Guest blog article written by Lynda McDaniel, Founder and Director of the Association for Creative Business Writing

Last week, I read an amusing essay in the New York Times about the increasingly popular use of exclamation points in business writing, especially e-mail and texts. BE—before e-mail—any serious writer wouldn’t consider using them unless the comments were truly, well, exclamatory: “I never!” or “Goodness gracious!”

But AE—after e-mail—we’ve naturally gravitated toward using this happy-looking slash + period. I say naturally because after you’ve received your first 1,000 e-mails (which, sadly, can take less than a week), you can’t help but sense the cold, flatness of the medium. It drains the life out of the most animated prose. Back in writing school, they teach that if you need to use exclamation points, you probably need to rewrite and make your copy livelier. But these days, that's a tough sell when e-mail will cast a wet blanket over your best efforts.

And, frankly, who’s got that much time? Today, my students balk at proper grammar and punctuation; I can’t imagine suggesting that they take the time to make each word s-i-n-g. In an ideal world, that would be grand. In our real world, one or two exclamation points seem to work just fine. (Emphasis on "one or two." More on that in a minute.)

Reluctantly, as though they were confessing to a dark secret, several famous authors cited in the essay shared their predilection for exclamation points. Some did suggest restraint, however, and that’s what I teach as well. “More than one or two in an e-mail,” I often say, “and your e-mail looks more like a teenager’s diary than a business document. It won’t be taken seriously.”

The essay also quotes the co-author of one of the best books on the subject, Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better, by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. “The exclamation point is the quickest and easiest way to kick things up a notch,” Schwalbe says, “but not if you’re angry. Only happy exclamation points.”

Good point!

Additional Resources

The Successfully Starting Your Writing Project Workshop: 9/14 (11:30 am to 1:00 pm Pacific Time)

The Business Writing for Success Workshop: 9/16 and 9/23 (11:30 am to 1:00 pm Pacific Time)

In my most recent interview at BNET, we got to work at the whiteboard again. I drew and explained how our mind works and how our own thoughts can be the biggest distraction of all, and then concluded with 3 specific techniques that can help us become better at staying focused, and also recovering quickly when our mind drifts into other unrelated territories or someone else interrupts our focus:

First Technique: Use a countdown timer

Not any timer – a countdown timer. Setting the countdown timer for 40 minutes (or whatever time period we choose) and then pushing the Start button has significant implications.

Just the fact that the timer is running seems to drastically heighten our awareness of time and allow us to quickly notice when we deviate from our task. It’s as simple as that. It is fascinating that such a simple and easy tool can have such an impact on our focus, but it does. Buying a countdown timer may very well result in the biggest return on investment that we can ever achieve!

Second Technique: Micro-Planning™ each 40 minute session

Creating a brief outline at the beginning of each 40 minute session listing key steps that we need to get done in order to complete the selected task can make the session as successful as it can be.

Ideally the Micro-Plan™ is handwritten in just a minute or two in the Notes section in the paper journal (described in the Accomplishing More With Less methodology).

Just like the timer, which appears to be a simple and perhaps expendable tool on the surface, Micro-Planning™ is a powerful technique that can help us stay focused, and if and when we have to deviate to take care of urgent issues, the Micro-Plan™ helps us restart our task with the minimum amount of effort and the fastest recovery time.

Third Technique: Turning Off External Interruptions

It sounds simple, and it would be if all external interruptions were within our control. Wishful thinking! Indeed, we can turn off the e-mail beep, forward the phone to voice mail, and indicate that we are busy or “away” in our Instant Messaging status, which we should do during our focus sessions. But it is much more difficult to switch off the people who stop by, the noise or conversations around our work area, and most importantly the urgent and critical requests that come from bosses, colleagues, customers, family and friends, not to mention the blame and guilt that come from not being available to handle all of the above promptly.

Staying focused in an ADD World--at the whiteboard

Additional Resources

• The complimentary Results Curve(tm) eBook download
• The Results Curve at Amazon.com
• 40-minute focus for breakthrough results--at the whiteboard

Guest blog article written by Dalya Massachi, M.A., Published Writer, Founder of Writing for Community Success

What do you think of when you first hear the word “marketing”? A bunch of deceptive hyperbole with no substance? A sleazy game that shady characters play when they are trying to get you to buy something that you don’t actually need or want? At some point, most of us have even said something like, “Oh, that’s just a marketing ploy.”

