Evidently story-loving is a function of our brain’s development. We’re biologically wired for them.

In a Washington Post story I learned: “Roughly around age 4, psychologists say, a child develops a ‘theory of mind.’ The child suddenly grasps that other people have feelings, thoughts, just like the child’s own. From this great mental leap comes a secondary, almost accidental talent: We can get inside the heads of people whom we never actually meet except in stories. This is why fiction works. Huck Finn and Harry Potter seem real enough.”

Is this why Steve Jobs is the world’s greatest keynoter? Because he’s a great storyteller? In the new book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs we learn his three-act methodology:

• Act1 is to create a story with seven tips (chapters or scenes) in crafting a great story behind the presentation
• Act 2, delivery of an experience with six scenes for adding appealing visuals to a presentation.
• Act 3, refine and rehearse and rehearse some more with five scenes discussing body language, verbal delivery, and using appropriate dress

I wrote a post on PowerPoint and effective presentations a couple of months ago that got excellent traction with readers. Join the discussion.

Prompts for Professionals

Next time you’re trying to deliver a memorable presentation try:

• Aesop’s Fables
  • When you want to make a point that appearances may be deceiving try The Cat, the Rooster and the Young Mouse
  • When you want to illustrate the power of positive versus negative influence, try The Wind and the Sun
  • You’ve probably heard the phrase “Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered”– here’s a fresh approach: The Dog and His Reflection
• In this economy, many CEOs and companies could be compared to Icarus
• And when talking about messes that need a dramatic approach, refer to Heracles and the Augean Stables or The Gordian Knot

• Who decides when spam is officially SPAM
• Making sure you’re not mistaken for a spammer
• Best practices for email marketing (including newsletters)
• How to handle spammers

By nature, a tweetup is informal, so drop in at Mama Ricotta’s and meet some great tweeple. Not tweeting yet? This group might convince you to give it a twhirl.

Lately the word has gotten traction in the music world (evidently lots of rappers use them). Politicians have always used ghosts — a recent Christian Science Monitor story estimated 90% of politicians’ books are “heavily ghostwritten.”

Now businesspeople are convinced they need to be content producers to drive search engine results and keep their names top of mind with customers. This makes my job as a business ghostwriter easier to explain, but there are lots of misconceptions out there about what we do, how we work, and how we’re paid. In case you’re thinking about hiring a ghostwriter, this might help you think things through.

Q:  What kind of work can you give to a ghostwriter?

A: There is no professional organization that certifies ghostwriters. Generally speaking we can write anything on your behalf. The devil lies in the details of how well a ghostwriter works with you, whether they know your field well enough to hit the ground running, and whether you can agree on a fee structure.

As a financial ghostwriter I craft presentations and management letters. I write blog posts, newsletters, white papers, articles and (soon) books. Each writer will produce each type of publication with differing levels of proficiency.

Do you want to rough out a topic then turn it over to a ghostwriter? Or does the sight of a blank page drain your mind completely? Working with a ghostwriter is a partnership, so begin your quest by identifying your needs, working preferences and limitations. These will determine the offsetting strengths to look for in your writing partner.

Q: What do I look for in a business ghostwriter?

A: You need to find someone who knows enough about your field that they can focus on production. You might also need to find a writer experienced with Chicago Manual of Style, MLA, etc. That said,  if you find a great writer they can learn the styles. A good ghost won’t upcharge you for coming up the learning curve, provided there’s sufficient upside for the writer.

You might also need help devising an editorial calendar or other marketing/public relations capabilities, so be sure to ask your writer if they can provide that expertise. In today’s social media environment a ghostwriter should have a working understanding of how search engine optimization works, but beware the writer who tries to convince you that writing in a stilted style to feed the search bots will serve you well with human readers.

Q: Where do I look for a qualified ghostwriter?

