“You don’t need eyes to see, you need vision” – Faithless

I was going to lead this post with some tired Shakespeare quote about roses, but frankly, that quote gets too much pub as it is, and I wanted to differentiate this entry from the myriad of other entries on naming.  Just as the branding company Igor does with their naming guide Building the Perfect Beast.  I mean talk about a great name for naming, Building the Perfect Beast. Right at the heart of it, I feel intrigued, and interested.

So let’s look at the contents of Building the Perfect Beast, and see if it holds up to the naming strategies outlined by Igor.  So there are 6 steps to Name creations per the Igor process, and there are 3 ways to evaluate the names that are developed.  Hmm, sounds a bit sketch already, but lets give them some run, because if a formula can come up with the names Igor and Building the Perfect Beast, there might be something to it.

Step 1 Cut a hole in a box Competitive Analysis

Ok, so what are the Building the Perfect Beast competitors?  Simple Google search on naming guide produced

• Baby Name Guide Not a competitor clearly
• Business Name Guide  from a site called BusinessNameGuide.com
• Product Naming Guide looked like a competitor until I clicked in and found it was an analytics company recently acquired by IBM

Step 2 Positioning

So how does Building the Perfect Beast position Igor’s thought leadership?  I think we’ve got a couple of great things here.  First is the word “perfect” which denotes that what this guide will do for you is create something that is exactly what you want.  The second is the word “beast” meaning that you are creating something living and breathing, and connotes something that may be pissed off and ready to kick a little ass.  Isn’t this what you want with your company name?  Finally, I’ll touch on the first word “building”, which indicates there should be a process here, that one creates by putting things together constructively.  Now contrast that with the positioning of Business Name Guide.  While Business Name Guide certainly lets you know right away what its about, I want to pick it up and read it about as much as I want to pick up the manual to my camera.

Step 3 Name/Brand Development

Igor breaks down Names into four fundamental types

1. Functional / Descriptive Names  (Subway, International Business Machines)
2. Invented Names (Verizon, Accenture)
3. Experiential Names (Navigator, Safari, Explorer)
4. Evocative Names (Yahoo, Virgin, Apple)

To Igor, the distinction between Functional and Experiential is the emphasis on the consumer’s human experience not on what the product or company does.  Per Igor, the further distinction between Evocative and Experiential, is that it evokes the underlying positioning.  This delineation is flimsily explained here, but I think they do a better job in the name evaluation process to fully bake this out. I will say that Igor is a much more evocative name that businessnameguide.com.

Step 4 Trademark Prescreening of Names

Just as simple and boring as it sounds. Interestingly, the name “Building the Perfect Beast” is a borrowed name from a Don Henley solo album, and I thought his solo discography was limited to The End of the Innocence. So I’m guessing this name scored low on that category.

Step 5 Creative / Testing

Start pairing the suggested names with logos, etc, to see what each idea looks like fleshed out. I have yet to find a logo for the Building the Perfect Beast, though I did find many images of the Don Henley album cover “art”.

Step 6 Names and Taglines

Start pairing the suggested names with some Taglines. Intriguing that Building the Perfect Beast’s subtitle is The Igor Naming Guide, which is much more descriptive than evocative in nature. I suppose though at some point you have to be descriptive if you want to be picked up by a Google bot.

And voila! You have a name, or something…

Naming Tools

Or a set of names you want to score against one another. The first step for Igor is the naming process filters.  Let’s try it to see what the name invokes…

Building the Perfect Beast

• Says we’re crazy scientists like Dr. Frankenstein or David Banner
• Conservatives may be offended in that only God should be creating living things
• Don Henley fans (I assume they’re still out there, how else does The Eagles Greatest Hits stay at the top of the all times sales charts?  Full disclosure: I think I own that album, and The End of Innocence, though neither are on my iPhone, and I’m not sure I remember how to work a tape deck) may be offended that we ripped off the name of his album

Oh wait, that didn’t correlate at all, lets try that again understanding how the name correlates to the brand.

Building the Perfect Beast

• different, alive, exciting, process driven, perfect results, ready to kick some arse

OK we got through all that, we’re good right?  I’ll let the immortal Winston Wolf of Pulp Fiction fame address that.

Name Evaluation

This next step is where the engineer in me comes alive, its a ranking exercise.

The categories are pretty self-explanatory, but Igor has all the notes you need, including the 33 of Rolling Rock fame.

Finally there is a taxonomy exercise, where every the names are displayed across the four categories of name type above (Functional/Descriptive, Invented, Experiential, and Evocative) and then ranked by engagement levels from -2 to 5.  This last exercise is designed to help out ones understanding of the competitive landscape within a segment.  However, determining the engagement levels must be part of the Igor secret sauce, as they give little explanation around what makes a 5 vs. 4.  I’m guessing its all somewhat subjective, but that Igor has some rules they use when advising their clients.

