from TED talks: $8 billion iPod

i wanted you to see this talk. an amusing and telling perspective on internet impact on media.

e-mail disease

what are the symptoms?

e-mail disease

what are the signs?

e-mail disease

what is e-mail disease. thus, i offer the teaser to a rant that follows the next few days.

you probably have your own definiton. e-mail revolutionized communication. but what has been it's most enduring legacy: e-mail disease

colors of the past: photos from the 40's

i would love for readers of this blog to see this collection of photos. yes safe to look at. photos from the 40's. for some reason in my mind those decades are all black, gray, and brown. go now!

you should look at url for this library of congress photo

new orleans pelicans

would you rather learn about the bird than the basketball team? travel here to national geographic.

could this be a new orleans pelican?

get the name of the dog

i've been listening to the podcast version of Roy Peter Clark's "Writing Tools". first, i recommend you give the time to these short podcasts. i think you'll find that these tools will work for your public speaking and storytelling (which should describe your public speaking method).

thought I would comment a bit on the tip titled "get the name of the dog". your story comes alive when you use describe in detail the color of the rotary phone on the wall, the color, model, and year of the car, the exact weather of the moment. notice this in the next news article you read. i think you will discover journalists usually give "the name of the dog" even in a story of just a few hundred words.

so, the next time you tell a story; describe some element of the plot in some combination of brief but significant detail. see if you can win that "my story is better than your story" conversation exchange that characterizes most adult interactions.

why does attention improve at the end of the talk?

it is what it is

this is such a defeatist idea and cliche. i hope most of us realize it is a cliche. a trite meaningless expression. something that lets us connect and commiserate with each other.

first lets consider what is negative in this phrase. and then as i plan to do in all cases, lets consider the power for good such sad statements can effect in our lives

ok. what's negative. this "it is" speaks of surrender to me. some may suggest that the comment merely resigns to the past and the unalterable. i suggest that thinking this way also colors our future. and the colors are gray and black and beige. (you know boring, austere colors. don't get me wrong the black and gray are my colors of choice. i always look slightly dressed up. good for my image.)

if my filters to the past color my perspective hopeless, don't you suppose that same filter blinds my sight to hopes, opportunities, and possibilities ahead.

the positives. "it is" because i can do more. i can look at the past and accept my chance for improvement. "it is what it is" this is my chance to create deliberative future actions that shapes the "it" to my vision for life, hope, and happiness. sure something went badly or horribly wrong. redefine the past to terms that positively effect the future. sure these trite platitudes i spout may annoy you. but come on you folks with the half full glasses love this stuff. we all should. emotional response is a choice for most of us. make yours a choice you can live with in your "what it is" present".

a graphic i decided fits my post

contemplating zero

i think that most of us are afraid. we are afraid we make the wrong choice for a major. we are afraid we'll choose the wrong career. the wrong second job. the wrong go back to school degree. the wrong mortgage.

you get the idea

it seems to me advice experts want you to see opportunity in failure. a new sun rising over the mountain brightening a day of hope and possibility.

you know what failure is just what we should think it is

it means our idea was bad. our plan was bad. our widget was a disaster

failure is not the hope of the new. it is the reasonable abandonment of a stupid choice. a terrible decision.

own your failure. reject it. and forget about. get back on the horse. stand after your fall. dust yourself off. start over. embrace the emotional or physical pain of your mistake. make it a part of who you are

and please don't do something stupid twice. some single actions won't offer you any recovery. if i can't say dumb things on my own blog, then why have it.

john cleese on creativity

take the time to watch a master improvisor discuss invention and innovation.