A: Tap your professional circles first. With so many corporate communications departments being downsized, domain experts who write well are a LinkedIn search away. Whether they can effectively ghost for you is another matter. My advice is to start with domain experts and then refine the search by chemistry, mutually-acceptable work styles, pricing, etc.

Q: How much will a ghostwriter charge?

A: Your business ghostwriter will charge in the range of a self-employed accountant in private practice.  Specialists in other subject areas will differ, but this will give you an idea of how to budget.

Start by asking yourself the qualifications someone would need to write intelligently about your field. (For example, could a nurse write about biotech?)  Put a number on what that person would make working for an employer full time. That’s just a start. You can’t just divide that by 2080 annual working hours; you must add something for administration and overhead costs, and allow that of a 40 hour week, about 25 is actually billable (the other fifteen are spent in client acquisition, proposals, professional development and administrivia). The accountant study shows similar productivity.

Let’s crunch numbers. Say you want an MBA Who Writes Like An English Major with a background in finance. Let’s assume that person would earn $100k in their field. OK, add the employer-paid taxes, employer-subsidized health insurance and two weeks of vacation and the result is about a 20% bump over base salary. We’re at $120k. Divide that by 2080 “standard” work hours a year and you get $58/hour. For reasons explained above, the $58 would translate to more like $94/hour when they actually get on the clock.

Q: Will ghostwriters work at a fixed rate?

A: When you hire a writer with domain expertise, they’ll likely bid your project on a flat fee or bid a price per (accepted) page. This will take some pre-work on your part defining the scope of the project and giving the writer sufficient source material to get to work.

Q: How will a ghostwriter price my project?

A: The more organized and efficient you are, the less you’ll pay the writer. If you have all your research compiled and outline your expectations up front (number of pages/slides/word count) the writer can adequately estimate their work effort.

Your personal organization and efficiency plays a big role in keeping the project on budget, too. An experienced writer will devise a project timeline with deadlines and expectations for YOU.  You’ll have to uphold your end to keep the contracted price and schedule. If the contract says you get one editorial pass and one line edit pass, you’ve got to make best use of each. If you get to the line edit round and start moving big chunks around or inserting more copy, chances are your writer will need to charge you for that editorial re-work. A line edit consists of tweaking for clarity and correctness, not re-drafting. I find that clients often want to make changes after copy they’ve approved has been handed over to the graphic designer/desktop publisher; such re-work is not in scope.

There are some professional pay guidelines out there for different types of writing/editing on a project and page basis.

Q: Do I have to work with a ghostwriter face-to-face?

A: Each project drives the tactical means for getting it done. If I’m writing a white paper, the client provides me with the source material, we discuss relative weighting of the topics and the general outline and I take it from there, circling back for commentary, elucidation, additional source material, etc. Many of my blog and newsletter clients will forward news updates from their professional organizations for me to base a commentary upon. While I’m pretty flexible, I can’t speak for other writers.

I have to learn the client’s “voice” to emulate it. A client should never sound like a stranger in real life to someone who’s been reading their work. I prefer that my clients use digital recorder as much as possible; the digital file is easily attached to email.  Not only do I learn how they speak, I also glean from their inflection what matters to them most and any key words or phrases that they favor.

Most people say more when speaking than when writing.  Clients may think they have two articles for their newsletter but they start talking, I might “hear” three articles for the current edition and another for a blog post or future newsletter.  Occasionally a client will be in the middle of answering a question when something pops up that we can use later.

Q: How to proceed?

A: I suggest you audition one or two potential writing partners. Already writing a newsletter? Give the writer an earlier version and ask what they’d do differently. Never written one before? Give the writer three news topics and see what they want from you before they begin writing and how they would propose to learn your voice. I will sometimes offer to do an audition piece without charge and then if the client hires me I’ll bill them for the work.

More questions? Give me a call and we’ll discuss your particular project: 704-907-2811

This month I began blogging on small business and the meltdown on the Die Broke blog, part of the StockTwits network.  My focus is helping small business owners deal with creditors, the IRS, family members and their own inner demons.

