Nuke the Bullets!

Great advice in this video on SUPPORTING your talk with a presentation (Powerpoint, Keynote, etc), not leaning on it.

SPAM Tweetup

Looking forward to seeing anyone who wants to talk about SPAM in Charlotte Weds, November 11 at 11:30 :

• 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.

Spamhaus: Cyber Crime Fighter

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

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.”

Me, the Twitter Panelist

I find Twitter to be an efficient and effective way to grow professionally and personally.

My friends at Understanding Marketing facilitate a weekly discussion on marketing and PR topics of interest to small business owners on TweetGrid and asked me to be the expert on call Tuesday 9/22/09 8-9om EST.

We’ll be discussing CAN-SPAM and how to write email marketing campaigns and e-newsletters so they won’t be scraped into the “junk” or “bulk” or “spam” filters of recipient mailboxes.

Since it’s a Twitter-based discussion, anyone can chime in with questions and answers — and it’s free.

If you have anything specific to ask and can’t attend next week, leave me a comment below and I’ll get it in.  Have a study or resource on the topic you’d like to share?  Again, leave a note below.

“I loved the way he used PowerPoint”

The anti-PPT bandwagon doesn’t have room for another rider. My only addition to the chorus  is that a bad PPT-based presentation is like a bad dog — blame the owner!

PPT isn’t inherently bad, but, like a Rotweiller, can be placed in the wrong hands and do real damage.

I generally agree with the authors of Real Leaders Don’t do PowerPoint: How to sell yourself and your ideas, “You are the message. Who you are–your character, experience, values–shapes the message your listeners hear.”

Dan Ariely, PowerPoint master

Last year I heard Dan Ariely, bestselling author and professor at my B-school (Fuqua — Duke) speak on behavioral economics and his first book Predictably Irrational.

In staccato diction, he regaled us with tales of our irrational behavior — like why we won’t pay $3000 for a leather couch in the family room while we will pay the same amount for a leather interior in our family car — and he did it with the delivery skills of any comedian’s aspiration.

If he’d been a rock star we’d have whipped out our cigarette lighters and stomped our  feet until he gave an encore.

And yes, he used PPT, including a slide with an x-ray of Homer Simpson’s brain.  See?  I remembered that one.

In defense of PowerPoint

Recall a time when someone gave a terrific, memorable, actionable presentation WITH PPT, as Professor Ariely did.

I’ll wait.

OK, I can’t wait all day.

If you did have the good fortune of attending such an event, you’ll recall that PPT didn’t make it great — it was great because the speaker had something to say and said it with conviction; they knew their stuff cold, engaged the audience, told stories and stayed ON POINT.  Did the PPT help?  Maybe, after all, who knows how it would have gone without the screen?

Reasons for PPT:

• Leave-behind for those who couldn’t make it to the live event
• Guided handout for taking notes
• Satisfies the need for visual stimulation
• Illustrate points graphically

Bottom line:  No one says “I loved the way he used PowerPoint;” but if you’re a good presenter they’ll say “I’d go see him speak again.”

Malcolm Gladwell speaks

A friend of mine had the good fortune of attending The Foundation for the Carolinas’ annual meeting.  You can hardly drag me to one of those, but I wish I’d gone to this one.  Why?  Bestselling author and New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell did the keynote.

According to my friend, Gladwell took a wireless mike and roved the audience, telling stories about a town in (I believe) Pennsylvania and how and why it prospered and failed.  My friend, a public relations pro who is not easily impressed, was awed.

Just the opposite of Ariely, Gladwell is soft spoken.  Where Ariely is irreverent, Gladwell is earnest.  Both can bring the house down.

I’m not a qualified speaking coach — my specialty is the content — but to me this is the bottom line:  You don’t have to be “dynamic” to get your message across.  The book mentioned earlier, Real Leaders Don’t do PowerPoint: How to sell yourself and your ideas, got good reviews and the website and book Presentation Zen is chock full of great stuff. And I’m always here to help.

It’s easy to bash PPT, and you’re welcome to bash away in the comments section.  I’d really like to hear from you about a presentation that thrived WITH the visual support.

Beware the Fart Joke

Catching up on reading this week at the beach, including past issues of my favorite magazine, The Atlantic.

The November 2008 edition carried a fascinating article that touched on neuroeconomics, or the neurophysiology of economic decisions. I love this stuff.