As a representative of a community-oriented effort, you definitely do not want your voice to be associated with empty promises. Fortunately, marketing does not have to be that way. Your organization is not just about building a better mousetrap that serves the community. You also want people with rodent-control problems to be aware of you, easily access you, consider supporting you, and spread the word about your work.

People working in the public interest increasingly acknowledge that we too have to get out there and hustle to attract attention to ourselves. Terms such as “social marketing,” “cause-related marketing,” “green marketing,” and even the old standby “outreach” come to mind. After all, if no one knows about your good work, you simply are not going to get very far.

So when I say “marketing” in the public-interest context, I am talking about:

Sharing information and enthusiasm about your work with interested people who may want to exchange their involvement or support for the value you add to them and their community.

That exchange is important. It is essentially an agreement, sometimes even a contract, between you and your reader. Remember: We are talking about dialogue that helps everyone win. That is what writing to make a difference is all about.

When you write on behalf of a community-benefit organization, you have to convey its work clearly, concisely, and persuasively. Your readers may include investors, clients, the press, activists, volunteers, colleagues, allies, and other stakeholders. You want to educate, inspire, and activate them. And to do that you have to write strategically to reach each specific type of reader. That is, you have to copywrite (notice the “w” in there).

When copywriting, you also want to cultivate relationships with your readers over the short and long term. You want to encourage them to see your work as credible, successful, and vital—a solid investment of their time and/or money. You are looking to strike a responsive chord, so that your relationship can grow from there.

To communicate to the right people, in a way that builds solid relationships, you have to treat everything you write as a potential marketing tool. The specific language you use will vary, of course, according to the type of document and the intended reader. (For example, you would not write a project or funding proposal in the style you use to write a brochure, flyer, or press release.) The tips I share in this book offer a wide range of concepts to consider, no matter what your writing task.

Additional Resources

Writing to Make a Difference (2 x 90-minute webinars, 8/12, 8/19 11:30 am Pacific Time)

Writing to Make a Difference (Book on Amazon.com)

Guest blog article written by Kathleen Sexton, Career Counselor, Founder & CEO of Kairos Learning

Can you list your top 5 strengths easily if someone asked you?  Being able to acknowledge your top strengths is very helpful during different phases of your career path.

Informational interviewing/networking
During informational interviewing to explore new career opportunities, it’s very helpful to ask the people you’re talking with a question like “I’m very good at strength #1, #2, & #3.  Where do you think I could put those to use?  What type of career fields or jobs would let me use them frequently?”

Resume development
When you’re creating your resume, you want to highlight your strengths frequently.  You can use accomplishment statements to demonstrate your strengths.

Job interviewing
You want to showcase your strengths in your responses to interview questions.

Performance reviews
When you’re talking with your manager about your development plans for the next year, it’s helpful to articulate your top strengths. Talk about how you’d like to use them more and the benefits of doing that for the team as well as your career satisfaction.

If you would like to assess your skills, check out these websites’ online tools:

• VIA Signature Strengths Assessment is a free, online assessment through the University of Pennsylvania’s homepage of Dr. Martin Seligman, Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of positive psychology, a branch of psychology which focuses on the empirical study of such things as positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions.  http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu
• Skillscan’s Career Driver is an online, self-directed skills assessment tool that provides you with a profile of your transferable skills and preferences — knowledge essential to identifying satisfying work options, creating a career development plan or strategizing your next career move.  There are 2 different reports you can get -- Career Launcher Report for individuals planning their first careers or Career Transitioner Report – individuals considering a career change.  It’s $14.95.  http://www.skillscan.com/
• Marcus Buckingham, a leader the strengths movement, has several assessments out and a new one being released this September.  Access to the assessments requires that you to buy his books and then get a link to the online assessments.  Now, Discover Your Strengths (Clifton Strengths Finder) and Go Put Your Strengths to Work (Strengths Engagement Test)