What qualifies me for this assignment? Personal experience.

Since shuttering the industrial cleaning businesses in 2007 I’ve continued to deal with creditors (including friends and family), the IRS and a loss of face.  I’ve learned a great deal about financial law, pondered business ethics and done a lot of navel gazing.

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure ~Joseph Campbell

I won’t chronicle the whole debacle here…it will unfold over time over on Die Broke. But I will say that my entrepreneurial “failure” freed me to pursue the writing career I was always told would never be mine.  How?  Janis Joplin’s raspy lyric explains it best: Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

In 2008, with no money to invest in a different company, a dismal job market and absolute loathing of corporate America anyway, I gave myself permission to hang out my shingle as a business writer.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are ~ Joseph Campbell

Fortunately my husband still has a job. The best off-balance-sheet asset an entrepreneur has is someone who lets them bunk in rent free.  Thanks, Matt.

More Joseph Campbell bon mots:

• We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us

• Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself

• I think the person who takes a job in order to live – that is to say, for the money – has turned himself into a slave

• Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?

• Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging

• The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure

• The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature

Options Volatility Trading

I’ve said before how much I enjoy following my virtual friend Jim Gobetz on Twitter (@aiki14).  Jim is the Managing partner and CIO in a family office based in Philadelphia PA and Wilmington DE. He appears on StockTwitsTV for a pre-market show  M-W-F mornings.

Jim tweeted about “Options Volatility Trading” By Adam Warner last week and I asked him to write a review for this month’s Book Lust column.  He graciously agreed:

I guess I should begin by stating my bias up front, Adam was one of the first people I found on StockTwits, and I have found his “short form” writing to be of the highest quality. This “long form” effort enhanced that opinion greatly. I think there is literally something for everyone in the book, whether they are experienced guys from the trading floor or newbies getting their first taste of the world of options.

The book begins with a bit of personal history which I found quite interesting. I love stories of the trading that went on, on the floor, back in the day and Adam brings the perspective of a young guy who thought he had a “legacy pass,” and from that starting point does a great job of laying out the workings of the options market and the thinking of the insiders.

He then moves on to the meat and potatoes first of the options themselves, and then the concepts of volatility, and it’s measure, and how traders use these metrics to gain an edge. His chapter on trading the VIX is particularly valuable in this day and age where the popular media feeds the public with constant heaps of this piece of data, without the least interest in whether that public has a clue to it’s limitations. Adam gives the reader a nice dose of reality in Ch. 11 where he addresses some of the popular conceptions and where they diverge from the truth.

The last quarter of the books gives the reader actionable strategies that put the prior chapters information into workable plays , charting concepts for derivatives, and finally a look at some of the rules that have changed and the consequences of these changes.

What I found most interesting was Adam displays an ability to take very technical subject matter and present it in a way that will satisfy the options technophile and not overwhelm the newly initiated.

I would recommend the book to anyone I thought was ready to made the move into options trading, and to all my friends and colleagues who trade them every day.

The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash

Barrie Abalard

Another StockTwits friend is  @Barrie Abalard, who conceals her identity with this  pseudonym.  Barrie’s a technical writer who worked in the financial and funds transfer software industry for fourteen years. She currently supports herself by trading stocks and writing. She is a fellow regular contributor to the Die Broke Blog.

As fellow writers, Barrie and I trade book recommendations, and one of hers to me was The Trillion Dollar Meltdown by Charles R. Morris. Her review follows:

I first read this book in May, 2008 and, despite the occasional jargon and complex explanations of arcane financial instruments, found it compelling. I’ve since read it a second time. Morris has been scarily accurate concerning much of what transpired to create the economic crash of 2008. (Keep in mind that Morris wrote the book in 2007 for a February, 2008, publication date.)

