Empty Words

We use certain words often and hopefully. We intend these words to convey something unspecified yet powerful. Those vague, unspecified words prove problematical.

To me, words like wonderful, terrific, and awesome convey little of what a writer intends. Their respective derivational seeds have grown through usage into nondescripts. All three of these words—you can make your own list— connote no more than good. In speech, bolstered by intonation and body language, these words produce more effect. For writers, though, they represent weak, slack options.

These words fail because they no longer anchor to any firm impressions. For instance, wonderful. When you use the word, do you mean “full of wonder”? Really? Your product, service, or opportunity is really full of wonder, like Alice’s adventures down the rabbit hole? Naw.

Let the excitement ride in the words themselves, not in the ringing blandishment of received locutions. Write right.

Wine Scores

The wine writer Robert Parker turned the industry on its ear when he established a 100 point rating system. His scores were taken seriously by retailer, wholesaler, and consumer alike. People would cite his score for a wine as an intrinsic fact of the wine.

Parker’s assessments are reasonable enough—knowledgeable if hyperbolically voiced—but, look, the scores take words away. The numbers hardly anchor to anything except a vaguely wrought system. They represent a shorthand for the lazy consumer.

As a writer in that environment, I had to maintain pressure on the fallacy that a 90 point wine is somehow 1 better than an 89, like the 11 on Spinal Tap’s amp. Taste and perceived value cannot be so rigidly quantified. Metrics must be brought into the human encounter, which is to say a wild card is constantly at play. Keep an eye on that wild card.

Creative Tension

Here is an article on Creative Tension. It brings up some interesting thoughts about creative problem solving, but it seems to locate itself within a context of desperation that works against potential benefits.

The creative mind, which we all possess, works constantly on problems. The basis of psychoanalysis resides in the uncaptained choices that we make. That is, the unexamined life that we live. Without examining the processor of our experiences and actions, we spin out of control.

I took from this article a sense of actions serving intensified need. Yes, the article warns against succumbing to the anxiety of this condition, but it ramps up the tension at the same time.

This topic compels me to quote the poet John Keats on Negative Capability:

“…that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason - Colerdige, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge.”

Irritable reaching after fact & reason, within the business context, blurs a ton of the creative possibilities. Creativity is always tense, because it is alive. Balancing that tension with clear thinking is the larger quest.

Lack of System Design

Some business websites provide illustrations of lameness in vivid ways. We do not ask for this service, but they provide it anyway.

Let us say that you went to the website because you wanted some information. Perhaps you wanted to know something about the product or service that the company offers. Are you psyched to diddle around the site to find the information that you seek. No, me neither.

Time for a bullet list.

• Organization: let’s have some. Treat the home page as a table of contents, with a clear map to where things are.
• Clutter: get rid of it. Opt for content and not distraction.
• Formatting: use it. Break content into logical and comprehensible units.

Most business sites require certain elements, like:

• Contact Info, including social network options
• Directions to physical locations, including maps
• Service or product descriptions
• Service or product pricings

Identify these clearly. They are why people come to the site.

Finally, eliminate verbiage. Use words sparingly, allow meaning not noise to prevail.

Don’t Take It Personally

Here is something that I have seen on numerous occasions. In speaking about a problem with a business, the representative of that business starts taking the situation personally. Doing so never turns out well.

My wife and I had a problem at a hotel recently, and were speaking with the general manager of the establishment. There were multiple screw ups and we were irritable. Our irritation gave voice. The general manager eventually said, I do not appreciate your tone. That was a giveaway.

Sorry, it is not the general manager’s job to critique our tone. We were getting a runaround and were annoyed. It is not that customers have a right to be rude. We had an occasion to be annoyed, and the person delegated to respond to our annoyance was not satisfying us.

The GM should have focused on cooling our anger, not take a stand. Taking us into her office would have been a nice touch, rather than argue in public. Making us feel that we had to fight with her soured us completely on that hotel.

Mistakes happen, and irritation results. Rectifying errors and soothing irritation will keep customers. Defensiveness will not.

Tone Deaf

For years, I worked for a wine retailer/wholesaler, mostly on the retail side. At busy times of the year, like Christmas, our wholesale salespeople would lend a hand in the store. They would help customers choose wines.

The wholesale staff was as wine knowledgeable as were we who worked in the store. Their appearance in the store, however, would occasionally reveal a different attitude towards what we sold. They referred to what they were selling as product.

It is a product, but speaking of it so, using that word, misses a key element in the wine tasting experience. People at a wine shop or restaurant buy more than a product, they buy something magical, something that thrills, intrigues, and pleases. To call such a potion a product mishandles that magic completely.

What you sell may be a product to you, but to the person buying, it could be anything. Effective selling demands sensitivity to the ticking need of the customer.

Bad Taste of the Week

This past week, the opportunity to attend a business seminar became available. The seminar sounded useful.

To accommodate the supposed huge demand for this seminar, potential participants had to sign up online at 2:00 one afternoon. If I was quick, I could participate in this seminar. I do not doubt that demand outweighed available places.

I got online at the appointed time. I filled in contact info, plus a quick questionnaire concerning why I wanted to participate. When I reached the bottom of the questionnaire, I found that I had to provide my credit card number for the full price of the seminar, close to $10,000, or for one of 10 easy payments of nearly $1000.

That is a lot of money to spend so precipitously.

I think the price could be worth it, though it is too rich for my blood.  I do not complain about that. In all the communications leading up to this opportunity, however, price was never mentioned. That information was saved for the last minute.

I find it hard not to regard this offering as a scam. To produce such a feeling of desperation so that I could spend $10,000 gives me no warm feeling about the seminar. I feel like those offering this seminar were just jerking me around. Is the value of the seminar so weak that it needed trickery to sell it? That seems like the logical inference.