So, when going through this great document, I found myself thinking about the name of this blog, Cosmic Wanderlust.  I chose the name, partly, as I used the name as a part of my signature in my personal emails.  “Still suffering from that cosmic wanderlust” would be the last words one read in an email from me.  I’ve been thinking though, how good of a name is it for this blog? So I reviewed it in the context of the categories.

Name Type: Evocative or Experiential – I’m not sure which, but its definitely not functional, nor did I invent either word.  To me the name is Evocative, in that brings out in me feelings of constantly needing to stretch ones boundaries, and wanting to see more places throughout the Universe and learn new insights.  To others it may be experiential, as people may think of the feeling of wanderlust, the need to travel.

Competitive Analysis – What is the competitive landscape for Cosmic Wanderlust?  Good question, I guess that all depends on how you define the competition.  Always define your market as narrow as possible initially.  So, how many blogs are there that review non-fiction books about design, economics, and marketing?  Well, I just did a search for those terms in Google.

Here are the competitors:

• Business Week Book Reviews – Not sure if they’re a competitor, as they’re not even really a blog, but they do have all the requisite book review categories, and they have the Business Week brand behind them.  I wonder what the crossover audience is?
• Brandthroposophy – Say that five times fast.  Heck say it one time slow.  It’s a mouthful.  Its also the blog of Robert Kozinets, dedicated to “Marketing, Social Media and Research”  Lots of entries on this blog, and not all of them are book reviews.  I must say though, I do like the ones that he has embedded from Slideshare, presumably from students in one of his classes.
• 800 CEO Read – Ah yes, remember when things were named after 800 numbers right before the internet took off?  It always seems quaint to me when I think of 800-Flowers.  They’re also in the business of selling books, I’m not sure I’m the same target, I think they’re a little broader than I am.
• Prepare and Share - Well, a different take for certain, but many of the same types of books I like to review.  Prepare and share I think has a good name, but apparently its also the name of one of the blog author’s, John Steinberg, books.

I could go on, but the internet is near infinite, at least until I pare down the types of books I review.  In terms of other naming aspects, I think I’m pretty well positioned against my competitors from a naming perspective.  It feels less corporate, and more whimsical, which is what I’m going for here.  In terms of trademarks, I have no idea, but then again I don’t really need it as I own the domain name.  I’ve never tried Cosmic Wanderlust with a tag line.  Hmm….

• Cosmic Wanderlust – Exploring the Cosmos of Knowledge
• Cosmic Wanderlust – Sure John Glenn is more qualified, but has he read The Black Swan?
• Cosmic Wanderlust – Self-awarely self-indulgent
• Cosmic Wanderlust – Blog on Books
• Cosmic Wanderlust – A journey shared

I see now why I don’t have a tagline for this blog.

Happy Naming

No, Patch Adams did not write a book about design.  It’s a different Robin Williams, and this one doesn’t read like she’s hopped up on amphetamines either.  I must say this book is not what I was thinking it would be at all.  I thought I was in for a book that discussed design as a whole, where as this book is mostly concerned with graphic design.  Either topic would have been fine with me as I’m still limited in my design chops. 

I really like Robin Williams writing style.  She makes the topics feel very accessible.   Her examples are clear, and the excercises really help cement the principles in your head.  Imagine that, a well designed book about design…

She breaks down graphic design to four basic principles:

ProximityProximityProximity

Alignment

Repetition

Repetition

Repetition

Contrast

Robin also goes into a beginners survey on color choices and color theory.   Then there are a couple of chapters dedicated to the different types of font.  Who knew there was more than just serif and sans serif?  Well I’m glad I do now.  I was thinking of putting in a section with examples of each type of font, but my blog editor doesn’t give me that many choices…  One of the things to look for when you’re putting together designs of your own is that the fonts you choose don’t clash.  That means that they shouldn’t look too similar.  They need to have contrast for visual interest, and subtle contrasts just annoys people.  So make your contrast large and loud. 

The best advice in the book, that Robin often repeats: 

Don’t be a wimp!

Where was that advice when I was getting the courage to ask girls out in high school? 

Anyway, I definitely recommend this book and the exercises that are contained within, they will definitely help you think with a designers eye when looking at almost any printed material.

