Say it Better

Laughing is Living Well

Where can you turn when you’re feeling sad, angry or worse? Turn to humor, of course. At the best and the worst of times, humor helps us through. Especially if it is the right kind. When you feel powerless, humor can even the field. It can attract people to you. Bring "us" closer. It's the magic glue that sticks stories on us that we’ll readily re-tell with a smile. Yet, increasingly in modern life, we turn to canned entertainment for humor. Here's to more of the do-it-yourself kind, starting today.

Senior copywriter at US Advertising, Frank Visco, once wrote, tongue-in-cheek that, “One should never generalize.” At the risk of generalizing, let me summarize three studies of humor. I’ve discovered that we demonstrate humor in one of three ways: divisive, unifying or totally lacking in humor. They affect us in very different ways, as I’ll describe in the next three posts. First the worst.

Divisive Humor is Insulting to Someone …. and Often Hilarious.

A music reviewer wrote in the newspaper, Record Mirror, "Few people know that the CIA is planning to cripple Iran by playing the Bee Gee’s “ESP” album on special loudspeakers secretly parachuted into the country."

There are exceptions. For example, some apparently divisive humor is often unifying because of the near universal view of the institution you are knocking. Or, when you use their own words to poke fun at the institution. Here are five examples.

1. "Please provide the date of your death," is an actual quote from an IRS letter a reporter received.

2. Sometimes the institution sets itself up for a double shot of humor. Here’s an excerpt from the Correction Notice in the Ely Standard, a British newspaper: "We apologize for the error in last week's paper in which we stated that Mr. Arnold Dogbody was a defective in the police force. We meant, of course, that Mr. Dogbody is a detective in the police farce."

3. All too often, simply repeating what someone said can show that person in an unfavorable but humorous light. In his testimony before Congress as to his role in Iran-Contra, then Colonel Oliver North, said, "I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version."

4. Some apparently divisive humor merely reflects the understandable emotion of the moment. Thus it becomes unifying. "Men, I want you just thinking of one word all season. One word and one word only: Super Bowl.” said Bill Peterson, a popular football coach.

5. "It's no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another."
- president George W. Bush.

Caution:
Even with friend where you think they will understand divisive humor can hurt. As an anonymous humorist once wrote in a list of “Rules of Combat”, “The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.”

To help a group recover from someone’s use of divisive humor, try unifying humor: "People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."

Tomorrow I’ll describe how unifying humor can crack tension, bring people closer.

“Clever, kind and connected” (What's your slogan?)

That political goal tops even the re-invented Barack Obama slogans in cool catchiness. Yet the two bright Gen Xers’ goals for their government sound a lot like Obama’s. (And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.) Last month, in a “bloodless coup” 40 year old David Bartlett became the premier of Australia’s smallest state, Tasmania, bringing along his deputy, Lara Giddings. With a career in IT and intellectual property, Barlett recognizes the power of a captivating idea.

Bartlett promised a "new government" and measures to restore public trust in government. “And I want our politicians and our democracy connected to its people.”

"We need to foster innovation, we need to foster investment in technology," he said.

A Memorable Me2We Motto for You

Echoing comments made about Obama, The Connected Republic’s Martin Stewart Weeks notes that Bartlett’s slogan’s “got everything - the desire to be smart and innovative, the inference of a socially inclusive and compassionate approach and, best of all, the wonderfully ambiguous and multi-faceted notion of ‘connected’ - technologically, socially, politically), it’s one of the best summations I’ve seen from a political leader that puts the focus on ‘connectedness’ right at the heart of the political program.

It will be interesting to see how he turns the slogan into a program.”

Political or business slogans are difficult to craft - and to be credible, as Tami Ansary suggests. What would be your frequently-quoted, slogan-as-mission statement for your work or life – with others? Be brief. You may not even need words.

Here’s help
• Tag Line Generator, created by Marcia Yudkin
• Sloganalysis enables you to create two taglines for and see the pros and cons of both

the meaning of love ...

.. is learned and shown in many ways, yet none can ring more true than this. Puts my difficult day into proper perspective, and perhaps yours.

