860. Both the software company and the photo chemical company could claim the right to use the name. My company took the URL adoxinc.com, which was less than perfect. (Although I now see that Adox.com is not being used--Andrew, what a fabulous bidding opportunity for you.)

But what if instead of two Adoxes, we had Larry's Surly Bakery squatting on JoesFriendlyBakery.com as I posited last week? A loyal reader has pointed out that all is not lost. There is a way to contest cybersquatters. ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) will hear cases like this--but only if Joe's Friendly Bakery has already trademarked or service marked his name.

My point is still that it is much easier to register your domain before you need it and before someone else grabs it.

The NJBiz article also suggests registering common misspellings of your URL. One day soon I will buy the rights to katherinehadow.com, katherinehaddow.com, and so on. It's a low-priority task at the moment, because I'm not worried that someone else will try to capitalize on my good name. Yet.

Not Suitable For Children

My neighbors asked their neighbors whether they should allow their young daughter to visit the WorldVision Experience AIDS exhibit. The neighbors' neighbors happen to belong to the church sponsoring the exhibit. They said that the exhibit was Not Suitable For Children.

Parents of small children, note that on the first evening of the installation, they did offer a program for young ones. If you would like to take an elementary school student or younger, please ask in advance if they will offer a modified program in your city.

Real AK-47

Considering the time and money the Presbyterian Church at New Providence has spent publicizing the World Vision Experience: AIDS exhibit, I was disappointed by how few people attended last night. I hope that when I go back the front-page article in the TwoDays section of this morning's Star-Ledger will galvanize the public.

The only way WorldVision could have made the experience more authentic would have been to hand me a ticket to sub-Saharan Africa. Or at least a bowl of groundnut stew. I knew I had arrived when I heard the drummers playing and singing by the side of the road. Once I got to the tent, a volunteer handed me an iPod.

Each iPod is loaded with a story about a child living in a country battling AIDS. Depending on which narrative you receive, you walk through different chambers with artifacts representing that child's life. Mine included an AK-47 for a Ugandan child kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army. I was encouraged to sit or lie down on his cheap foam bedding, but it was too small for me. The place smelled of sisal. The sound effects included rheumy coughs. Considering that this exhibit must be portable enough to travel to 15 cities before the end of October, it is a marvel of interactivity.

I invited my neighbors to go back with me. They worried that it might be too graphic for their daughter, a tween. Yes, when I thought about it, the narrative did mention girls as young as eight turned into sex slaves. But, and this is a question I cannot answer for them, how vigorously and how long can they defend her innocence? Aren't the suffering African girls children, too?

When I go back I will ask if there is a narrative more appropriate to young children. If they say yes, I will post it here.

World Vision Experience: AIDS
Presbyterian Church at New Providence
1307 Springfield Avenue, New Providence, NJ
7/26 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
7/27 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

There are many ways to help. My own church has actively supported the Good Shepherd Home in Bamenda, Cameroon, for years. Before we can help, though, we have to understand the problem. WorldVision has done a superior job in promoting understanding through all the senses.

I Don't Need a Website

Not everybody can hop in the car and cruise down the highway to the big-box store. I am lucky to live in a community where children, senior citizens and disabled people can walk to local merchants. Even if patronizing local businesses were not so convenient, this would be a good reason to support them.

Small business owners are busy keeping afloat. Some of my favorites tell me they do not want to worry about websites, which they probably believe are time-consuming and expensive.

If they do nothing else, I urge them to register a domain. What a shame it would be if Jim's Friendly Bakery finally decided that it wanted to build a site called JimsFriendlyBakery.com, but someone else had already taken the name. Even worse, what if Larrys Surly Bakery next door took the name, and used it to redirect visitors to its own website? More about registering domains on my website.

It's Alive--eHow.com

I waited until my articles went live to announce that I now write freelance articles for eHow.com. My "how-to" articles range from How to Write a One-Page Brochure to How to Learn to Fly a Plane in New Jersey. I got a special chuckle when I told a business editor that I had written an article called How to Catch Worms for Fishing. "Did you write that from your own experience?" he shuddered.

How else?

Evangelism II

Returning to what I wrote about evangelism on July 1, it occurs to me that perhaps gurus and pundits also feel annoyed when we use their titles out of context.

Popups and popunders

Here's a direct mail challenge: send mail to boys at summer camp every day for a week. Mailing pieces must be brief, if recipients not avid readers, unsentimental, preferably humorous. If you don't feel like going to the post office for a weigh in every day, must fit in #10 envelope and weigh less than 2 ounces. No candy allowed. Ah, and did I mention that you must begin mailing four days before the camper even boards the bus?