The author contends that the 2008 crash has its roots in what transpired after the last big economic crisis, which ended in 1982. He details how we progressed from leveraged buyouts of banks in the Eighties to the stock market crash of 1987 to the LTCM (Long-Term Capital Management) debacle of the Nineties, all in the first couple of chapters. Chapter 3, “A Tsunami of Dollars,” explains how the Fed’s “years of working the liquidity pump” flooded the world with dollars, artificially keeping markets afloat. Chapter 4 is about what he calls “The Great Unwinding,” accurately predicting what happened to the credit markets in 2008 and to our economy. Morris lays fault upon the ratings agencies as well, and anticipates the crash of the monoline insurers Ambac and MBIA. I’ll leave it to you to read the book and discover his predictions regarding what will happen (and is happening) to the USA post-crash.

I should note that Morris is cool to the concept of “free markets,” but that’s largely because he equates free markets with little to no regulation. (Even a free market, in my opinion, needs some regulation to restrain fraud and the darker side of self-interest.) Otherwise, I have little quibble with the underpinnings of the book.

Do not be fooled by the slimness of this volume—Morris covers everything in 160 succinct pages. Densely packed with explanatory material, it includes detailed descriptions of CDOs (collateralized debt obligations), CDSs (credit default swaps), and MBSs (mortgage-backed securities), as well as how mark-to-market works and its role in the credit crisis. If you want to understand the events leading up to the 2008 stock market crash and recession but don’t have a degree in economics or finance, I urge you to read The Trillion Dollar Meltdown.

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?

I heard the author, Harvard government professor Michael J Sander interviewed on The Diane Rheme Show a couple of weeks ago and wish I had time to read this book.

This review from Publisher’s Weekly: Harvard government professor Sandel (Public Philosophy) dazzles in this sweeping survey of hot topics—the recent government bailouts, the draft, surrogate pregnancies, same-sex marriage, immigration reform and reparations for slavery—that situates various sides in the debates in the context of timeless philosophical questions and movements. Sandel takes utilitarianism, Kant’s categorical imperative and Rawls’s theory of justice out of the classroom, dusts them off and reveals how crucial these theories have been in the construction of Western societies—and how they inform almost every issue at the center of our modern-day polis. The content is dense but elegantly presented, and Sandel has a rare gift for making complex issues comprehensible, even entertaining (see his sections entitled “Shakespeare versus the Simpsons and “What Ethics Can Learn from Jack Benny and Miss Manners”), without compromising their gravity. With exegeses of Winnie the Pooh, transcripts of Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearing and the works of almost every major political philosopher, Sandel reveals how even our most knee-jerk responses bespeak our personal conceptions of the rights and obligations of the individual and society at large. Erudite, conversational and deeply humane, this is truly transformative reading. 

Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom

Rick Hanson, PhD, wrote this with Richard Mendius. Hanson is a psychologist and teacher of contemplative neuroscience. He cofounded the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom,and has been a board member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

Publisher’s Weekly review: The brain physiology associated with spiritual states has been fertile ground for researchers and writers alike. Neuropsychologist and meditation teacher Hanson suggests that an understanding of the brain in conjunction with 2,500-year-old Buddhist teachings can help readers achieve more happiness. He explains how the brain evolved to keep humans safe from external threats; the resulting “built-in negativity bias” creates suffering in modern individuals. Citing psychologist Donald Hebb’s conclusion that “when neurons fire together, they wire together,” Hanson argues that the brain’s functioning can be affected by simple practices and meditation to foster well-being. Classic Buddhist concepts such as the “three trainings”—mindfulness, virtuous action and wisdom—frame Hanson’s approach. Written with neurologist Mendius, the book includes descriptions and diagrams of brain functioning. Clear instructions guide the reader toward more positive thoughts and feelings. While the author doesn’t always succeed at clarifying complex physiology, this gently encouraging “practical guide to your brain” offers helpful information supported by research as well as steps to change instinctive patterns through the Buddhist path.