The Non-Designer’s Design Book at Amazon

Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated at Amazon

It’s becoming more and more evident to me that I should have gone to design school instead of engineering school.  Not that I didn’t love engineering school, ok maybe I didn’t love Dr. Royster (Vibrations) and Dr. Kleinstreuer’s (Fluid Mechanics) classes, but it just seems to me that all the design principles I’ve been learning of late are serving me very well in my day to day work.  Design is going into everything I do, its all about putting thought into the why and the how of every task.  I must say I’m truly loving putting thought into every aspect of what I’m doing professionally.

I’ve been looking at various sources for design inspiration, and Universal Principles of Design is the perfect introductory book.  It contains a two page spread on each of 100 (125 in the latest revised and updated edition) design principles listed in alphabetical order.  Each principle has a two-page spread dedicated to it.  A brief overview of the design principle is written on the left hand page, and a series of examples are visually depicted on the right hand page.

The great thing about the design of this book is that its easy to browse if you just want to look at the right hand side of each principle, and get a good sense of the principles themselves.  That’s what I did my first time through the book.  My second trip through the book found me reading each principle in detail, and that’s when I discovered the great use of inline side notes.

Inline side notes appear as typical foot notes in the text body.  The inline side notes themselves appear just to the right of the text.  This placement makes the notes much easier to reference, and the contents of the notes are great.  They aren’t simply esoteric bits of knowledge, but jumping in points for texts that delve into the principle in depth, either the seminal work on the principle or a modern survey of the principle.

Some of my favorite principles:

• Aesthetic – Usability Effect – Aesthetic designs are perceived as easier to use than less aesthetic designs.
• Affordance – A property in which the physical characteristics of an object or environment influence its function.  (Think of a handle affording pulling, but not pushing.  So if you have a door that needs to be pushed, placing flat plate on the door will afford pushing much more than a handle, and therefore reduce user error).
• Constraint – A method of limiting the actions that can be performed on a system (Think of the 0 to 10 dials of most amplifiers, restricting the actions of the user, as opposed to the Spinal Tap dial which goes to 11).
• Fitts’ Law – The time required to move to a target is a function of the target size and distance to the target.  (Think of trying to click on something on a computer screen.  It turns out that there are two parts to acquiring a target, first is the large ballistic movement required to get to the general area, and then a series of homing movements to get specifically to the target.  Homing takes the most time, so if you can make the targets larger, you will reduce the time it takes to acquire the target.  Buttons in the corner of a computer screen will take on effectively infinite height and width as the cursor will stop at the edge of the screen).
• Interference Effects – A phenomenon in which mental processing is made slower and less accurate by competing mental processes.  (Think of what happens when something is colored green, but reads “Stop”).
• Progressive Disclosure – A strategy for managing information complexity in which only necessary or requested information is displayed at any given time.  (Think of the More or Advanced buttons present on software displays to hide complexity).

Obviously this was just six of one hundred principles in the book, but they’re all great and explained very well.

Kudos to the authors.  You can read more about their projects at www.stuffcreators.com/upod

Speaking of Indians and books, my good friend and former colleague Manish Kumarhas started a very interesting project back in India.  He’s started what I can only call a NetFlix for Books called Friends of Books.  If you’re reading this from India, I think its a great way to get books delivered to you. 

http://www.friendsofbooks.com/

Happy Halloween everybody!  Above is an entry to this year’s annual Duarte Pumpkin contest. It’s posted here, because of this month’s book… Slide:ology and it’s author Nancy Duarte.   I posted earlier about Presentation Zen and Garr Reynolds, and Nancy and Garr are good friends, in fact the whitespace on the cover of Slide:ology is Garr’s silhouette.   Well, Slide:ology is a great compliment to Presentation Zen, it takes things from a very practical perspective around images, colors, transitions, everything.  Duarte (the firm) was responsible for all the visuals in An Inconvenient Truth.

Nancy was nice enough to do an interview with me about her book and her career.  Please see an excerpt below.

PP: Can you tell us about the first slideshow you remember?

ND: Aside from the filmstrips I saw in school, the first professional slideshow was when I used to sell heat shrink tubing for Raychem (sp), and I had never seen a 35 mm slide done professionally.  I remember I asked everyone after they presented there how it was done, it was beautiful. The reds were red, the golds were gold.  It had the product shots of the products.  I remember being really enamored with the slides, and nobody could tell me how they were done.  Then I started to do it.

PP: How did that evolve from nobody knowing how it was done, to doing slides professionally yourself?

ND:  We fell into it; my husband had a little tiny ad and it wound up helping build slides for Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference in 1989.  So we started right off developing slides, and then we got niched in slides.  We actually had a slide imager, so we actually did make the 35mm slides.  I had to wear the cotton gloves, and glass mount them in the middle of the night and produce tem, then we would FedEx them to wherever the executive was going to be.  We’ve lived a full life in presentations.