One year I thought I distinguished myself with a series of cartoon postcards depicting what said camper was doing every day at camp. Said camper informs me that he did not in fact appreciate these miniature works of art.

This year I took a shortcut and looked on the internet for camping jokes. Usually I search for things like "material handling systems" or "apply for DUNS number." These webmasters know that I am not there for fun. I need the information they provide. Their sites make no desperate bids for my attention (if they make any at all).

This search was a new experience for me. Try this yourself: go to Google and enter "camp jokes" in the window. The quantity of popups on the sites I found flabbergasted me.

Pity the poor maligned engineer who invented popups, probably in answer to a real problem. Some popups are blessings. I am grateful for a popup telling me "System going down in five minutes; please save your work".

It all changed, though, the day the first salesperson saw a popup and said, "Wow! I can use this device to put my message right under the user's nose! It won't go away until the user clicks on the little x! Hey, we can get the programmers to put lots of these on our website!"

"But-" the programmer sputtered. "Popups are for emergencies!"

"Yeah, and it'll be an emergency for you if we outsource your job to Bangalore."

And popunders do not even pretend to carry important messages. You just look down at your screen and realize that you suddenly have eleven open windows. No wonder your screen refreshes so slowly.

I am pleased to say that Google agrees with me about pop-ups. Apparently they find them as intrusive as I do. Which is why you will never find pop-ups on this site, other than the fact that Google hosts Blogspot, and I do not know how to program pop-ups. Yet.

CraigsList Foundation Boot Camp

Does anyone want to join me at the CraigsList Foundation Non-Profit Boot Camp on August 16 in New York? I want to learn more about social entrepreneurship and big ideas for non-profits.

Wetpaint Has Winner

The Wetpaint.com Millionth Site contest that I announced on June 24 has a winner. Even though you are no longer eligible for the carbon offset prize, I still recommend going there if you want to learn to set up a site.

Just Say No to Flash

I remember when CPU time was so precious that researchers at Stanford and Berkeley had to eke it out on shared servers. Now I marvel that I can carry a gig around in my pocket. A terabyte if I wear cargo pants.

Still I’m shocked when a site tells me that it has to install Flash or ActiveX. Usually I navigate away. I have a modest computer. I try not to store much on it. If I allow you to install QuickTime or Flash or ActiveX, I might have to give something up, either speed or memory.

I don’t want to sacrifice space on my computer so that some kid fresh out of college can show off what she learned in programming class. Don’t ask me to slow down my computer so that your site performs better.

But, hey, I’m the woman who refuses to carry a drugstore discount card. I refuse to make my wallet fatter so the store can track my purchases. (Sometimes I give them my ex-husband’s phone number if I’m buying lipstick and hygiene products, just to confuse Big Brother.)

If you’re marketing to me, don’t ask me to inconvenience myself on your behalf.

AdWatch--yikes!

Yesterday I installed AdAware. Twice. Lavasoft no longer supports my free copy of AdAware SE, so they urged me to update. When I got to the update screen, they offered me either (1) a free copy of AdAware SE or (2) a free copy of AdAware Plus if I took a free trial product from TrialPay.

It took me a long time, because I didn’t really want any of the free products. I really did want the AdAware Plus because for reasons we do not need to go into here, I no longer had a working copy of VirusScan.

So I downloaded my free copy of AdAware Plus, and I clicked on AdWatch, which was billed as a real time security program, sitting quietly in the background, making note of potential problems.

After running AdAware I started my browser, and AdWatch started nagging. “Iexplore.exe is trying to make changes to” (inscrutable file name here). “Allow or block?”

“Holy cow!” I said! “I must have a terrible virus problem if AdWatch is bringing it to my attention right away!” But then I concluded that iexplore.exe was probably Internet Explorer, the very application I was trying to run, and I allowed it to continue. There were three questions like that, to which I trepidatiously responded, “Allow.”

AdWatch continued its menacing litany. “Qtask.exe is trying to make changes to” (inscrutable file name). My eyes narrowed. I hadn’t started any application that began with a “Q.”
“Block,” I commanded.
“Qtask.exe is trying to make changes,” it insisted. I wish the CIA had been so dogged in the summer of 2001.
“Block,” I repeated sternly.
“Qtask is—“ it warned.
“Block.”
“Qtask—“
“Block.”
“Q—“
“Block.”

I didn’t get the second lowest score in my Pascal class for nothing. Eventually I figured that I was embroiled in an infinite recursion.
“Allow,” I said wearily.

