Wait, I’m Not Ready for This!

I love to get ready.  The more prepared I feel, the more confident I become that my goal is within reach. I imagine the challenge, the obstacles and solutions; the sights and sounds of success flood my senses.

But there’s a danger to excessive readiness, rather akin to, but more damaging than, excessive sweetening of tarte citron.

It’s a habit of most educators to set great store by proper research.  When asked to present a ninety minute discourse on the principles of employment law, for example, one gets one’s head down, sharpish.

And there’s always a risk some curious soul will ask that tangent question that falls just outside the arena of knowledge of the presenter.   How could we have lacked the forethought to predict that one?

It’s good to get ready.  But it can get in the way.

When first I began joining my older brother and his friends on evenings out, my imagination soared with each outfit and every lipstick colour I tried.  Pretty soon the crew were making other plans.

But the biggest problem with over-preparing cropped up when I offered to help my father in his small business sales campaign.

That harmless looking phone would stare at me, daring me to pick it up and put it to use.  Of course there was always much to do first.  I’d read about selling and knew it was vital to be prepared.  I needed to be clear about who I wanted to speak to, what I wanted to arrange, how I could get past the gatekeeper, why I was worth listening to – the list of tasks not to be overlooked was endless, thank God.

I got very good at justifying not making that call too soon.

I could go for days without making it.  Then finally, when I guessed I was ready at last, something told me not to bother.  I had a hunch it would be a waste of time – I couldn’t explain it, it was a psychic, mystical thing – my instinct, a woman’s intuition.  However I tried, it wasn’t too hard to talk myself out of the whole idea.

All that changed when a few months later I took a job with an insurance company.

I was glued to my chair and allowed one cup of coffee to get started.  Then the sales manager would hover expectantly within my field of peripheral vision.

My booth didn’t feel entirely safe.  The miniature Formica-chipped shelf was too narrow to contain more than a phone book, diary and a dull grey telephone.

I needed a pen – I was given one.  I asked for water – I was met with a frown.  I gulped – the manager picked up the phone and dialled for me.

‘Ah, yes, good morning.  Um…’  (Pound, pound, pound, went my heart.)  ‘I wonder if you can help me please.’  (Encouraging nod from the boss.)  ‘Would you kindly tell me if I can please speak to Mr. Smith, if it’s not too much trouble.’  (The frown returned, this time with raised eyes and gritted teeth.)

I never did get to speak to Mr. Smith.  But by the end of the week I had made my target number of appointments and by the end of the month I’d earned my first commission.

To avoid the micro-managing of my superior, I had to pick up that phone before he reached my booth.  Pretty soon it became a contest between team members.  We all hated cold calling on Monday mornings.  But we made a game of it.  Instead of being completely ready to make the call, we dared ourselves to make it anyway and then deal with the consequences.  We would score more points if we added a few handicaps to the process.

I would love to say it was a lesson I never forgot.  But I forgot it quite frequently over the years.

It was on rare but great occasions that I remembered my lesson and for a short spurt afterwards I would have overwhelming success in my sales efforts.

As a self employed presenter and writer, it’s not easy to keep going, especially when you feel isolated and out of contact.  Finding a buddy who shares similar goals and fears can be a great advantage, provided you agree to play the ‘Do it First’ game.

Choose a date and time for your challenge.  Give yourselves ninety minutes.  When the clock strikes the hour, start calling.  Notch up all your calls and results, and keep going until the time slot is done.

If you need a glass of water, make a call and deal with it.  If you need a pen, make a call and deal with it.  If someone knocks at the door, make a call and deal with it.  If you feel like posting your news on twitter, make a call and deal with it.

When the time is finished, jump in your car and head for a pre-arranged coffee bar to meet your buddy.

The one who makes the most appointments during the 90 minutes gets to buy the coffee when you meet up.

Why not the other way round?  There is no dish more motivating than a slice of humble pie, especially one bought for you.  You’ll be itching to buy the round next time.

Five Reasons We Crave Online Friendship

The great thing about blogging and micro-blogging is how it fulfils so many personal needs with the clatter of a few keys from the comfort of that old creaking chair.

1. The Urge for Self Expression

Keeping a diary was once a schoolgirl hobby, exploited only by the printers of pastel-shaded glossy journal covers. Personalising the diary was always a creative option, but one limited largely to the pages within, if sometimes bound for added mystery with an ill-fitting padlock.