PP:  So these were with the slide carousels?

ND:  Yeah I still have my carousel. I use it occasionally during photo shoots to project weird things on the wall.

PP:  So you were using 35 mm cameras to capture images and put them into presentations?

ND:  We actually started with a digital imager, so we could output from PowerPoint and Persuasion and applications like that.  At the time we just lived in a little condo across the tracks from our current office.  We had a 35 mm slide imager.  It cost us $17,000 to buy this little piece of equipment to make these little 35 mm slides.  Then we had to run down to Stanford Mall to get the images developed into slides. It was crazy.  Then we would rush from counter to counter to put it on airplanes so the slides would get there the same time the executive arrived.  It was quite a process.

PP:  You’re starting professionally; you need $17,000 for a piece of equipment that’s a lot of money for anybody, particularly back then.  How did you make that initial investment?

ND: My husband and I aren’t real spenders.  So we don’t have a lot of things that we need on this earth.  So we put everything back in the business.  So when he started it, I was actually working full-time at a real job when he started the company.  I joined the company two years later in 1990. Every penny he made from the business he put back into the business.  Everything we bought back then was 10x what it costs today.  We lived so tight in a little tiny apartment.  We even rented out our master suite to my sister-in-law to help cover the rent.  It was a total bootstrap.

PP: So you guys are still close today I hope?

ND: *laughs* Yeah, we are, we are.

PP: How did the practice evolve from those days?

ND:  So I joined my husband in 1990.  I actually spent a lot of time trying to get him to quit this stupid idea he had.  I put a lot of energy into that.  He actually begged me, “Please just read a MacWorld magazine, just read it and tell me that you don’t think it’s the vision of the future.”

So I did, and then I made three calls that afternoon and we won all three accounts.  We haven’t had to make a cold call since, it’s all been word of mouth.  I called Apple, Tandem and NASA and we won all three accounts.  And from then it was word of mouth all the way up until the book was written.  And then we promoted the book, which wasn’t really promoting Duarte, it was promoting the book.  So it was kind of fun.  It just kind of perpetuated.

Once we got known for the niche, then people as they spread to new jobs, people kept calling and calling and calling for this niche.  Even in the dot-com crash, all our web and print work went away; our presentation work just kept calling and calling and calling.  It was clear then.  This presentation work is the real deal.  This is what we are the best in the world at.  This is what we are passionate about. So we dropped everything else and we only do presentations now.

PP:  So you started out a bit broader and then focused on your segment of presentations.

ND:  Yeah, and presentation that doesn’t mean PowerPoint necessarily.  It means on the web, on devices, on the stage, digital signage, any way a presentation needs to be delivered.  We definitely just do presentation now.

PP: How did you get involved with Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth?

ND: He’s a great client, we still work with him.  We were actually referred to him by Apple.  He had just joined their board, and they were originally supposed to build his presentation for him.  However since you can’t get products or services from the company if you’re on the board, Apple batted him to us, because we do a lot of work for them too.

We actually started with him for about 3 years before it was a movie.  He just toured around the country, passionately preaching his cause.   Then we heard about the movie, and we were shocked.  A movie about a slideshow, eh? *Laughs.*

Now he is just as adamantly out there talking and presenting it, it’s been very fun.

PP:  How were the working sessions on An Inconvenient Truth?

ND:  It’s funny I’ve had a range of clients, from buttheads to really, really bright people.  He is probably our most courteous and open-minded client.  He comes to us and says, “Here’s what I want to say, how do you propose I display this, how do you propose that’s conveyed visually?”  He defers to us as the experts.  Sometimes we get these 23 year olds CEO start up dudes that want to come and tell us how to do our jobs.  It’s such a play in contrasts for me, from a global leader you tell me how you think this should be displayed, to this kid who thinks he knows everything.  He just sends us gifts and cards, he’s just so… political. *Laughs* He’s so appropriate about everything.  He’s been just delightful.

PP:  You’ve kind of started a movement with better presentations.  You look at people like Garr Reynolds, and his Presentation Zen book, and you guys do things together all the time.  When did you realize that you started a movement and this community out there to make sure that bullets don’t kill not only people but presentations?

ND:  I’m so pleased; it really turns my crank to hear people say you started a movement, because that’s what we kind of started out to do.  I’d been holed away running the business; I needed to take some time to look around.  So I hired a president who took on a massive amount of my load, and that’s when I found Garr.  I dropped him a note, and asked him “Where have you been all my life?”  I thought I had been fighting this battle alone.  That’s when we decided to join forces to start a movement which has been really powerful.