Was AdWatch worth it? I looked up the reviews, praising its silent sentry duty. Maybe other users enjoy the security of knowing that AdWatch will slay intruders in their tracks. Maybe others don’t mind micromanaging their computers. I did, and I resented it.

But what was qtask? I looked that up, too. It was a program called QuickTime. Aha! It had something to do with iTunes. Why was it coming up at startup and refusing to be swatted down?

Once I logged on to the sites I needed to visit, AdWatch did not obtrude. But when I started logging off again and closing tabs, AdWatch went wild. At one point I had 29 notifications stacked one above another. AdWatch, I resolved, had to go.

I was a woman on a mission. I went to “add or remove programs,” determined to root out AdWatch forever. But AdWatch and AdAware were so tightly bound together that I could not cleave one from the other. I would have to remove the whole thing and reinstall it, which I eventually did.

I took my speedy revenge on QuickTime, though, and I haven’t missed it yet.

Evangelism

I remember the polite, quizzical looks on my audience's face when the Summit Old Guard welcomed me as a guest speaker in 2004. My introductory speech presented me as the "evangelist" for my church, and they weren't quite sure what that meant.

I felt more comfortable saying that I was an "evangelist" in that context than that I "marketed" my church. "Marketing" has an air of manipulation. Who wants to be manipulated into a house of worship?

Now, with social networking, "evangelists" are a dime a dozen. I just hope they don't give the original evangelism an unsavory name.

Enhance Persuasion

Never need to convince your child to do the laundry? Never need to beg your boss for a raise? Then you do not need to read Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive.

The rest of us mortals will read raptly, from Why should restaurants ditch their baskets of mints? through Who is the better persuader? Devil's advocate or true dissenter? to How can you package your message to ensure it keeps going, and going, and going?

Each of the 50 principles is based on psychological studies, and each fascinates.

Even the epilogue is satisfying, with a dramatic description of the results of unprincipled behavior.

(A)lthough the dishonest use of persuasion strategies may occasionally work in the short run...the long-term consequences to one's reputation are dire

See more information about authors Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin and Robert B. Cialdini at their website. You can also order the book there, and subscribe to their monthly newsletter.

I look forward to your comments on this book.

$500 Carbon Offset Package for Wiki Site

If you create the millionth wiki site on Wetpaint.com, you will win a $500 value carbon offset package. If you mention me as your referrer when you sign up, so will I.

I often recommend Wetpaint.com as a great way for people to learn to create a website. You use their templates to create the site. You can create a very simple site if you use commands similar to composing an email. If you enjoy it as much as I do, you will soon teach yourself to dress it up, adding pictures, sound clips and fancy formatting.

You can't beat the price--it's free. I gained my confidence by creating a Wetpaint.com website. Every skill I acquired, I have used later in creating other sites. (And I still use the iPod I won in their website design contest.) I have now created three Wetpaint.com sites. This is my favorite.)

Here is the fine print on the prize:
ABOUT THE THANK-YOU PACKAGES: Wetpaint will offset the approximate annual emissions of the average U.S. home (25,210 lbs. of CO2), the average U.S. vehicle (8,403 lbs. of CO2), and 50,419 lbs.of CO2 of emissions of the organization of choice of the millionth site creator and referrer, if eligible, for a total value of $500 per package. Applying offsets to be provided by Terrapass.

More information

If you want to start a site, but you have questions about how to do it, I will be happy to help you.

What Does Copyright Abuse Say about an Organization?

When I find a potential business opportunity, I check out the organization's website. If I can't find it, that certainly says something.

But if I find their website and they cite press references, I check them. And I look for a "reprinted by permission..." note at the bottom. If I do not find a permission notice, that says something else. If the site violates copyright, they warn me instantly that I do not want to do business with them. If they do not respect the work of the publisher or writer who broadcast the information to begin with, I doubt they will respect mine.

Starfish

I neglected to mention that Lloyd caught a starfish. I've lived in New Jersey since 1989 but I have never seen one here before.

No Warden, No Revenue

When did NJ raise the size limit for fluke? Last time we went surf fishing (2006) it was 12", or a one-year-old fluke. We measured the 2 fluke we caught at 12". The game warden at the ramp, on the other hand, said they were undersized and stuck Lloyd with a hefty fine.

Yesterday the handout at the landing said that the new size limit was 18", or over three years old. We were not the only consternated anglers. Lloyd caught two beauties, one about 13" and the other 16", but he threw them back. People on neighboring boats were not so scrupulous, putting plenty of 12"ers into their live wells. Why wasn't the zealous warden fining them?