The alternative was keeping notebooks plastered with angst ridden lines of poetry, interleaved with tear-stained letters-to-self ripped from the back of an exercise book. Or was that just me?

Social media has tidied the whole process up gratifyingly. Feats of computer engineering, the skills my brothers gave years at University to build, now bless us all with instant upload of wysiwig ramblings and a plethora of themes in which to house them.

It couldn’t be easier or cheaper to express ourselves than via one of the infinitely absorbing platforms of the web.

2. The Need to Know

Success in hierarchical management once hinged upon precise calculation of the need to know. Secrecy was King and to be ‘in the know’ was an enviable mark of status. Rationing of news was a tool as much open to manipulation as any other in the corporate armoury.

No wonder we rose as one to the call of the information revolution.

Blogging provides a feast of opinion seasoned with breaking news to satisfy the right to be informed.

3. Cultivating Individuality

‘Yes, we are all different,’ sang the crowd outside Brian’s window (thanks to Monty Python et al), yet being different and alone can engender an unwelcome isolation.

Twitter, Facebook, Friend Feed and WordPress populate my quirky world with the similarly afflicted.

Online we can widen the options for micro-cult behaviour in the safety of a playpen in which our profile-self can scream blue-eccentricity from the silence of the computer closet.

4. Finding Needles in Haystacks

It’s all very well developing an unconventional social identity, but creative types need fans.

Traditional community values in the flesh thrive by a common observance of the rules. Running the risk of exposure by outspoken commentary in public tends to alienate the neighbours.

Not so online. The blog breathes by its hit counter. Those who find the content appealing affiliate to the madness therein, confident that protection of privacy settings will preserve the option of impeccable behaviour out-doors.

Niche interests are searchable – at last the hermit can loiter in an internet café and save his blisters.

5. Global One-to-Oneness

Perhaps the ultimate value of tweeting and posting is that each reader surfs in seclusion.

Commenting on a tweet or blog post, whether it was intended for mass or minute readership, creates a bond of intimacy with the author. Writers are relishing a new-found celebrity in the one-at-a-time gathering of their audience.

The irony of mass media is the depth of connection felt between followers and friends whose twains, but for the grace of God and the Internet, would never have met.

To share a moment in the life lived by another is the essence of love. To be rewarded by attention and respect out of the blue is priceless.

We are in love with one another’s profile-selves and the more so when the path runs much more smoothly than experience would otherwise predict.

Politics in Rhythm

The Consequence of Sound by Regina Spektor, sourced by Grooveshark – hope you enjoy the lyrics as much as I did.

Unveiling the intimacy curve: mutated economics for freelancers

In the good old days, economics was defined as the allocation of scarce resources under competition, and the price mechanism was its finest model.

It just made sense.  Picture a giant ‘X’ on a sheet of graph paper.  On the one hand you have the highest number of suppliers willing to sell more for higher prices and on the other, a higher number of customers demanding goods more cheaply.  Where the numbers coincided, that was the market price.  Simples!

According to economists, the only people who could be doing business were slap bang in the middle of the chart.  But that was before web 2.0 and the disquieting arrival of intimacy into the matrix.

Anyone who’s been self-employed knows and loathes the concept of ‘mate’s rates.’

If a good friend asked you to tweak their website or give them a manicure it would simply be rude not to do it for a fraction of the usual fee.  That blew the price mechanism out of the water for starters.

Add to that premise the opportunity for almost unlimited open competition in a global marketplace and all the willing suppliers at the foot of the ‘X’ are now sharing their wares online, very often purely for the love of it.

No matter what the product or service, there’s almost bound to be a free alternative available somewhere, even if quality is deemed a justifiable sacrifice en route.  The free market has truly arrived.

In itself, that’s not a bad thing at all.  The provision of free goods and services is clearly great for consumers, and offers an excellent way for suppliers to build reputation and desire quickly.  When it’s done properly, outstanding service drives customer appreciation full throttle into readiness to buy a fuller more comprehensive package, programme or power-tool, for the price it really merits.

The problem tends not to arrive with what is free – it occurs more often with what is cheap.  When one parts with something – any amount of money, a favour or an inconvenience – there is an obligation upon the trader to deliver at industry standard.