Additional Resources

Discovering Your Strengths and Putting Them to Work (60-minute webinar, 7/27, 8:00 am PT)

Career Management in the Age of the Apps (2x60-minute webinars, 7/11, 7/18, 12:00 pm PT)

Social Networking for Career Development (2x90-minute webinars, 8/12, 8/19, 9:30 am PT)

Guest blog article written by Alicia R. Maher, M.D., Founder of ScienceForTheJourney.com

“I prefer strawberry,” the little girl said, as I tried to hand her pomegranate juice. Such a simple statement but I was struck with how easily she knew her preference and expressed it.  It often seemed like I spent thirty years trying to figure out what was acceptable to want, with the end result being that I had no idea what I really wanted.  If I didn’t like what others did, I either tried to force myself to go along with it, convince the others why what I wanted was better or analyze what was wrong with me for having different preferences.

I see this with so many adults.  We are often trying to ‘grin and bear’ a situation because that is what is expected of us.  However, we weren’t designed to repress our feelings.  In fact, emotional repression is experienced within our bodies as stress, causing the release of the stress hormone, cortisol.  When we continually repress our emotions, cortisol remains at high levels causing a decrease in immunity and making us more vulnerable to injury.  It is almost as if the body has this built-in mechanism for causing physical problems to get us to take notice, when we refuse to listen to our emotions.

A large part of our ability to be at peace with situations that bother us is to get in touch with an internal reference point. Whether we choose to focus on what is going on around us or within us determines our relationship with ourselves and with the world.  If we’ve lived our lives trying to figure out what the world wants from us, we become like falling leaves, moving whichever way the wind blows.  How we feel depends on whatever is going on around us. If things seem to be going well in our external world, we feel great. If something isn’t, we don’t.  But what if we could establish a connection to the deepest aspect of our being, the place where we are grounded and content, regardless of people, events and circumstances?  What if we could experience tranquility, despite the inevitable ups and downs of our external environment?  Luckily, we can.

This has been compared to the ocean. If you have ever been scuba diving, you know that despite waves and turbulence on the surface, as you descend into the deeper part of the water, there is stillness.  But how do we dive beneath the choppy surface of what is going on around us, to access that calm deep within?

One way is through mindfulness.  Minfulness is calm awareness of one's body functions, feelings, content of thought, or awareness of being aware.  It is the ability to live in the present moment, without distraction. Mindfulness techniques cause one to pay attention to his or her present emotions, thoughts and body sensations without passing judgment or reacting.  This can involve calmly observing the breath as it goes in and out. Another technique is to engage the senses, taking note of the sounds, smells and sights around them.  As thoughts come through one’s mind, they can be labeled “thought” and allowed to pass on through like clouds in the sky, without judgement or attachment.

Minfulness techniques, such as these, are another way that we can actually rewire the brain.  A study in the journal Psychological Science demonstrated how this occurs.  Researchers put people into a scanner that revealed which part of their brains were active as the researchers showed them photographs.  When the photographs were of angry or fearful stimuli, the instinctual, reactive part of their brains would light up.  The researchers then had these subjects do a mindfulness practice for several weeks.  Whenever the subjects noticed anger or fear, they would label it “This is anger”, “This is fear”.  When the researchers tested them again with the same photographs, they found that a different part of the brain was now lighting up.  Now, angry and fearful photographs were activating the higher order parts of the brain, the part associated with thinking in words about emotional experiences. So, instead of experiencing reactivity upon these stimuli, their brains were now taking a step back from it.  You can imagine the profound advantage of this change.  When stimuli activate this part of the brain, you can choose an effective response, rather than just react.

Additional Resources

The Stress Management upcoming workshop: 7/18 and 7/25 (10:00 am to 11:00 am Pacific Time)

The Wellness Track special offer: Join now for only $35!

Guest blog article written by Lynda McDaniel, Founder and Director of the Association for Creative Business Writing

Lately, I’ve talked to several people who told me that creative business writing isn’t really practical. Somehow the word creative makes them think it’s silly or frilly or not really useful.

Not so. Creative business writing is more effective because:

• People will read (i.e., finish reading) what you write.
• Creative business writing engages them.
• Readers who are both mentally and emotionally involved are more likely to buy and/or buy in.