Yes, the longer you live together…

… the more you are likely to look like each other. Both your facial features and expressions.

In a study, psychologist Robert Zajonc and his team showed people photos of couples in their first year and their 25th year together. He then asked the participants to consider how similar the individuals were to each other and the likelihood they were married.

Couples were perceived to look alike, even if the observers don’t know they’re married. The longer the couples had been married the more likely that study participants rated their facial features as similar. By the way, the researchers discounted other causal factors in living together such as their disposition, diet or environment and disposition. Shared empathy seemed to be the main cause for their faces looking more alike over time. Perhaps dehumanization is the opposite emotion.

Two hints: Smiling helps you connect. A majority of people who had a Botox treatment to remove their furrowed brow also felt a lift in their mood.

Speaking, once more, of marriage, here's some mixed news. If a woman is happy in her marriage, then she tends to be healthier than single, divorced or widowed women. If she is unhappy, her health “suffers.” Yet married men are healthier than any kind of single man, regardless of how they feel about the marriage. “Their health seems to improve even if they're in a wretched marriage.”

Say it So You Can Sell It

When you think you’ve done everything you can to connect with your kind of customers, take a re-motivation break. Watch what this extremely entrepreneurial and likeable young man has managed to learn that has led him to high profits, considering his business location. Accentuate the positive - and the possible - wherever you are.

“Television has raised writing

... to a new low,” said Samuel Goldwyn (no not this year but many years ago.)

Cliches are annoyingly catchy, yet that’s their power. Re-work a familiar phrase and you can capture attention by catching people off-guard. Evoke smiles as you reinforce your message or business’ main benefit.

Writing coach, Lynda McDaniel provided four clever examples at SpeakerNet:

1. Best suite in the house
(in an ad for a condominium).

2. He learned it the soft way
(referring to a legendary frozen custard entrepreneur).

3. Familiarity breeds unkempt, which is exactly what happens when our grammatical slips are showing
(in an article about how poor writing gives us a bad image).

4. Art-to-art talk
(in an article about two artists meeting to share ideas).

See Sam Horn’s method for adapting a cliché to create a fresh slogan, motto or book title.

For starters, visit ClichéSite, Political Cliches, Sports Cliches and even Tom Mangan’s Banned for Life media cliches.

Also consider altering over-used words. For ideas, see Banished Words, the annual list of “worn-out, misused, and generally worthless words and expressions culled from nominations by the folks at Lake Superior State University.

Then peruse the fascinating book, Weasel Words: The Dictionary of American Doublespeak. Don Hausrath and Paul Wasserman describe the “distortions, obfuscations, and marketplace flim-flam” that are so irritatingly insincere. (A tax increase becomes "revenue enhancement.") While politicians, CEOs, military leaders and (gulp) yes even journalists use weasel words to say nothing, we can piggyback on their familiarity to create memorable new meaning.

Conversely, if you want to avoid using worn-out phrases in your writing, paste your passage into S. Morgan Friedman’s Cliché Finder. Click on "Find clichés." Your cliché, if any, will be highlighted. On a roll? See Be Remembered. Be Brief.

"self-harm"

A sad, sad term for another unexpected side-effect of the tragic still-unfolding story that is getting less and less coverage. Some become so desperate they take it further.

State of Shock

"My goal is to goad people into saying something that ruins their life," Don Imus is quoted as having said, leading the way for other shock jocks to follow. Next month a “whistleblower” of a book comes out, writes Howard Zinn, called Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio.

It’s about America's ten worst hate talkers, the huge profits in that hate industry, how the tide may be turning – and what you can do to help. In the “often factually challenged world of talk radio” they include Bill O'Reilly, Don Imus, Laura Ingraham (the only woman mentioned) and Michael Savage.

Savage, actually got positive comments from callers when he made this vile comment on the radio: "Wolf Blitzer, a Jew who was born in Israel, is probably the most despicable man in the media next to Larry King .... The two of them together look like the type that would have pushed Jewish children into the oven to stay alive one more day to entertain the Nazis." Brave New Films launched a campaign for advertisers to drop him.