Conquering Fear: Living Boldly in an Uncertain World

Library Journal: Rabbi Kushner, author of the international best seller When Bad Things Happen to Good People, now focuses on specific fears that impact our lives—terrorism, natural disasters, aging, job loss, death, change, and the destruction of humanity. Some may say that these events are brought on by sinful acts; however, Kushner, who does not believe in a vengeful God, points out that the words “do not be afraid” are mentioned in the Old and the New Testament more than 80 times. Kushner writes that fear can paralyze us, make us tense, and often keep us from taking action. He explains that a small dose of fear is healthy and that we can gain mastery by recognizing legitimate fears, dismissing exaggerated ones, and avoiding letting it keep us from activity. Prayer, meditation, and helping others are the keys to alleviating excessive fear. VERDICT: A short, easy-to-read book filled with a great deal of wisdom and words of hope along with some practical measures for reducing fear. Kushner’s message is inspirational and transcends all religious creeds and spiritualities.

The Surprising Solution: Creating Possibility in a Swift and Severe World

Written by Bruce Piasecki, this review from Publisher’s Weekly: Piasecki (In Search of Environmental Excellence) updates his 2007 book (formerly titled World, Inc.) to address the current economic crisis and further explore the new frontier of sustainability, innovation and corporate social responsibility.

The underlying theme of this thought-provoking work is that big businesses have overtaken governments in terms of political and economic power—51 of the 100 largest economies in the world are now corporations; 300 multinational businesses control 25% of the world’s assets, and as much as 40% of world trade now occurs within these top multinationals. With their disproportionate power, big businesses now wield a tremendous ability to shape our social landscape, and the author impresses the importance of “Social Response Capitalism,” an approach that emphasizes a business’s “social brand” as well as the price and quality of their product or service. While the concepts are fascinating, the shifts in tone from academic to more casual create a jarring inconsistency. Still, for any reader who is a student of innovation and who seeks to understand the role of corporations in addressing global problems in the future, this is a treasure trove of provocative ideas.

Interesting article in WSJ about email’s younger, prettier communication sister: social media.

For those not using Twitter, Facebook and other means of connecting with the outside world, this WSJ quote explains the difference between them and ye olde email: “We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.”

The story quoted Alex Bochannek, curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA: “The whole idea of this email service isn’t really quite as significant anymore when you can have many, many different types of messages and files and when you have this all on the same type of networks.”

What’s this bode for email newsletters?

The article doesn’t make my point explicitly, but sets it up well. Email newsletters and all THOUGHTFUL communications have a place OUTSIDE social media. Said another way, to communicate thoroughly, thoughtfully and confidentially, if you can’t meet in person, start with email.

This mirrors my own experience, as a fairly active Twitter(er) who averages 30 daily updates.  For those of you not yet using Twitter, don’t take the impression that I have that much to say about myself — my tweets are usually in response to news items posted by other users or part of a conversation with my “followers” (feels a bit Jim Jones-ish calling them that, but oh well…that’s what they’re officially called).

Sure, I occasionally tweet out the odd “gonna clear my head by taking the dog for a walk” message, but the fun thing about social media is how people find you on the basis of these throwaway tweets. I now have a number of followers who send me pet food coupons and even Cesar Millan aka The Dog Whisperer follows me!

Belt & suspenders approach

Back to the topic at hand. For THOUGHTFUL, well-written communications, there is no substitute for email.  The only thing that comes close is what you syndicate through your RSS feed. However, people get busy and forget to check their readers. An occasional email poke to check the RSS feed will probably always be in order.