Here are three creative tips to get you started:

Creative Business Writing Tip #1: Similes.  Similes help your readers immediately grasp your point because you compare your topic to something already familiar to them. The office was as quiet as Wrigley Field in January.
Our program works like a bustling cafeteria.

Creative Business Writing Tip #2: Alliteration. Webster’s defines alliteration as: “Repetition of an initial sound, usually of a consonant or cluster, in two or more words of a phrase.” Why bother?  Alliteration is memorable. There’s a reason the Better Business Bureau chose that name.

Creative Business Writing Tip #3: Dialogue.
Dialogue breaks up copy, adds white space, and brings live voices into dense material.

When you add creative techniques to your business writing, you’ll stand out and get the attention you deserve.

Additional Resources

The Effective Business Email Writing upcoming workshop: 7/19 (11:30 am to 1:00 pm Pacific Time)

The Business Writing Track special offer: Join now for only $35!

Guest blog article written by Deanna Moncrief, Nutritionist, Founder & CEO of Benchmark Wellness

I will share the top 3 nutrition decisions you can make to feel better, age slower, and, well, that’s it.  Is there anything more important?  Here we go:

1. Avoid Red #40.  And Blue #1.  And Yellow #5.  There is much debate on whether these artificial colors commonly added to foods should be banned from the FDA’s Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) list, but my reasoning is much simpler.  Besides the arguments for and against any cancer-causing or attention-deficiency effects in humans, foods to which artificial colors are added are typically lower in nutrition quality and high in sugar (although perfect for office pranks).  A notable exception is fresh oranges, which are commonly sprayed with a chemical called Citrus Red #2.  This colorant is known to cause cancer, but luckily it doesn’t penetrate orange peels into the pulp.  Lucky us (sarcasm added).

2. Eat no trans fats.  Trans… transportation?  No, for you organic chemistry geeks like me, trans fat is the common name for the trans – as opposed to cis – isomer of unsaturated fat (think Crisco).  This particular type of fat is known to increase “bad” cholesterol while lowering “good” cholesterol.  This combination of cholesterol changes leads to clogged arteries which lead to heart disease and stroke.  Two things surely to hamper your ability to live well and look great.

3. Eat 9-11 servings of vegetables and fruits daily.  Wow!  Nine to eleven?  Don’t hyperventilate; you might be surprised to learn how small a serving is (the fact that a majority of American adults are overweight is a testament to how few of us know what constitutes a serving size).  Close your fist.  Look at it.  Now imagine a nice bowl of cherries the size of your fist.  Or a crown of broccoli.  Or a big, juicy slice of watermelon.  A Frisbee-sized plate filled with lettuce, sliced beets, carrots, yellow bell peppers and tomatoes would contain 5-7 servings by itself, so eat a salad for lunch and you still have time to meet your quota by dinner time.

Feeling and looking great depends largely on what we eat, and eating well doesn’t have to be difficult or confusing, just deliberate.

Additional Resources

The Eat Well to Work Well upcoming workshop: 7/26 (11:30 am to 1:00 pm Pacific Time)
The Wellness Track special offer: Join now for only $35!

I mentioned to you a few weeks ago that I attended a presentation by Christine Heckart, CMO of NetApp, in which she shared some valuable insights, ranging from high level concepts to practical advice on how to lead, manage, and get results. I also talked about one of her insights which was "THINK BIG, start small, move fast!" I reflected on how THINK BIG applies to our daily productivity effort and provided related tips and techniques from our Accomplishing More With Less methodology. Now it is time to consider "start small."

start small

Here are some "start small" tips and techniques that will help you undertake significant projects and initiatives with ease and elegance:

• 40 minutes at a time: When people ask me, how long did it take to write your book? I use this opportunity to tell them "40 minutes" which takes them by surprise at first, until I add "at a time." The 40 minute chunks and working in bursts are powerful technique that can help us move mountains one bucket at a time and feel rewarded after every bucket.
• Micro-Planning™: This is a journal technique that is simply but very powerful. It consists of breaking down the task that we are undertaking into small steps, and jotting these steps down. This is ideally done at the beginning of the 40 minute period, for the 40 minute period. We are talking "small!" But we are also talking "BIG" because this micro-plan helps us stay focused like never before, recover from unexpected interruptions like never before, and reach meaningful accomplishments like never before.
• Immediate Priorities Matrix™: This consists of listing our immediate priorities in a matrix, and breaking them down into steps, including estimates of how long each step will take, and the related deadlines. The matrix turns ambiguity and stress into action. It helps dissolve the illusions and bottleneck and puts us on the road to implementation, one step at a time.