So when I was looking around doing all this research, I found these young guys who were like, “Let’s start a revolution, let’s not do slides the way our mom does slides!”  And I’m like, “I’m old enough to be your mom, and I haven’t been doing slides like your mom does slides for 20 years.”   I felt like I was William Wallace at the end of Braveheart, marching and telling people we’re almost at the end.

So it’s good, its good seeing a tipping point, and what’s really amazing to me is that audiences are expecting more and audiences deserve more.  So what I see happening is a reverse pressure on the presenter to talk to the audience in a way that lets them know you’ve done your homework, and you’re trying to make something that is meaningful for them and doesn’t waste an hour of their time.  So the pressure from the audience is going to be great to see.  It takes more time and more planning and more thoughtfulness, but it makes a big difference.

PP:  Who are some of your favorite presenters, besides Al Gore and Steve Jobs?

ND:  I think most of the people on TED.  They’re some of the best in the world in short form video presentations.  I don’t know that they’re all fantastic at incorporating slides.  We’re working on a couple that I think will be fantastic, that aren’t quite done yet.  You know, I get asked that all the time and sadly I can’t think of one.  Also, there are no women who are iconic presenters, where you’re like “that’s the one”.  There’s only a couple who are truly iconic and use the medium well.  There’s the comedian Dmitri, who’s uses charts and he’s really, really good.  He incorporates his video or visual aid really well, its seamless, and it adds to the value of the message.  Bill McDonough is a really excellent presenter as well.  He’s the big green architect.  His work is featured in the book.  He does a fantastic job as far as using his voice and the media to really change the world.

Paul

About 9 months ago I was introduced to this great little PDF guide about being remarkable and it really changed my mindset on what is possible and what we can do in the world.  At the time I was really busy launching Alt-MBA and discussing a book a week, and I had been wanting to post on this guide for some time.

I caught up with Chris a few months ago, and we had this podcast interview. I will once again credit Matt Cheney for his yoeman’s work editing this interview.

So to me there are two major points for you to think on as you read this guide:

1. What do you really want to get out of life?
2. What can you offer the world that no one else can?

When I first answered the guide’s questions 9 months ago, my answers were:

1. I want to create a world with more transparency.
2. I can offer fun with great effort, levity with constant persuit for better outcomes, open mindedness with strong intellect, questioning of authority with trust in others.

Revisiting this text less than a year later, I think I would ammend my answers to be

1. I want to be someone who gives his all for the betterment of the world in whatever form that might take.
2. I can offer my perspective, my skills, and my commitment to improvement.

Amazing what a few months can do to perspectives on things.

I would challenge you to answer these questions, so that you can align your skills and your goals to really create leverage and change in this world of ours.  Read the guide its a really short 28 pages and well worth the read.

Also, check out this great post by Megan Elizabeth Morris on A Brief Guide to World Domination.

All I ever wanted,

All I ever needed,

is here in my arms,

Words are very unnecessary,

They can only do harm.

- Depeche Mode “Enjoy the Silence”

How often have you felt this way?  You know you’ve got all these intense emotions that get brought to the surface, and you end up getting in an argument which isn’t what you want at all.  It was until recently that I started to realize my role in all the arguments that I’ve gotten into over the years.  I’m one of those sneaky poor communicators.  I seem to be really great at communication until you see me in an argument, and I don’t get in arguments all that often, so its rare to see me at my worst.  Unfortunately for those closest to me, I really do have issues with communication when I’m passionate about things and I’m trying to communicate.

This book taught me two things, first that I’m not great at communicating when things are stressful for me personally, and two how much better I could become.

Let’s tackle the first issue for all you readers out there that think you’re the cat’s meow at this whole communication thing.  Take this self assessment test, and let’s see how you do.  Remember you’re taking this test honestly about times when you’re at your worst conversationally.

https://www.vitalsmarts.com/wheredoyoustand.aspx

I took this test, and again I consider myself a fairly easy person to get along with in most situations, and I got a 20 out of 35, which sounds decent, until you realize that 0 is the best, and 35 is the worst.  This was an eye opening experience to say the least.  Reading the book caused no less of an eye opening experience, as I started to replay so many of the arguments of my adult life (from once getting into it with a client, to arguments with my significant other, to arguments with my parents) over and over again in my mind in the context of my role in the conversations.  I was so bull headed that I actually thought the other person was to blame for the vast majority of the arguments.  With this book I realized all of the myriad of things I did to help the conversations turn into contentious arguments.  If I had better communication skills, and better self awareness, I could have avoided so much strife and pain, all while dealing with the issues that are most important.