Here’s my belt & suspenders approach to being heard:

• My website is home base. It’s the hub of external communications
• Primary communications spokes
  • Blog and its RSS feed
  • Twitter
  • Newsletter
  • Email

1. When I post to my blog ( my website is actually a blogsite), it automatically sends a tweet with the title and a link for all the world to see. It also sends out an excerpt of the post through my RSS feed for those who’ve subscribed and to those directories like Alltop, that carry my content. Those who are linked to me via LinkedIn can see this excerpt on my profile page.  Anywhere that anyone sees an excerpt of my blog posts, they can click to read the whole thing on my blog.
2. I use Twitter to entice the Twitterverse to read my blog posts. With 140 characters per tweet, I use the url shortening service bitly to get the links down to 16 characters, then use what’s left to tease with leads like “Why Email Isn’t Dead.”
3. I also use Twitter to ask specific people to read or comment on posts, according to their inclination and expertise. I know who wants to read my posts about SPAM and who wants a financial blog writing prompt and who’s the best expert to comment on one of my posts. If I’m fortunate, some of my followers will “reTweet” what I’ve sent so their network of followers will have the opportunity to read something they would not have otherwise known existed.
4. When I get comments on the blog I Tweet that out to keep the conversation going. This helps those who’ve commented get their ideas in front of a wider audience, too. The least I can do.
5. My newsletter promises three things every month: something on whole-brain communications, a bit on brevity and updates on topics related to email marketing and newsletters. Eventually everything from the newsletter shows up in the blog. For those who don’t want to read every blog post or remind themselves to check my RSS feed in a reader, they can read my monthly newsletter and click through to anything else that might interest them in the blog. The newsletter is an efficient portal to all the information I offer.
6. I reserve email for my most formal and private correspondence. It’s also how I communicate with those not on social media.  As the WSJ article says, some things require attachments and confidentiality and email is the next-best thing to a tête-à-tête

OK, that’s my communications methodology.  What am I missing that works for you? Do tell (if you comment, I’ll tweet it out)!

Advice for those who need a ghostwriter

As a writer with some tech savvy and a general tendency to extroversion, social media works very well for me and and I’ve found a way to bind all my efforts together strategically. My experience is that those who invest the time in social media will benefit, but not everyone will want to make that investment. Fine.

If you’re a professional of any stripe, start with a custom newsletter written by yourself or a ghostwriter — not something you stick your logo on and call “customized.” No idea what to write? I offer news-driven writing prompts, if that helps.

Keep a consistent publishing schedule and maintain a searchable repository of your articles (not just prior newsletter editions, the individual articles) on your website. One of my clients does this so that we can eventually compile his newsletter articles into feature articles for professional journals. Another client’s newsletter articles go into his blog and will eventually become a book. Re-purpose your material.

My observation is that people are often reluctant to start small when they have big aspirations, but every desert is composed of tiny grains of sand. They add up.

ADDED 10-19-09

Further evidence of the power of Twitter: this morning one one of my tweeps, @derekhernquist, brought this video to my attention:

I follow an outstanding lineup of financial professionals and traders on Twitter. I learned about some of them through Stocktwits, which describes itself as “a social, stock microblogging service.” Stocktwits now offers a free desktop with more functionality than TweetDeck.

StockTwits is an open, community-powered idea and information service for investments. Users can eavesdrop on traders and investors, or contribute to the conversation and build their reputation as savvy market wizards. The service takes financial related data – using Twitter as the content production platform – and structures it by stock, user, reputation, etc.

While I’m not a trader or active investor, I enjoy the intelligent conversation of Stocktwits gurus like @aiki14 @Dasan @iron100 @ekanters @gregormacdonald @nelderini and others from around the world.  They’re quick to extrapolate from a world event to its effects on global economies, individual sectors and stocks.  (Note: follow Charlotte hometown favorite @kevinmhughes as he gains national notoriety).

Truckers and retirees now stock jockeys?

I thought my world view was skewed by my Stocktwits exposure to trading, where lots of folks new to trading and investing subscribe to the charts and advice of experts.  But then I saw an article on un-employed and un-retired people going into trading for the lack of other employment opportunities.   The next day The Daily Show ran a segment on the topic. Hmmm, something’s afoot.

I appreciate that there’s money to be made trading. But all the trading in the world doesn’t feed people, clean the environment or find a cure for cancer. And, as Samantha Bee points out in this piece, it’s not as easy as promoters would have us believe.