According to Yale professor of psychology, Paul Bloom, “…remembering something is easiest while you are in the same state in which you originally experienced it. Students do better when they are tested in the room in which they learned the material; someone who learned something while he was angry is better at remembering that information when he is angry again; the experience of one’s drunken self is more accessible to the drunk self than to the sober self. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

Bloom’s research underscores why effective business communications need to take people to an emotional place in order to cement the message. Warren Buffett did this well in his 2009 annual letter to shareholders when he drew a parallel between derivatives and venereal disease:  “Participants seeking to dodge troubles face the same problem as someone seeking to avoid venereal disease: It’s not just whom you sleep with, but also whom they are sleeping with.”

If that gives you a creepy feeling, the Oracle from Omaha met his objective; he hates derivatives.

More Buffett bon mots:

• Tony and I feel like two hungry mosquitoes in a nudist camp. Juicy targets are everywhere.

• By year end 2007, the half dozen or so companies that had been the major players in this business had all fallen into big trouble. The cause of their problems was captured long ago by Mae West: “I was Snow White,but I drifted.”

• If merely looking up past financial data would tell you what the future holds,the Forbes 400 would consist of librarians.

• The tennis crowd would call my mistakes “unforced errors.”

• Upon leaving, our feelings about the business mirrored a line in a country song: “I liked you better before I got to know you so well.”

• Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the symbols. Our advice: Beware of geeks bearing formulas.

Advice for speakers

Back to Paul Bloom in The Atlantic story,  “Good smells, such as fresh bread, make people kinder and more likely to help a stranger; bad smells, like farts (the experimenters used fart spray from a novelty store), make people more judgmental. If you ask people to unscramble sentences, they tend to be more polite, minutes later, if the sentences contain positive words like honor rather than negative words like bluntly. .. All of these studies support the view that each of us contains many selves-some violent, some submissive, some thoughtful-and that different selves can be brought to the fore by different situations.“

Next time you’re delivering a presentation, keep this in mind.  The oft-repeated advice to open with a joke should be tempered by what you just learned about neurophysiology — don’t make it a fart joke.

Next Q: Online/Offline

I’m having a good time responding to questions from my 6/18/09 presentation to CPSE.  Thanks, ladies.

Q: With so much moving online, what do you bother to print?

If a tree falls and no one hears it...

A:  I’m not qualified to answer questions about e-commerce and web-based customer self-service.  I’ll answer this from the perspective of the solo-preneur who asked the question.

What goes online and in print varies from a person to person and must align with industry norms. For example, when I ran an environmental contracting business my market was general contractors with public-bid jobs.  Contractors are low-tech, and expect bids to be FAXED, not emailed.  Most of them have Yahoo or Hotmail accounts and a LIGHT web presence if any.  I could have senselessly spent a fortune on multimedia that would have been like the proverbial tree falling in the woods with no one to hear it. Instead, I hired a telemarketer who made personal contact with the estimators and then followed up with a customized packet that spoke to our expertise on the kinds of jobs the contractor bid.

On the other hand, when I ran a software and services consulting firm we had to demonstrate our tech chops — everything was online.

Answer these questions:

1. Where do the people you  most want for customers turn when they’re looking for your products and services? Referrals from people they know or from independent raters like Angie’s List?  Straight to the Google search page?
2. When you’re at a business mixer, how often do people ask you to send them a packet of information?
3. When you present your qualifications/proposal to a new prospect, what materials do they spend time REALLY looking at?  What do they repeatedly ask for that you don’t often bring?
4. Why do your competitors do what they do?  They may have best practices or they may be laggards, but it’s always prudent to check them out.
5. Do you represent a product or offer a service that requires buyers to hunker down and study to make a decision?  Offer that online for sure — also in print if you’ve got lots of money to spend.  When I meet a new client I find it helpful to simply sit with them at a computer screen and go through pages on my site and elsewhere.  This assures that they’ve seen my site and gives them a constant place to go if a printed piece goes astray.

Business cards & postcards

Business cards are, in my view, still a must. There’s an ongoing and lively discussion on whether you should include your social media “handles” on the card (for example, you can follow me on Twitter @TamelaRich).  I can see all points of view.

I also carry 4.25″  x  5.5″ double sided postcards that act as a mini home page.  Most people, when given the choice, will take a p-card instead of a b-card.  Given the nature of my work, that’s all the print collateral I need, b-cards and p-cards. Your mileage may vary.