Enter Crucial Conversations, an incredible book with techniques for dealing with these tough items.  Its a book I’ve now read twice, and I’ve read their follow on book, Crucial Confrontations once.  I still learn more each time I read it.  It helps to remind me to achieve a greater awareness of self during the times its toughest to do so.  I wish I could say that I’ve mastered the skills that are laid out in the book, but I have haven’t as my family and close friends can attest.  I have though developed many of the skills in the book, and I’ve also developed a new fearlessness around discussing things openly when I sense myself getting extremely agitated by them.  I know that if a conversation goes badly, particularly one in which my emotions or my counterpart’s emotions get out of control, that I can look at the mistakes I made while in the conversation to understand where I can improve.

Here’s a great presentation summarizing the skills and techniques in Crucial Conversations. This presentation was put together by the awesome Saba Long, as a part of the recently completed Alt-MBA program.

High Stakes | Crucial Conversations

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Let me put some of the more esoteric slides in context for you.

Starting with the heart, means that you focus on what you really want out of a conversation. For example, I was having a conversation the other day about family possessions and where they might go, as parents were downsizing. I started the conversation not with “I want the table.” I started the conversation with, “I want this family to be closer and to have greater love at the end of this process than we did at the start of the process.” That’s what my true end goal was. It wasn’t that I wanted a table, even though it certainly was something I wanted.

The dual processing slide is another that is simple in its presentation, but profound when put into practice. Being able to think about a conversation, and what is happening to the tone of the conversation at the same time is profoundly difficult when the conversation has become tense or heated. Typically we are too busy trying to win the argument at the point it becomes one, that we lose sight of the fact that we’ve slipped into one, and both sides feel as though they have to win.

Creating Safe Conditions becomes extremely difficult once we’ve descended into the realm of argument. However it is sometimes possible to come back from the abyss. First comes apologizing sincerely. That’s something I’ve gotten really good at. Next is contrasting, which is another thing I’ve become pretty skilled at. The final thing is to create mutual purpose. This is one I struggle remembering to do every time, and when I don’t remember and push on to quickly I often find myself sliding back into contentious arguments.

If there is one thing I could pass on to you from this book, its the concept of the Path to Action. First thing that happens when you get upset, is that you observe something. The next thing your brain does once it observes something is to tell a story about why something happened so that it can make sense of the phenomenon that it observes. Then we have a feeling associated with the implications of the story that we tell ourselves. Finally that feeling then causes us to act out.

This can all be very innocuous, and typically is. For example, if you look outside and notice its raining, you will most likely tell yourself that this is mother nature running its course, which will cause little emotional reaction on your part, and you will reach for your umbrella. However given the same set of circumstances on a day in which you were looking to go sun bathing at the beach, you may think to yourself that its raining because the gods are angry at you, and you might sacrifice a small woodland creature, or just sing “Rain, Rain, go away, come again some other day.” Either way, faced with the same set of facts, we can interpret them in many different ways.

Well what’s true with the weather is doubly true of our interactions with other people. We often will have someone be short with us, and think, “He’s doing that because he’s a jerk” and then feel angry, and then treat him poorly in response. When someone is short with us, there are other possible reasons. Until we acknowledge that we observe a behavior and then develop a story around why that behavior took place, we aren’t able to truly see things from the other person’s point of view. This sounds straight forward, but its implications are quite large.

When is the last time you said “They made me so mad!” Well, in light of the Path to Action model, what they are really doing is some action which we observe, then we tell a story to ourselves to make sense of what they did, and then we react to the story we are telling ourselves about why they did what they did. This means that “They made me so mad!” should really be “They did something that I told myself was really mean to someone and that made me so mad!”

]]> http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/book-review/crucial-post/feed/ 0 http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/book-review/crucial-post/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cosmicwanderlust/~3/ZAkdK-g1Mhc/ http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/book-review/just-need-a-little-nudge/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:50:59 +0000 Paul Pettengill http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/?p=95

On a scale of Homer to Spock, I’d say I’m about a George W. Bush.  Clearly a smart guy (and no I never voted for the man), W would often rely on his personal heuristics and biases (not racial or socioeconomic per se) to help him with his decisions.

We all do this to some extent, otherwise it would be extremely difficult to get almost anything done.  Rather than think every decision through, we rely on rules of thumb to guide us on our way.  This works really well for us on tasks that we do all the time – things like driving, purchasing food, and engaging in conversations.  Where we typically struggle is with tasks that we don’t do very often – things like buying houses, deciding on our education, and writing blog posts.

We also struggle with things where we know the likely outcomes, but the outcomes are so far in the future that they feel as if they are outside the event horizon of the action in question.  Think about the effects of diet on your overall health.  You know eating unhealthy food will make you unhealthy, but any given single meal is unlikely to make a difference either way (given its not poisonous).

