The Best Thing I Heard in 2013 About...Public Speaking

During one of our Sandbox Summer Accelerator classes, Todd Frye (Mill Cities Leadership Institute) offered us a class on public speaking.

One thing he said that stood out for me was a break-from-the-crowd opinion about so-called "filler words." His take on them?  They're okay.

Of course, he quickly followed that up with "in moderation."  Still, I like his point -- in so many classes about communication and public speaking, moderators take the approach of, "Get rid of ums, uhs, y'knows, reallys, and likes -- at all costs."

But guess what?  They're natural.

Only when they become a distraction -- like when Caroline Kennedy says 'you know' 163 times in a three-minute TV interview -- are they bad.

Listen to regular speech, though -- the normal, pressure-free, chit-chat type stuff among friends.  The phone, the elevator, the bus stop, the coffee breaks, etc.  You will hear a few of these 'filler words,' but you'll have to pay attention enough to seek them out...they're subtle and sometimes easy to miss.

When people prepare to speak in public, they should be aware of their nervous tics and blind spots, if possible.  They should avoid filler-word repetition that distracts from the ACTUAL purpose of their words. But they should NOT be brought down by a desire to completely eliminate these words...if too much mental energy goes towards THAT purpose, the overall quality of whatever is being said will decrease -- esp. if part of it needs to be extemporaneous, or if it includes Q & A that cannot be scripted.

So, umm...just think about what...uhh...really, like matters...and don't get too bogged down with those, you know, filler words, or uhh...whatever they call them.

Project your voice.  Be confident.  Know your stuff.  Make some eye contact.  Those are the biggies.  

The Three Best Things I Heard This Year...About E-mail

Here are three good things I heard about e-mail this year, in order:

(3) Keep them short.  People are inundated with e-mails of so many stripes, shapes, varieties, flavors, and colors. Really long e-mails that look intimidating may never be read, or responded to.  Sometimes, I have to remind myself of this one when I really get *in the zone* but I know it's good advice.

(2) OHIO Principle.  It was love at first sight for me when I heard about this one.  OHIO here is an acronym for "Only Handle It Once."  It applies phenomenally well to inbox maintenance but is also an awesome principle to remember for cleanliness of your home, car, apartment, etc.  With respect to e-mails, the problem many people have (including me) is that we give our inbox a quick-look and we pick the low-hanging fruit first.  THEN we notice the actually important stuff, and lamely say something like, "I'll get to those later."  And we all know what happens then.  OHIO -- live it, love it.

(1) A primary purpose of e-mail should be to set up real-world interactions.  Of course, it can't be done w/people who are scattered all over the world, but in can go something like this: "Hey, haven't seen you in a while.. how bout we meet up at the Club Diner?"  Maybe there's a quick back-and-forth in which some topics are discussed, but the idea is that you're using e-mail as a medium to push towards an actual encounter -- NOT as an endless, back-and-forth volley about anything and everything you're doing or thinking.  I really like this principle when it comes to reaching out to people that you don't already know, but want to add to your network.  To me, "Hey, I'm interested in what you're doing, can we get together for coffee" is a winner, but "Hey, I'm interested in what you're doing, can you answer these 9 detailed questions I've crafted for you, with subsections a through c for each?" is a loser.

In 2014, I will be better with e-mails.  Too many important ones fermented way too long in my inbox this fall. I have learned that a client might not bat an eye after replying to your missive from three months ago as if you sent it yesterday, but will follow up in an agitated state if 48+ hours passes before he sees a response to his e-mail to you.

Forget the fairness or the unfairness.  When it comes to 'rightness,' the client takes it -- seven days a week, and twice on Sunday.

A Tipping Point?

The intersection of service tips and social media has made it into several prominent news stories this year.  

Two particularly noteworthy stories were the Drew Brees story (really a 'no-story' if you ask me) in LA, and the lesbian waitress story in NJ.