As customers, we will not tolerate the notion that a low price means poor quality.   We expect a low price to mean a bargain.  We appreciate that ‘free’ may involve poor quality but once an item is paid for, it has to work – not just a bit, completely.   What’s more, if the free version is poor quality, we throw away that supplier’s entire catalogue.

Where larger organisations gain an advantage is in the idea that while service can be intimate, supply never is.

It’s a powerful distinction and may well be the key for social media entrepreneurs to succeed in the recovering climate.

To capitalise on the financial advantages of the web, we must separate the supply from the service, even if the service involves the physical hands-on doing of a task under the very eyes of our customer.

We must establish brand distinctions that offer measurable value, while interacting personally with our buyer, so that the transaction seems to take place almost in another room.  We have to have ‘our people’ deal with ‘their people’ as far as money is concerned or we’ll end up offering mates rates to every one of our hard-won followers on Twitter, each blog reader and all the members of our promotional Facebook group.

While big business can learn a lot about problem solving from the self-employed and media-savvy freelance generation, the reverse is true when it comes to pricing policy.

So the price mechanism still has a place, yet it can no longer be defined by two intersecting curves sweeping across an impersonal universe.

The economic intimacy curve is more of a U shape.  It starts on the zero price point, showing that anything can be supplied for free to an almost infinite number of customers.  It then moves along the ground with absolutely no service provision until it curves slightly upwards into the second strike, showing another infinite provision at a much higher price.

The first leg of the sale is free, and of course for what is offered, the quality is unquestionably good.  Yet the full service, which includes bespoke tailoring and other high-falutin’ features, is only available to the seriously well heeled.

The trick is in converting customer A into customer B as rapidly and smoothly as possible.   And that’s down to adding more value than  could ever have been imagined.

So if you are looking for a business which should remain fully employed and earning a fortune in the next decade, you could do a lot worse than invest in the skills of social media application design.  Right now there are plenty of non-paying customers ready and eager to test your products.

Come, all ye cynics

Wouldn’t we all rather be happy, really?

I ask because I have this recurring debate with a friend.  It’s usually about the nature of reality and the significance of political identity within a self-serving paradigm.

All well and good, and it makes for lively bar banter of a Friday night but here’s my problem: I’m naive, it seems.

This has been fully explained by half a dozen friends who have laboured enthusiastically over two or three decades now to protect my soul from unfurling immortal wings of freedom and soaring the heights of joy, by persuading me to believe in earthly miseries like the economy and what it means to be in relationship.

It seems that being deliriously happy for no reason is frowned upon in mature society.  Although the most fascinating teachers now tell us this is the path to peace and prosperity.

I battled with the truth for years.  Today I welcome it with a cup of tea and a slice of battenburg.  In my view, being naive at the age of 47 smacks of rather more credibility than it once did.  Not that it matters now, of course.

Each accusation once made me seethe with anger; anger that immediately I would bury, as it set my harmonic frequency onto a bit of a wobble.  But each time the cynics stung me with their very clever observations that I was living in cloud cuckoo land, I swallowed another dose of anger, until this morning, when the full force of my spleen repeated on me unexpectedly.

I felt a bit of a fool.  Declaring eternal bliss as a preferred state of being while venting outrage just isn’t an excellent fit.  It tends to defeat itself in argument somewhat, which only fuels the critics’ fire in the long run.

Something had to go, once and for all.  And I opted to ditch the anger in favour of blissful naivety.  That way, I get to keep all my intelligent friends because I no longer feel the need to argue with them.  I can benefit by Universal laws while they fight for civil ones.  The word is mine; it can no longer harm me: I am naive.  There, I’m out and I’m proud!

Why Writers Love Their Cats

Now don’t get me wrong.  Of course everyone loves their cat.  Cats are capable of forging eternally mystifying relationships with their guardians.  Despite their monotone conversational skills we never fully understand them.

Writers often demand more from those who share their lives – whether it be tolerance, patience, permission or forgiveness.  We have a lot to own up about.  And the poor cat frequently finds himself exploited in the process.

In fairness, cats make little contribution to household income.  Yet foil trays of Felix don’t grow on trees.  So it seems reasonable to juggle the balance of power in favour of custodian, wherever possible.

Need an idea for a story?  Open the paper and the cat will sit on the exact article you should be reading.  How clever!  Need to capture quintessential pride?  Call his name and watch the response.