How can we get back on track?  How ’bout a little nudge in the right direction?  That’s the proposal of authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.  They call their philosophy for how to approach giving these nudges libertarian paternalism.  So the thought process is we give people the maximum amount of choices, but we also set an intelligent default.  So the default food for example if you were to get an order delivered would be healthy and well-balanced if you were looking to optimize health, of course the people could override the default if they wanted to, and order two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.

There are great proposals in this book, for smart defaults around all kinds of things.  Some of my favorites for general proposals are:

• Save More Tomorrow:  Default for 401k is enrollment in a single fund that is well balanced (per the “financial experts”) which starts you at a low contribution rate and raises your 401k contribution rate every time you get a raise (or until capped)
• Organ Donations: Default is enrollment

Here’s a great TED video by a colleague of the authors in the field of Behavioral Economics that discusses organ donations.

How do we move from acting only on behalf of our short term self interest (our inner-Homer) and get to acting on behalf of our long term self interest (our inner-Spock)? Well there are a couple of neat strategies that I like mentioned here in Nudge.

• Clocky – An alarm clock with wheels which launches off your bed to the far corners of the room after you hit snooze once.  Then you have to go find where it ended up when it goes off the second time, at which point you’ll most likely be awake as you’ll be out of bed hunting for the alarm clock.
• StickK – A website that lets you put up your own real money, which you only get to keep if you stick to your goals.  Otherwise the money either goes to charity, or anti-charity.

I think Clocky looks fun, and would like to get one at some point.  StickK on the other hand is something I started using right away.  I have a few vices that I’d like to modify my behavior around, and a few goals that I’d like to see me accomplish.  I set each one up in StickK to be monitored on a weekly basis, an amount to be given to my anti-charity should I fail, and a referee to make sure I’m not just mailing it in on my commitment.

Here are my commitments

• No non-work internet usage while at work ($100 a week to anti-gay marriage)
• My product status is green ($100 a week to anti-gay marriage)
• 4 hour turn around on all work phone calls ($100 a week to anti-gay marriage)
• No fastfood, doughnuts, or candy ($10 a week to anti-gay marriage)
• 1 blogpost here on Cosmic Wanderlust a month ($10 a week for the month following a miss to anti-gay marriage)
• Losing Weight ($10 a week to anti-gay marriage if I don’t stay on pace to be 185 lbs by Dec 4)
• No Su Doku ($20 a week to anti-gay marriage)

So, I chose the anti-gay marriage folks, as I am really passionate that marriage is a civil right, and that to deny it is a huge form of prejudice.  I know that I don’t want one red cent going to denying people their civil rights, and it would really eat me up if I had any sort of positive impact for that cause.  I also chose some large amounts so that I wouldn’t be tempted to think ah, no big deal if I were to choose to slip up.  How much is this total over the life of the agreements?

$6940 of cold hard cash on the line via my credit card.

You can follow my latest progress here. Right now, though two weeks in, I’ve got a 94% rate. (I forgot about the no candy rule after I had a few drinks and decided to go to the movies and ended up with some Twizzlers).  This means that I’m going to have to donate two times that amount to the other side to even things out with my beliefs.

]]> http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/book-review/just-need-a-little-nudge/feed/ 1 http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/book-review/just-need-a-little-nudge/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cosmicwanderlust/~3/znpWCNnlix8/ http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/speech/twitter-toast/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:44:08 +0000 Paul Pettengill http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/?p=56

“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. ” – Yogi Berra

My knees and voice were trembling as I stood in front of what felt like a firing squad.  In truth it was thirty of the harshest, meanest and least constructive critics I’ve ever had to face (you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to 7^th grade).  My voice hit 8 octaves as I recited the first line of Rugyard Kipling’s classic poem “If”.  As I got to the second line my voice was still fluctuating, but my head was now firmly pointed at the floor and my voice was so soft that nobody could hear me.  The hours of practice in front of the mirror were now going down the drain.  I couldn’t wait for the tortuous ordeal to be over.  ”If you can talk with crowds…” – oh the irony.

Fast forward twenty some years and I’m standing in front of 300 clients and potential clients.  As I got up there, somehow my 7^th grade self started to rear its ugly, acne filled head.  That feeling in the pit of my stomach was back.  Thankfully by the time I got up and demonstrated my product, I had fallen into my comfort zone.  It was at that moment that I made a promise to myself to never have that feeling again.