How ’bout it, experts?  What else should entrepreneurs/small business owners consider?

Next Q: Personal vs Professional Blog?

Continuing my series of answers from questions asked at the CPSE meeting 6/18/09.

Q: When should you have a personal blog and when should you use a blog professionally?

A: (From the perspective of a self-employed/solo-preneur who asked it) This can be a delicate balance.  Find your voice somewhere between “faux big business” and the emerging “my-life’s-an-open-book” ethos.

Set the tone with your bio

Here’s a Twitter follower’s bio, (@ex-wirehouse) which sets the stage for the voice he uses in his blog posts and tweets:

“One time Infantry Officer, longtime wirehouse veteran. Currently Principal and CEO of Andover Equity Investment Group LLC an independent asset management paractice,successfully focused on absolute return investing. Proud husband and father of 7 year old twins. Discplined trader who is constantly humbled by the markets. In no way should this even remotely be construed to constitute investment advice, more aptly a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

When you go on to read his posts, you’ll see that he blends strong professional views with a heavy dose of humility, just as his bio suggests he would.

For something a bit more traditional, here’s my bio.

Find your voice

Let’s say you’re a baseball card collector, you love all things about the sport but your paid work is interior design.  How to get into the new media groove?

You might talk about the parallels between project management and third base coaching or dealing with a difficult customer with a personality like Ty Cobb’s.  This makes you a REAL PERSON, infuses warmth into your posts and will probably garner you a following of other baseball lovers.  Wow, imagine having a client roster full of other people who love the game — that’s the potential of your new media voice.

Next post:  What to put in print/online

How to Quench the New Media Thirst?

I’ve got street cred talking about adolescent boys — mine are 17 and 20.  So believe me, when it comes to technology, I’m like an adolescent boy learning how to deal with hormones; my ego swells and deflates according to the company I keep.

Last week I addressed a business networking group of small business owners and solo-preneurs.  Their program director asked me to speak on e-newsletter marketing, but they wanted to know EVERYTHING about social marketing, from blogs to the proper form for declining a Facebook or LinkedIn invitation without offending.

Since nothing they asked stumped me, my head swelled .  Like an adolescent boy, it doesn’t take much.

Getting the job done

Half an hour for Q&A was insufficient; books have been written on each question!

As marketing and media become more granular and everyone’s expected to publish SOMETHING, even a 140-character tweet,  there’s an audience for what I have to say about effective business communications and plenty of opportunities to ghostwrite. But I’m a Business Person who writes like an English Major, not a new media guru.

Fortunately for us all there are technology scouts out ahead charting the best path to success. Given the thirst for new media information, I’m going to address the specific unanswered questions of the Charlotte Professional Saleswomen and Entrepreneurs through a series of posts and invite the REAL GENIUSES out there to comment on and enhance what I have to say.

Blog versus Newsletter:  what’s the difference?

The word “blog” is truncated from web log.  Remember Star Trek, with “captain’s log” entries?  Well, a blog is a web-based log of thoughts, activities, articles, and whatever else the author publishes in a “post” (as opposed to a web page).  Lots of great (and free) software makes publishing a blog easy.

A newsletter can contain the same kind of materials that are published on blogs. Newsletters can be published electronically or on paper, but the blog is called a “blog” because it’s a web log.

If you publish both a blog and newsletter, they should reinforce each other.  Your blog should be updated more often than you publish newsletters, so refer to blog posts that take the reader further down the knowledge path of the articles and topics in the newsletter.  For example, in my recent newsletter I referred to six blog posts on how to keep your e-newsletters out of the SPAM filters.  No need to condense six blog posts in the e-newsletter!

OK, that’s enough from me on this particular question.  If you have further questions or want to elaborate on my answer, have at it — floor’s open.

Speaking on Newsletters

This week I speak to the Carolina Professional Saleswomen and Entrepreneurs on a favorite topic:  Newsletters and CAN-SPAM.

I plan to start with a primer on the scary compliance stuff and then discuss how professionals can build their newsletter subscription list (as well as subcriptions to blogs, ezines, etc) with a solid CONTENT strategy, including article marketing.

I’d appreciate any advance questions you think I should plan to address in my talk.

I’m also interested in any research on this topic, whether your own or someone else’s.

Thanks in advance.

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