Last month two other shock jocks here in California, openly tried to taint a jury. Two others, Howard Stern and Tom Leykis have huge audiences and make millions a year according to co-authors, Rory O’Connor and Aaron Cutler. Because of free speech protections, the FCC can do little, yet you can, as this book points out. All ten cross the line into racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic comments. Yet some get hoisted on their own petard. Apparently, so called, “macho radio attracts the listeners that advertisers like--men ages 25 to 44."

Keep free speech and keep boycotting the advertisers that sponsor shock jocks’ “programs” and tell them (and the stations) why. Support stations that draw the line. Charities: know what you may (unwittingly) be supporting. In a civil society that’s our most powerful choice.

Here's a clever new tool to launch your boycott. At The Point invite like-minded people to join your campaign.

How to Attract Star Employees Who’ll Work Full-Tilt Together

Want a window into a preferred way of life(style) at work?

When a hot start-up in San Francisco seeks talented workers who have many choices about where to work - what does it offer? Call it the google effect. Grockit can’t provide the on-site laundry services, 14 restaurants (and much more) of google. Yet, today it landed 8 million more in funding and can offer:

• Cheap desks, expensive chairs.

• 30 inch monitors, top of the line Mac Pros and ergonomic keyboards.

• A powerful software development tracking tool to manage work throughout the organization from engineering to operations to academics.

• Benefits (health, dental, vision):
Every month we put cash into a HSA for employees. You never lose your HSA money, it sits in a bank account you can access, and you can use the HSA Bank Card to pay for preventative medical care or to cover the cost of deductibles.

• Tasty breakfasts and lunches that are nutrient dense and all most entirely organic.

• Water is filtered through a 10-stage filter.

• For cleaning, we only use non-toxic supplies.

• We recycle and compost far more than we trash, use high efficiency lighting, and purchase our food from local businesses and farms.

Considering that mix of benefits, it’s not surprising this start-up, Grockit is “developing an online learning game where people can teach each other.”

Our learning take-aways - from these benefits - for recruiting star employees:

• How many companies offer a mix of benefits that closely match the profile of employees they most need?

• How many firms describe their benefits in language that reflects the career and sense-of-community interests of their kind of sought-after worker?

• How often do you see benefits written so briefly, in such vivid, specific detail?

Tip: The specific detail proves the general promise. Generalizations are less credible or memorable.

Look for the launch of their game this Fall. GrockIt's approach is radical. While some of their language attacks traditional education, the first step may be more narrow: help in prepping for educational tests. Co-founder, Farbood Nivi, said last year, "We are trying to turn the global education market on its head. We want students to teach each other rather than going to teachers. The knowledge is inherent within the system. Today’s market is about conformity, order and obedience. Then the teacher will gift you with the knowledge. We’re trying to facilitate student interaction and totally circumvent the master-slave dynamic."

Nivi wrote of his massive plans at LinkedIn, "We aim to utilize the awesome power of the internet to help the world learn. Our first step is leveraging the web to provide live online GMAT test prep classes to anyone with a PC and an Internet connection ... We are currrently developing a P2P Learning Game that will help students from around the world teach each other ... We are also expanding to include LSAT, ACT, SAT, GRE test prep in Q3 of 2007."

Speaking again of the power of specificity and brevity, Navi wrote: Grockit is founded on a few principles.
1. Learning should be low cost and high quality.
2. Learning should benefit the student, the teacher, and society.
3. Learning should be engaging, and interactive.

Grok has been one of my favorite concepts since childhood. Here’s two of my favorite quotes from Grockit.

• Grockit is a play on the word 'grok', which was coined by Robert Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land. Grok means to understand something so well that it becomes a part of you. We created the word Grockit to mean understanding something so well that you can teach it to others. (They practice what they preach, working and learning in pairs.)

• Learning 2.0 is a re-emphasis on learning as opposed to education. Education is an institution while learning is what people do. The 2.o also means that technology, namely the distributed web, is going to help us do that.