For the unfamiliar, a waitress at a Chinese restaurant took to social media to complain about the inadequacy of a tip left by the Saints QB on a takeout order.  The lesbian waitress story centers around a woman named Dayna Morales, who fabricated a $0.00 tip receipt with a lengthy explanation for the lack of tip (..'we cannot support your lifestyle...')  She took to Facebook to complain, and soon she had received thousands of dollars from around the world, which was supposedly bound for the Wounded Warriors Fund, but somehow never made its way there.  Shortly after her story hit the news, the couple that had supposedly written the comment produced proof of the ACTUAL tip, via a credit card statement.  It was generous, and they quite calmly pointed out that they had no way of knowing -- let alone caring -- about their server's lifestyle.

Anyway, both the waitress from LA and the waitress from NJ were fired for their actions, one of which just showed bad judgement, and one of which crossed a completely different line.  

Locally, I can't help but notice that the baristas at my favorite caffeine-before-the-train haunt are making a habit of posting detailed information about the tips that they do (or don't) receive.  Inevitably, those posts are followed by long strings of the 'string 'em up' variety, with each commenter outdoing the last about the cluelessness or evil spirit of the bad tippers. (For those who don't live in Lowell, this is a strictly service-at-the-counter establishment -- not a place where people are paid sub-minimum wage because of an expected pourboire).  Some of the best comments are the ones where people complain about "just getting the change."  I'm not a math guy, but if your throughput is dozens of people per hour, and you're getting "just the change" on top of your base wage, that ain't so bad.  

They may be tipping some customers right off the edge.  

Here's why:  I already have a hard time justifying a $2.87 habit, as much as I love the iced coffee there (whaddothey put in that stuff...seriously?)  Especially when I face down the reality of my own fiscal cliff, coming in about 5+ months, when I lose that 'break-from-reality' status known as 'full-time student,' I'm going to have be more honest about where I can cut some corners. Even if I (correctly) justify my 6:30 a.m. habit by saying I want to get out, stretch my legs, and breathe some outside air, I can do all that with a walk around the block, homemade cup in hand.  

The thirteen cents I get back, I could part with.  Sure.  But if THAT is somehow still not enough, what is?  A buck? Again, not a math guy, but that looks like a 35 percent cost increase to a habit that I already know, deep down, to be a guilty pleasure.  

The easy answer is to just start putting that fancy-pants Cuisinart coffee maker I got as a wedding gift three years ago to better use.  

Show Me a Man Who's Angry...

...and I'll show you a man who cares. It works in nearly any context. The only trick is that by 'angry' I don't mean someone who just gets mad when it's his or her issue (i.e. a dispute about pay, sick days, leave, etc.) I mean show me a person who gets fired up about the job itself and I'll say you've got a quality employee on your hands.

The Sorta Counterintuitive Thing About "Free"

I got a letter in the mail the other day with a Salem, NH return address.  It looked *real* (in other words, not just another bill or piece of junk mail) so I opened it, thinking it might be a card from a friend whose fiancee lives up that way.

As it happened, there was a $100 gift certificate to a restaurant inside the envelope.

I thought this was pretty interesting -- they're willing to take the risk on printing, stamping, and mailing letters to people nearby, and then include $100 gift certificates as enticements to eat there, as a way to drum up business.

Does that make them desperate?  The reality could be that it's quite the opposite.  Maybe, in fact, they're so confident in their product that they see the gift certificates as a better form of marketing than local TV and radio spots, AdWords placements, YouTube campaigns, or glossy promos in the local papers.  They've run their numbers, and they know that the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) of someone who enjoys their product is high.  The tricky thing, perhaps, is making the acquisition.

Giveaways, gimmes, and freebies are well-established ways for businesses to generate buzz, build a brand, gain loyal users, etc.  The tricky thing, though, is that they've gotta be done right.

Eventually, a business that just gives things away should stop pretending to be a business, and just call itself a charity.  So that restaurant should send me that first gift certificate, but if they made it annual thing, I'd condition myself to just wait for that early-November letter every year, eat there once, and call it good for the next 12 months.

If anyone says they truly, fully understand *free* they're lying.  Free is great, and free sucks.  I can fill a room full of Ph.Ds who will insist -- loudly -- that no business should EVER give something away free, because that means they're devaluing themselves, creating off-kilter expectations, distorting their market, etc.  Then, I could fill an EQUALLY big room with another group of experts who would say the opposite.