Attn, Governor Corzine: if you want to increase revenue or protect a commercially important finfish by raising the size limit and then fining people, you have to post a warden at the ramp to inspect their catches.

Fortunately, there are no limits for bluefish. Lloyd caught a 22" beauty and three others. They were delicious on the grill last night. Today I made a bouillabaisse of the sea robins and the dogfish.

With New Jersey's budget cutbacks, we are thankful that the Leonardo State Marina was open at all.

Would You Buy?

“It’s okay to refill your empty water bottle,” said Craig Zucker. Zucker, a New Yorker, is the president of Tap'dNY™, a bottled water company.

“In fact, it’s better than okay. Bottles do not need to be recycled immediately. At Tap'dNY we celebrate New York’s famous and refreshing water. We encourage our customers to refill our bottles at their taps.” His company makes it easier for thirsty New Yorkers to enjoy their own tap water on the go. “Don’t reduce the amount of water you drink, but do reuse your bottles and do eventually recycle them.”

Launched in 2008, Zucker’s company offers New York City municipal water purified by reverse osmosis. The process removes chlorine, fluoride and impurities. Twenty-ounce chilled bottles of Tap’dNY are available at bodegas, grocers and delis when thirst strikes suddenly.

“Use your tap when you can. Enjoy Tap'dNY when you can’t,” said Zucker.

# # #

If you saw Tap'dNY on the shelf next to the Dasani and the Aquafina, would you buy it? Comments, please.

Refer a Friend to Buy a Mercedes

Friend or relative planning to buy a new car? Refer them to Ray Catena Motors for a referral fee of $100-225. More innovatively, I see in the paper that Ray Catena Mercedes is advertising for manicurists for a new nail salon at the dealership. I love the idea of nipping in for a mani-pedi and getting an oil change at the same time.

Writing Blogs vs Books

Darren Rowse has written an interesting post today about the difference between writing a book and a blog. Rowse is the author of Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income.

By the time the link above dies I hope I will have learned to use Permalinks.

Webinars: You get what you pay for

Too bad loading my dishwasher was more interesting than this webinar:

Stories, Comics, and Manga - Oh My! Making Learning Stick For Your Audience!
Have you ever wanted to turn basic information into a more effective communication? Join a discussion with Dan Bliton to discover how storytelling strategies can channel and drive your communications and learning activities to increase audience retention and make your message stick. This event explores visual storytelling (comic books, graphic novels, and Manga) and why you should care what stories your new employees are reading (hint ? changing workforce demographics). Perspectives drawn from lessons learned in several markets and Booz Allen Hamilton?s award-winning learning organization. A take-away job aid and web site references summarize the approaches discussed and list additional resources.

A prominent software company presented this program for "free" (it wasn't exactly free since they took all my contact information and will probably be in touch with me for the rest of my life). It doesn't matter who presents the webinar, in my limited experience; they are uniformly bad. Some are worse than others.

Presenters, the webinar you broadcast today will linger for many years. Please, for the sake of attendees investing their time in your message, do at least the following:

• know your medium inside and out. This particular presentation dramatically lowered the standards for all PowerPoint users when the slides spun out of control. Several times.
• if you can't join Toastmasters, do as the Toastmasters do. Have an ah-counter listen to your speech (beforehand) and count the number of "ums," "ahs," and "you knows." Then, stop using them.

I would have counted the filler noises myself, but at 53 minutes and 51 seconds, there was no way I was listening to this presentation again.

I wish I could have my hour back so I could spend it working on HTML and CSS instead so I can communicate my own stories more effectively. For the time being, I forswear all webinars.

No Abstention Votes

Berkeley Heights Council member John Bonacci protested when Mayor David Cohen registered Bonacci's failure to vote as a "no" vote. Independent Press story.

Bonacci claimed that he had cast an "abstention" vote. Cohen cited Berkeley Heights's attorney and Robert's Rules of Order in claiming that there is no such thing.

Today is primary day in New Jersey. To the 90% of New Jersey registered voters who do not flex their political muscle in June primaries: there is no abstention vote.

Find your New Jersey polling place here.

Low-cost Marketing Resources

I got my start marketing non-profits. Organizations with worthy messages often have very little money for spreading the word. Fortunately, sometimes a good idea is more effective than a big budget. Here are some resources for non-profits looking to get some new ideas or share the ones they have.

