Cheap Vindication

If you work in a creative job, you learn quickly to accept rejection.

If not, you don't last very long.

Some of my own favorite creations have, in fact, never seen the light of day. 

They were rejected by clients.

No big deal.  There's always more where that came from.

Still, sometimes, deep down, the rejections bother you.

As Lance Armstrong said, "A boo is a lot louder than a cheer.” 

Once you're past the sting, you're left harboring the feeling it's them, not you, who's missing something.

So it's consoling to read, about a third of the way through Walter Isaacson's new biography, Steve Jobs, that Apple's board of directors detested the now-legendary TV commercial "1984" when Jobs first showed it to them.

They insisted it be trash-canned.

Jobs and his ad agency defied the board (as chairman, he could afford to).  The spot aired during the Super Bowl. 

The rest is history.

Relishing the fact that "1984" almost never aired because a bunch of stodgy executives didn't "get it" is cheap vindication.

I'll take it anyway.

Word Limit

I enjoy consultant Alan Weiss' monthly e-newsletter Balancing Act.

Weiss is the Andy Rooney of the corporate boardroom.

In the current edition, he bemoans our poor command of language.

"I’ve always believed that language controls discussion, discussion controls relationships, and relationships control business," Weiss writes.

Ain't it the truth.

"As I listen to interviewees on talk shows, protestors on the streets, politicians on the stump, and athletes on a celebratory high, I’m aghast at how poorly they reflect their conditions and circumstances," Weiss writes. "Many are functionally inarticulate. It seems like those with the least ability to express themselves miraculously and insidiously wind up with the opportunity to face the largest audiences."

It's ironic that business professionals (salespeople, in particular) spend most of their time every day talking.

But how much time do they devote to sprucing up their verbal "tool bags?"

"How many new tools are you acquiring?" Weiss asks.  "Or do you still have the same old, tattered bag you had ten years ago?"

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."

From the People Who Brought You the Wall Street Collapse

From his grave, the late novelist Joseph Heller must be giving direct marketing advice to JP Morgan Chase.


Today my wife and I received a letter from Deb Walden, Chase's executive vice president of cardmember experience.


The letter opens with good news: "Currently, our records indicate that you are not being mailed any offers from Chase."  Thank God for small favors.


It then informs us that, in order to continue enjoying this privilege, we must respond.  If we fail to respond, Chase will begin mailing us offers.


The list of offers comprises things like insurance, investments, credit cards, home equity loans and annuities.


Deb even includes a deadline (December 15) and warns us that, by failing to respond by the deadline, "you may begin to receive offers in the mail about these products and services."


May receive?


So let me get this straight, Deb.


Unless your customer opts out, he will automatically receive direct mail offers from Chase after December 15.  That is, unless Chase opts not to send those offers.


So, to be clear, we must opt out or Chase will send us direct mail offers.  That is, unless Chase opts out, in which case it will not send us those offers.  Or it may send us some, but not all, offers.


Deb concludes her letter with a waiver.  (Deb can't help herself; she's a banker, after all.)


"Responding to this letter will ensure that the mailing options you select will remain in effect for five years after we receive your request.  After five years, or if you move to a new residence, you'll need to renew all of your mailing options."


Well, Deb, you've succeeded in one thing at least.  


You've erased any temptation we might have had to move in the next five years.

Tom Edison, Asshole

The strong reviews of the new "exclusive" biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson have spurred me to buy a copy.

In reading them—as well as the hundreds of other tributes and op-eds that have appeared since Jobs' recent demise—I'm struck by the countless times he's been called an "asshole."

Jobs applied the label to himself, so maybe there's cause.

But I'm troubled by the fact that so many people are willing to go "on the record" this way.

Did critics of Thomas Edison so readily toss around the same harsh language in his day?

Fabula Interruptus

Okay, I admit it.

I'm helplessly hooked on The Walking Dead.

If there's one storytelling technique the series' producers have mastered, it's the cliffhanger.

Why are cliffhangers so seductive?

The Zeigarnik Effect.

Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik in the late 1920s discovered that people are twice as likely to remember something that's been interrupted.

So if you want to seduce people with your storytelling, leave a few untied ends.

Your audience will naturally remember—and crave—more.

And if you really want your audience to pay close attention to your message, there are four other things you should do.

To be continued...