Child Speed

Every week, my two-year-old granddaughter dashes past another developmental milestone.

She's unafraid to ask questions or state her observations. 

For their part, the googly-eyed adults around her make a willing audience. 

Of course, it does't hurt to be adorable.

Eighteen years ago, designer Bruce Mau wrote his 43-point Incomplete Manifesto for Growth to inspire the designers in his studio in Toronto.

Point 15 of the Incomplete Manifesto reads:

Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

Were it possible to learn for a lifetime at my granddaughter's present speed, we'd all be geniuses. 

Unfortunately, brain physiology holds us back.

In fact, most minds fossilize before their owners turn 30.

But destiny shouldn't deter you from asking stupid, innocent, childlike questions.

Who knows?

Once in a while, you might get an adult answer.

Disclosure: Bruce Mau is now my employer's Chief Design Officer.

10 Compelling Reasons to Blog

Why blog, when you could chat with a customer, scroll through Facebook, dust the blinds or straighten your desk?

Blogger Helen Nesterenko has combed eight credible websites for statistics that add up to "58 Unbeatable Reasons to Run a Blog for Business."

Here are her 10 most compelling:

• 46% of web users read more than one blog a day

• 81% trust information from blogs

• 13% have been inspired by blogs to make a purchase

• 61% have made a purchase based on a recommendation from a blog

• Companies that blog have 55% more website visitors

• Companies that blog at least 15 times a month get 5 times more traffic than companies that don’t blog

• 70% of companies that blog 2 or 3 times a week have acquired customers through their blogs

• Blogging is the most popular content marketing tactic, used by 73% of marketers

• 59% of B2B marketers believe blogs are effective in achieving their business goals

• 86% of B2B small business marketers think blogs are their most effective content marketing tactic

A Nation of Quitters

Where have you gone, Evelyn Wood?

We need you.

Steve Peck, writing for Heinz Marketing, reports the average reader devotes no more than two minutes to branded long-form content.

No matter the content's quality, after two minutes, the average reader quits.

Peck reaches this conclusion after a study of 180,000 readers and 1,700 white papers, e-books, reports and guides.

Because Americans' average skim-reading speed runs from 400 to 700 words per minute, most content exceeding 1,400 words is wasted.

"Blink and you’ve lost them," Peck says.

While in the White House, self-taught speed-reader John F. Kennedy sent a dozen members of his the staff to the Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics Institute, so they could keep pace with the cerebral president.

Mrs. Wood promised students she could teach them to read at the rate of 1,500 words per minute, and produced some who could read four times that many.

Unnatural Acts

Why do we encounter so many inexpert emails, articles, ads, books and blog posts?

The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves, says psycholinguist Steven Pinker in The Sense of Style.

As Darwin observed, for human beings the act of writing, unlike speaking, is unnatural.

While we master the art of conversation as kids, we wrestle for years—decades—to learn to communicate artfully in writing.

Unlike speaking, writing isn't genetically wired. Good prose, in fact, demands that writers commit "unnatural acts," Pinker says.

Those acts begin in a fairy tale.

To communicate well, the writer must make believe she's conversing with someone.

"The key to good style, far more than obeying any list of commandments, is to have a clear conception of the make-believe world in which you're pretending to communicate," Pinker says.

What should your make-believe world look like?

Pinker describes it eight minutes into his delightful 50-minute talk before the Royal Institution, Linguistics, Style and Writing in the 21st Century. 

Check it out.

True Underdogs

Acclaimed work-life balance expert Berkeley contributed today's post. He is the author of two national bestsellers, The 4-Minute Work Week and Who Moved My Bowl?

While journalists are riveted on news stories of micro-agression by yoga instructors, law professors and standup comics, little coverage has been given to a trend that—by any measure—is vastly more disturbing.

I refer to the ever-growing number of state laws that permit restaurants to open their dining areas to dogs.

While health laws expressly exclude felines from public dining areas (even in cat cafés!), these so-called "Dining with Dogs" laws allow canines to go anywhere they damn well please.

Nothing gets my back up like species-based discrimination.

The new laws, moreover, add insult to injury, when you consider cats receive no compensation for their appearances on YouTube.

Speaking for my kind, we understand victimization by cultural oppressors full well.

Every time big guy doesn't feed me on time, I know it's not merely neglect.

It's micro-agression.