• The CraigsList Foundation will present boot camps on August 16 in New York and October 18 in San Francisco, to educate and empower non-profit leaders.
• Google AdWords offers free AdWords campaigns to some non-profits.
• Don't forget the dedicated professionals at your local library. The Morris County (NJ) library offers free access to the Million Dollar Database from D&B.
• Look for other ideas on my website under nonprofit marketing resources

NJ Outsources to TX

I wanted a list of large companies in Morris, Essex and Union Counties. The Union County website list was 11 years old.

So I checked NJ.gov, where I did not find a list either. I found a link to "Q and A NJ live help," though . Not quite sure what that was, but ready to play along, I followed the link, which offered me a live chat with a librarian.

To my surprise, the librarian was not in New Jersey, but in a very large state in the south. I will call her "Texas Tillie."

Tillie asked me if I belonged to my local library (yes), and then she found its web site. After she scanned the online catalog she told me that the database she would have recommended (RefUSA) was not available at my library.

[Librarian 10:09:33]: RefUSA is the best I have found for creating list of businesses in the US by criteria.
[Librarian 10:10:01]: New Jersey may have directories that I am not familiar with.

Tillie said she would leave the question for follow-up by a New Jersey librarian.

I have two concerns about this
1) She was checking my local library for resources. What if I were not from a municipality that funds its library well? Would she only be able to give me "poor" answers because I came from a "poor" town?
2) Why is a librarian unfamiliar with New Jersey resources answering questions for a New Jersey resident via the official New Jersey state website? In short, why is New Jersey outsourcing to Texas? Don't we have enough librarians in New Jersey?

News pyramid

Here in New Jersey we get play-by-play coverage of the sordid McGreevey custody hearings. Only by accident did I chance upon a brief in the Star-Ledger this morning about Nepal planning to depose its monarch, King Gyanendra.

I've been divorced. I am as titillated as anyone else to see how low Jim 'n' Dina can sink. But that should be the fats and sugars in my news pyramid, to be consumed sparingly.

The mainstay of my news diet, the vegetables and whole grains, should be events that concern 29 million people at a time, even if they live halfway around the world from me and are desperately poor.

Paris 'n' Britney are the trans fats. They clog the arteries of my brains.

For more information about Nepal, please visit the Friends of Nepal-New Jersey website.

BBQ with NSAIDs

A bike ride would be a great way to improve my cardiovascular fitness, I thought. So yesterday Lloyd and I rode through the Great Swamp.

Until the last hill I felt powerful and fit. I communed with nature, reveling in the scent of the haymow, and spotting a red fox. My own cries clashed with the the bird songs, however, when I wiped out descending the Third Watchung Ridge along Fairmount Avenue heading down to River Road in Chatham Township.

Thank God I wore a helmet or I would have serious road rash on my face(!) I enjoyed Lloyd's savory Memorial Day barbecue with generous portions of aspirin and Tylenol.

Today's proud accomplishment

When I learned to type, there was one way to alter the font: clean the keys with kneaded rubber.

Please visit my latest DIY project: my husband's website. Sometime soon I will add his resume, but for now I need to go pluck the gray hairs I sprouted during the hand coding and FTP processes.

Thanks to Elizabeth Castro. Without her book HTML, XHTML & CSS I could not have done it.

Pickypedia

As a marketing communications professional, I am always interested to learn how to get more people to see the message. On the internet, one way to improve that chance is to climb to the top of the search engine pages.

Giving myself a break from teaching myself HTML, I thought I would toss together a page about my church on Wikipedia. How much would a link from a huge website like Wikipedia improve my church's PageRank, so that more people would find the church?

Ha! You don't quickly assemble a Wikipedia page, I learned. It took me several hours, during which time I fretted that Wikipedia's editors would toss out my work. Wikipedia has standards. It wants to be an objective encyclopedia, not a forum for organizations to promote themselves.

The organization must be notable in some way. Fortunately, my church has some architecturally significant windows, and photos of the same. So my article discusses the granite and glass, but not the fellowship and spiritual support that I find there.

As much as the Wikipedia article leaves out, if it helps one person find the church and provokes him or her to visit, I have done a good thing.

He said it was 12 inches!

New Jersey boasts 127 miles of sandy white shoreline--and very efficient game wardens!

When he's not complaining about the wascally wabbits in his vegetable garden, my husband takes us out fishing in his boat, the Goldenbrow. Passing Gunnison Beach is a thrill for curious teenagers with binoculars.

Gotterdammerung for the blogosphere

I deliberate. When I decide to see a movie, it's already out on DVD. When I buy a sweater set, the cool people have already donated theirs to the thrift shop.

When I start to blog, blogging is clearly over. Sorry.

Thanks for visiting!