Stay tuned for the "move fast" tips and insights. For now, THINK BIG and start small and share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!

Additional Resources

• 40 minute focus for breakthrough results
• Live Interview with BNET--The Accomplishing More With Less Workbook
• The Accomplising More With Less Workbook at Amazon.com

Barry Cardoza's presentation at our lunch & learn webinar this week (The Cyber Threat--No Boundaries) provided some invaluable insights on a topic that we may otherwise take for granted in our busy lives until it suddenly interrupts our life and bring it to a standstill: The cyber threat.

What are our threats today?

Barry indicated that the threats can come from a variety of sources including:

• Script Kiddies
• Criminals
• Industrial Espionage
• Insiders
• Foreign Governments

Here are some attackers profiles

1. Insiders: Insiders have a unique advantage due to access/trust. They can be motivated by revenge, organizational disputes, personal problems, boredom, curiosity, or to “prove a point.”
2. Script Kiddies: Relatively untrained hackers that find exploit code/tools on the Internet and run them indiscriminately against targets. While largely unskilled, they are numerous.
3. Criminals: Cyber based attacks offer new means to commit traditional crimes, such as fraud and extortion. Organized cyber-crime groups have adopted legitimate business practices, structure, and method of operation.
4. Terrorists: Cyber-attacks have the potential to cripple infrastructures which are not properly secured. In addition, cyber-linkages between sectors raise the risk of cascading failures throughout the Nation.

So what can we do?

The first thing we can do is to become aware of the issues and help create such awareness at our companies and communities. The next thing we can do is to team up with the variety of organizations who are working diligently at prevention and preparedness and become part of this effort.

Download Barry's presentation to learn more. Barry offered to help you customize this presentation and connect you with agencies such as DHS, Secret Service, and the FBI, so you can present it at your organization.  Contact Barry at BarryCardoza@BarryCardoza.com for more information.

About Barry Cardoza

Barry Cardoza, Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP), and Principal of Barry Cardoza LLC, specializes in Business Continuity Program Development, Enhancement and Analytics. Barry has over 40 years of experience in business management, business process analysis, and continuous process improvement.  This experience has been within many different industries and includes over 20 years within the banking industry.  Previously responsible for Union Bank’s Business Continuity strategy, policy, compliance, and program implementation.

Sumi Das, host of the The One Live show at BNET asked me during the show:

“What advice (relating to managing interruptions) do you have for those of us who work in a deadline-driven industry, and even for people who don’t, if is not an option to only check email once every couple of hours--you may need to respond to a message immediately upon receipt, particularly if it is from your manager!”

This was my answer

“Checking e-mail once every couple of hours in today’s work environment? Not only this is not possible, but I think it may be counter-productive.

We live in a highly collaborative work environment, and we are highly interdependent, so we need to check e-mail more often and keep the issues and decisions moving along.

What I recommend is checking e-mail after each focused session.
So if my current task requires 20 minutes of focus, I stop checking e-mail during this focused time, and then the first think I do after the 20 minutes is check e-mail.

This is the message that I want everyone to hear: The highest levels of accomplishments are achieved when we work in bursts. A burst of focused effort, followed by a burst of collaborate effort, and then followed by a burst of play time to get re-energized and ready for more.

Now e-mails from managers are a whole different story. Managers need to become more aware of the impact that their e-mails have on their team and not expect immediate response. When issues are critical and require immediate response, use a different way to notify their team. Something they should discuss with their team and agree upon ahead of time.”

View the recording of the show for more tips about Accomplishing More With Less! And learn more about The Accomplishing More With Less Workbook.