Writing prompts for financial professionals

• What tax considerations to high frequency traders & rookies overlook?
• If you’re a financial advisor, how do you advise would-be traders to allocate their overall portfolio in consideration of high frequency trade risks and returns?
• Review the different software products needed to pursue a career as a trader.
• How long does it take and how much do you need to lose before you figure out whether this career is a good fit for you? What’s the total investment, considering hardware, software and mentoring services?

Last week a global provider of bulk email services had to deal with one of its rogue customers who’d gained a reputation as a spammer. While it did, a large-but-untold number of innocent and spam-compliant emailers couldn’t get their messages into customers’ inboxes.

Aha! The rubber hits the highway. Here’s how it went down:

Spamhaus Project, the international cyber crime fighting organization, placed the rogue emailer’s internet (IP) address on its blacklist of spammers. The rogue’s IP address belonged to the rogue’s email provider, which meant the millions of innocent commercial emailers also using that provider were painted with the same “spammer” brush. The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who subscribe to Spamhaus’ blacklist wouldn’t deliver anyone’s email from that service until the matter was resolved.

Damage control overdrive with Hotmail, Yahoo! and others

The commercial email service provider had to go into damage control overdrive, suspending the rogue’s account, communicating with innocent emailer senders about the delay to their campaigns, and proving to Spamhaus that they’d taken the right precautionary and reactionary measures required. Until Spamhaus removed the address from its blacklist, ISPs like Hotmail, Yahoo! and others wouldn’t deliver any of the provider’s clients’ email.

Ouch!

This is tough to convey in words, and I acknowledge using some jargon here, so I suggest you visit Spamhaus for flowcharts that illustrate how filtering works.

Follow commercial email rules

The upshot for commercial emailers: if your email service provider advises you to use a double-opt-in subscription process or to certify that you haven’t purchased an email list, or subscribed people without their permission, comply quickly and don’t complain about the extra steps. These procedures are necessary to convince Spamhaus and the ISPs that you’re a compliant emailer, even if someone else using your service isn’t.

This also points out the reason to use a bulk email service instead of sending email campaigns from your own email account. That way, if you are accused of spamming, you’ll have a knowledgeable and experienced company go to bat for you with the international cyber services. If I may be so bold to ask, please consider using my email service.

The Spamhaus Project is a great study for international cooperation. Be sure to hit the tags to the right for more of what I’ve written on SPAM and e-newsletters.

In September I had the pleasure of being a Twitter panelist on how to avoid the spam filters when emailing.  This is the third time I’ve spoken formally on the subject (if you consider tweeting “formal”).  By this third presentation, it struck me that spam is like porn, everyone thinks they know it when they see it, but few can define it in their own words.*

Looking for the most succinct explanation, I turned to the  Spamhaus Project, an international non-profit organization whose mission is to track the Internet’s spam operations, to provide dependable realtime anti-spam protection for internet networks, to work with law enforcement agencies to identify and pursue spammers worldwide, and to lobby governments for effective anti-spam legislation.

The word “spam” as applied to email means “unsolicited bulk email”

The two most important words there are UNSOLICITED and BULK.

Unsolicited means that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent.

Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages, all having substantively identical content.

A message is Spam only if it is both Unsolicited and Bulk.

Unsolicited email is normal email, for example first contact inquiries, job inquiries and sales inquiries.

Bulk email is normal email, for example, subscriber newsletters, customer communications, discussion lists.

Point of clarification: The CAN-SPAM Act goes beyond the technical definition of spam; it applies to commercial email sent to recipients in the US and originated in the States. Download this CAN-SPAM Quick Guide.

*Wow your friends with your command of factoids

Justice Stewart

I’m not the first to use the phrase ” everyone thinks they know it when they see it.”  The origin is in a US Supreme Court case that helped define the legal standards for determining obscenity. Here’s a bit about the case.

