24 Things You Should Never Say to a Welsh Woman

Why do lists lure more readers than other narrative modes?

Human cognition craves lists, says web analytics guru Neil Patel, citing studies by neuropsychologists of the brain's structure.

Our hunger for specificity drives us to click headlines that promise a list. 

What's more, reader-survey and test results show:

1. Headlines promising a numbered list are 71% more popular than headlines merely promising a list.
2. People value the clarity of headlines that promise a list.
3. Women like lists more than men.
4. Longer lists deliver greater reader satisfaction than short ones.
5. Odd-numbered lists outperform even-numbered ones.
6. The optimal number of items in a list is 25.

These results make lists "a content marketer’s go-to technique," Patel says.

But lists have a dark side.

Lists advance human misery, according to Right Life Project, promoting clutter, instant gratification and thoughtlessness.

As Zig Ziglar once said, "The person who dumps garbage into your mind will do you considerably more harm than the person who dumps garbage on your floor, because each load of mind garbage negatively impacts your possibilities and lowers your expectations."

The Danger in Dangling

And this news just in from TheAnimalRescueSite.com...

While Shooting This Video, A Homeless Dog Comes On Set And Literally Adopts The Singer!

A clear case of the "dangling" modifier.

A modifier dangles when it isn't pinned to the noun it's supposed to describe.

When Groucho dangles a modifier, audiences laugh ("I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know.").

When an unwitting writer does it, audiences scratch their heads:

• Before rebooting the computer, the power should be turned off.

• The employees were told they had been fired by HR.

• By inserting keywords into the text, statistics show that SEO improves.

• Though only 14 years old, the company made Han a developer.

• Having driven 20 years without an accident, the CEO welcomed Ruth onto the stage to receive the award.

Beware of those doggone dangling modifiers!

All Hat, No Cattle

The world is filled with big, stupid companies.

When it comes to the customer experience, they're "all hat, no cattle."

A story to illustrate.

I encountered a bug in the software from one of today's top 10 providers. The bug is so serious, it prevents any use of the product. 

My first plea for help spawned this canned email:

Thank you for submitting your case. My name is Henjie from Support. I have taken ownership of your Case number 12483149. I understand that you need some assistance. I won't be able to call you. For now, I will need to have your case endorsed to a team to make sure that we will be able to assist you further with your concern. Thank you for choosing [name withheld].

Four weeks, hours of my time, and 31 comparably inane messages later, no remedial action has been taken.

Disney likes to say, "no employee ever 'owns the customer,' but one employee always 'owns the moment.'"

At stupid companies, employees own neither customers nor moments. The only "owners" are the legal ones, who spend all their moments minding the share price, while buzz-talking auto-responders are left minding the store.

Entrepreneurs can take heart.

Prevent Slow Burn

In the 1930s, film-goers loved comedian Edgar Kennedy for his mastery of the "slow burn."

When thwarted by a foe, Kennedy would glower, then slowly rub his hand over his face as he fought off—and inexorably succumbed to—his fury.

I find myself doing the slow burn whenever I encounter a self-indulgent blogger; the writer who, rather than informing me from the get-go, drowns me in silly eyewash.

A prime example can be found in a recent post on Hubspot, "Why Blog? The Benefits of Blogging for Business and Marketing."

The author uses 118 words to tell us why she's telling us what she plans to tell us. Her long warm-up leaves me cold:

I had a co-worker email me the other day asking for a blog post about the benefits of business blogging. "It's for a friend," she said.

Sure it was.

I told her I'd shoot over one of our up-to-date blog posts about why businesses should blog and... I couldn't find one. Whoops. Quite the meta mistake.

So I'm doing it now. If you're trying to explain one of the core tenets of inbound—business blogging—to your boss, a coworker, your mom at Thanksgiving, whomever, then send them this post. I hope it helps. For even more reasons why you should blog for business and marketing—and how to get started—download our free e-book here.

Please, spare readers false starts—especially jejune ones.

Remember, only you can prevent slow burn.

Maybe I'm Amazed

This month, were he alive, John Lennon would have turned 75.

Fans can only imagine what he'd have to say about life, love, and the lunacy rampant in our world today. Or how marvelous his musical output might have been during the 35 years that have passed since his murder.

Not long ago, I rediscovered a 45 year-old solo album Lennon's partner Paul McCartney made entitled, simply enough, McCartney.

It contains Sir Paul's own all-time favorite composition, "Maybe I'm Amazed," plus a dozen other songs he penned, all quite wonderful.

Listening to the album and remembering just some of the nearly 200 songs McCartney wrote and performed with Lennon, as well as all the fabulous music each Beatle produced after the band's breakup, leaves me in awe of their talent.

If only I had a shred of it, I'd be a happy camper.