When my buddy Marie first recommended that I go to Toastmasters to help out with my public speaking, I started to picture old men in funny hats driving tiny cars in parades.  Due to my stereotype of club membership for public organizations, it took me having a couple of major public appearances before I broke down and joined.  First let me tell you, yes there are some old guys in my local club, but no, there aren’t any funny hats.

To make up for the lack of funny hats, Toastmasters delivers enormous value in the form of continuous feedback from experienced speakers to help you learn what tweaks need to be made to your delivery, style and language.  I’m a big believer in getting repetitions at anything really helps you to improve, but those reps need to mirror as close as possible the actual experience.  That’s why talking in front of fellow Toastmasters has it all over talking to the mirror.

OK, so what does this blog post have to do with Twitter?  Well, I’ve been a bit frustrated with the bad rap that the Literati have been giving the Twitterati.  Much as television didn’t spell the end of culture, Twitter isn’t going to either.  It is not reducing the complexity of thought, its making thoughts more accessible, I’d go on, but that’s why I wrote the speech.

Twitter: A New New Deal

Madam Toastmaster, fellow toastmaster and guests, I beg your pardon for one second as I just need to send this tweet.  *Pretend to play with iPhone for a few seconds.*  Ordinarily, I wouldn’t dream of using my phone during the meeting, but you see this message was important, as I believe that Twitter will save the economy.

For those of you who don’t what Twitter is, it’s a micro-blogging site that allows you to post messages that are 144 characters or shorter.  It’s the latest web phenomenon, and has millions of people logging in to tell people what they’re up to.  People are now tweeting from all over.  I just told people that I’m giving a Toastmasters speech, Lilly could be tweeting that she’s sitting through a tortuous Toastmasters speech, or Nimish could tweet that he’s nervously hoping he doesn’t get called upon for Table Topics.

Why on earth would this ultimate time waster be the savior to the economy?  Three reasons.  First, wasting time can actually help productivity.  Second, more information is good for an information economy.  Third, it’s creating new businesses, and improving existing ones.

OK, so first wasting time is good for the economy.  *Long Pause*  I know what you’re thinking well if that’s true, the long pause you just gave Paul probably contributed 1 million to our GDP.  I’m just doing my part.  Seriously though, many recent studies have come out about the ability for the brain to focus on a single item for long period time actually diminishes the speed at which we can complete the task.  So if we take short breaks as we see our concentration start to wane, we can improve our overall productivity.  What could be better for a quick break, than the ultimate in short attention span phenomena, Twitter.

Second, The cross pollination of information means that more people are being introduced to new ideas more quickly.  This leads to innovation as people assimilate the new information and ideas into their current framework to produce new concepts in a sort of infinite feedback loop.  This is actually being reinforced with how Twitter is being used today, as people are typically embedding web links in their tweets for more substance behind ideas, and very few people are still using it to talk about what their cat did this morning.

So the third reason that Twitter is going to save the economy, is that it is creating new businesses.  Companies have sprouted to create software to read Tweets.  There are currently several competitors in this space, and more are entering.  I personally have created my own business idea, which I’m currently working on that will weave people’s tweets into a chronological story.  Then there are existing companies, which are searching through Twitter, to find people’s gripes and recommendations about their products and services and reaching out to those customers to improve the services for the benefit of the whole economy.

We’re spending trillions of dollars bailing out the banks, the auto manufacturers, and everyone else.  What we really need is to encourage better customer service, the creation of innovation, and increases in knowledge worker productivity.  We need a new, new deal.  We need Twitter.

]]> http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/speech/twitter-toast/feed/ 2 http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/speech/twitter-toast/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cosmicwanderlust/~3/5BcXbuOVD9E/ http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/book-review/how-to-pick-books-by-content-reviews/#comments Sun, 01 Mar 2009 07:33:00 +0000 Paul Pettengill http://www.cosmicwanderlust.com/?p=54

Ok, so I first was given this book by my dad when I was a 17 or so. If only I hadn’t read the cover of the book at that point, I would have saved myself tons of heartache over the years. Instead, I read the title, and thought to myself, “I don’t want any part in a book that teaches you how to manipulate people into being your friend, and doing stuff for you.” I really have to tell you now, that this is a terrible title, because inside is life-changing advice for how to live and interact with people, and it has nothign .

What brought me back to this book, and decide to pick it up? The Alt-MBA program, which I credit with so many great learnings over the last 3 months. Our discussion of How to Win Friends and Influence People was led by the incredible Megan Elizabeth Morris (aka World Megan). Rather than try to summarize the points, I must let you see Megan’s incredible videos explaining the principles.

^ I told Megan was awesome!!!!

More by Paul Pettengill at

http://cosmicwanderlust.blogspot.com

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