In 1964, movie theater manager Nico Jacobellis was convicted of exhibiting an obscene movie, Louis Malle’s Les Amants, “The Lovers.” The ads were hyperbolic.

“When all conventions explode . . . in the most daring love story ever filmed!”

“As close to authentic amour as is possible on the screen.”

“The frankest love scenes yet seen on film.” “Contains one of the longest and most sensuous love scenes to be seen in this country.”

In the words of the Supreme Court decision: “‘The Lovers’ involves a woman bored with her life and marriage who abandons her husband and family for a young archaeologist with whom she has suddenly fallen in love. There is an explicit love scene in the last reel of the film, and the State’s objections are based almost entirely upon that scene. The film was favorably reviewed in a number of national publications, although disparaged in others, and was rated by at least two critics of national stature among the best films of the year in which it was produced.”

Although the film was shown in some 100 U.S. cities, including Columbus and Toledo, Ohio, Jacobellis was prosecuted for showing it in Cleveland Heights, a middle-class suburb of Cleveland. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court decided that Jacobellis had been wrongly convicted.

The most famous opinion in the case came from Justice Potter Stewart, who said that the only unprotected material in his opinion was “hard-core pornography.” Stewart expressed his concern that such material was impossible to define. “But I know it when I see it.”

In the second, we explored how  Treasury’s un-trustworthiness dealing with TARP and the financial meltdown has led to social anxiety and depression.

While writing that second post it occurred to me if our elected and appointed officials been truthful and upfront in their dealings with $700b bailout, we’d already have a healthcare reform bill.

It also occurred to me that we hold public servants to a higher standard than CEOs of healthcare. When healthcare execs earn blood money by standing between us and our doctors, we shrug it off by saying “Hey, that’s just capitalism,” or “Oh well, cost of doing business,” but when our elected officials stand between us and our doctors we get nuts because that’s rationing.

What Ariely has to say about our beloved invisible hand of the market

In the updated version of Predictably Irrational, Ariely observes about his own profession:

Rational economics has always been the basis for setting up policies and designing our institutions. What’s wrong with that? Neoclassical economics is built on very strong assumptions that, over time, have become ‘established facts.’   Most famous among these are that all economic agents (consumers, companies, etc., are fully rational, and that the so-called invisible hand works to create market efficiency). To rational economists, these assumptions seem so basic, logical, and self-evident that they do not need any empirical scrutiny.

Building on these basic assumptions, rational economists make recommendations regarding the ideal way to design health insurance, retirement funds, and operating principles for financial institutions. This is, of course, the source of the basic belief in the wisdom of deregulation: if people always make the right decisions, and if the “invisible hand” and market forces always lead to efficiency, shouldn’t we just let go of any regulations and allow the financial markets to operate at their full potential?

On the other hand, scientists in fields ranging from chemistry to physics to psychology are trained to be suspicious of ‘established facts.’ In these fields, assumptions and theories are tested empirically and repeatedly. In testing them, scientists have learned over and over that many ideas accepted as true can end up being wrong; this is the natural progression of science. Accordingly, nearly all scientists have a stronger belief in data than in their own theories. If empirical observation is incompatible with a model, the model must be trashed or amended, even if it is conceptually beautiful, logically appealing, or mathematically convenient.

Unfortunately, such healthy scientific skepticism and empiricism have not yet taken hold in rational economics, where initial assumptions about human nature have solidified into dogma. Blind faith in human rationality and the forces of the market would not be so bad if they were limited to a few university professors and the students taking their classes. The real problem, however, is that economists have been very successful in convincing the world, including politicians, business people, and everyday Joes not only that economics has something important to say about how the world around us functions (which it does), but that economics is a sufficient explanation of everything around us (which it is not). In essence, the economic dogma is that once we take rational economics into account, nothing else is needed (emphasis added).

In sum, we trust theories more than facts.  No wonder we’re in such a quandry.