Bottom line?  It depends.

I am building a business with a heavy dose of initial *free* and yes, sometimes I question my sanity. Whether it is/was the right move, I will only know in retrospect.  That's why I sometimes watch the Steve Jobs 2005 commencement speech in which he insists that things DO make sense afterwards...it's a great source of inspiration.

PayPal got going by paying people a significant sum of dough to use its service.  Again, were they desperate? Were they out of their minds?

With the ease of retrospect and 20/20 hindsight, the answer there is a resounding, "No."  What they did know is that they were on to something.  They also knew there could be resistance among early users who did not understand how its service worked.  They put a whole bunch of chips down on the felt based on those assumptions, and things have worked out quite well for them since.  

Bernie's Words, Their Words

I'm home today.  On the one hand, that's a nice relief.  On the other, it's time dedicated to detailed spreadsheets displaying all the flight information for the Salt Lake City Airport (SLC) from 2007 to 2012. It's valuation exercises with Free Cash Flows and Residual Income to prep for a midterm Monday.  It's a massive project about Health Care process flows, along with preparation for drilling at Devens all day tomorrow and Sunday, prior to MAG engagements every night next week.

Someone please be sure to let me know when mid-December gets here.  Let's celebrate with a Clausthaler.

But, today at least, 'working' means I get to listen to the City Council meeting in the background, not shave, and wear pajamas.

One exchange that I loved came at the very end of the meeting.  CC Mercier had introduced a motion about existing lawsuits involving the city.  On more than one occasion, she asked CM Lynch, "Whose responsibility is it to make these decisions [in reference to the city's response to the suits]?"

His answer: "That'd be the City Manager's decision."

Her response to that: "Well then that's you -- you're the City Manager."

His comeback: "Yes, I am currently the City Manager.  I happen to be the City Manager.  But the statutory responsibility for that falls with the City Manager."

Mercier:  "Yes, with you."

Lynch:  "Well, with the City Manager.  I was not the City Manager when this came up in 2002, or when the appeal decision was made in 2006."

CC Elliott jumped in later on and  played the same 'who is responsible' word game, which was equally worthy of Abbott & Costello.

Words matter.  If you've spent time around large organizations, you should know that responsibility and authority should rest with the holder of a particular position, but not with that specific personality.  It may seem like a picayune, nitpicky point...but it's not.  Well-designed organizations are not built around personalities.  Bernie was completely right to make that word choice distinction, and then to continually emphasize it throughout the exchange.

On a word choice tangent that's not CC-related, listen to the way the people you work with choose their pronouns. Watch how quickly 1st-person pronouns (we, us, our) get thrown around during times of success, and then how quickly they turn to the 2nd-person (you) when things start to go sour.

If I'm driving (figuratively or literally), I want a person in the shotgun seat who says, "We're lost, let's fix this" after a wrong turn.  The person who coughs out a "you're lost" without seeing the irony of the statement is the person who can (figuratively or literally) take a hike.

If you're trying to make character assessments, listening to the way people selectively choose their pronouns during good and bad times ain't a bad place to start.

Take a Bump...The First One's Free

Check it.  This is admittedly a very small sample size, and it's completely lacking any qualitative analysis... (In other words, I'm not factoring in the chance that someone might leave a nasty voicemail on the Superintendent's phone in which she threatens to rip off sensitive body parts of the Superintendent).

But I've got challengers in BOLD CAPS and first-termers in Italics.

And yes, yes, I know that not all challengers are created equal.  Some have already held elected positions, already run for citywide offices, etc.  But I just defined it in the simplest way I could: "Someone not currently serving on the School Committee."

There will be time later on for more analysis, but for now this may suggest there is a "Challenger Bump" enjoyed by School Committee candidates, followed by a time of great vulnerability (first re-election attempt).

Outliers are highlighted..."outlier" defined here as greater than one standard deviation from the mean in either direction.  If you catch any errors here, lemme know and I'll fix 'em!  Thanks...

Oh, and "AVG VOTES" should say "Avg. # of Votes per Voter."  Labels are missing for 2013, 2011, and 2009, respectively, from left to right.