But this is by far the best thing: when they make up their mind, cats seldom give up.  If you tell him once, you’ll tell him a dozen times:

“Please get down; no, claws out first; no I’m typing; no…”

But loosen your grip for a second and he’s wriggling over the keyboard, clicking ’send’ with a flick of his tail.

As the ugliness of frustration surges into human form within you, he blinks those big green eyes and purrs like a lawnmower.  Abandon anger, forget suffering, to heck with your professional reputation; with one innocent grin, the cat has reminded you what life’s really all about.  Your last shred of resistance dissolves into a handful of warm, shiny, moulting fur as your arms throw him an involuntary cuddle.

His primary function is surely the teaching of gratitude.  And the more we appreciate our extraordinary good fortune, the more blessed we seem to become by it.

Here’s to you, Bellamy.  No, it’s not teatime; no…

Those foolish moments spent singing to the cat

Life, they said, wasn’t meant to be easy. I have to disagree.

It’s all very well tearing around like a free-range chicken looking for pots of gold or solutions to eternal puzzles like: what does it really mean? – but when the time comes to pop open a South Australian Shiraz, the world just has to wait.

Stress is over-rated, in my humble opinion. Take cars, for instance. How many times do we hear ourselves say, ‘no, there’s plenty left to get us to the next one,’ when the tank ticks over the bottom quarter and we’ve just passed Trowell Services on the M1?

Incidentally, isn’t it marvellous how everything has a web-site these days? Not only can you list motorway services and have them included on your route plan, but you are encouraged to rate them on cleanliness and staff training and so on. Ideal!

So there we were, heading south, looking out for junction 23A, fuel a little low and now she’s gambling on the life-expectancy of what remains in the tank. I do it myself and honestly, life is becoming far too short for such foolishness.

It’s not as if the clock is ever going to stop. Whether we like it or not, we face deadlines. Even the very word for it casts shadows of doom. But what can we do? A stitch in time saves nine, they say, and a gallon in the tank is worth two in the petrol can after a long walk.

But it’s not just cars – it’s Sunday trading and mislaid tax returns. It’s everything that winds us up, that pushes us to the last minute, and tests our faith that God or the manager or the tax inspector will find forgiveness and remedy for our ever-so-slight delay.

I think I’ve found the secret to enjoying those weekend moments when all you want to do is sit back and sing to the cat.

The best thing is to get up at five in the morning, put the washing on, knock off 1,000 words of that next chapter and settle down for a day of relaxation. Round about eleven, after another coffee, there’s plenty of time to plough through carrier bags of unopened mail or find the spare phone charger for your house guest, or whatever urgent need you are called upon to serve.

It all sounds fine in theory, of course. But then before you know it it’s Monday again.

The cat is still surprised when I hurl him from my lap to check for emails and insist on locking him out of the shower. He hasn’t fully grasped the concept of working from home. He would disagree. He knows his function in the family is vital to our survival. But I like to think I keep the upper hand. In every aspect except for the art of clawing, I do. (I can’t go out in a skirt anymore.)

So when the day is done and seven new contract proposals are under consideration, I feel I deserve to let go.

Tomorrow I’m going to write to the Inland Revenue, re-stock the freezer and buy a portable petrol can – unless someone offers to pay me to do anything more absorbing, that is. For now, the glass is less than half full and I feel a song coming on.

‘Oh yes, you are my favourite cat, your fur is softer than a mat, but don’t ask me to stop and chat, because you’re getting far too fat…’ Now, where did I leave the cork screw?

Top Five Uses For A Lukewarm Macchiato

Readers of my ramblings on webook may remember my allegation that macchiato is over-rated.  Hopping deftly onto the back foot, I’d like to set the record straight today with a forthright outline of five practical purposes for the over-priced beverage.

Number one: twenty minutes in the bloodstream could save a life.

To begin on a serious note, it’s comforting that the British Government appears to endorse the use of caffeine for avoidance of motorway collisions in the early afternoons.  As the human body clock ticks into snooze mode, two pm is peak time for pile ups, statistics suggest.

So, here’s the ideal way to use your macchiato when sleepy at the wheel.

Pull over at the next service station and drink your coffee.   Close your eyes quietly in the car park and sleep for twenty minutes while the coffee takes effect.  Wake up naturally and continue your journey refreshed.

Number two: mask an awkward moment with a guest.

I’m amongst those people who seldom notice sarcasm.  I tend to take all pleasant comments at face value, frequently unaware, my son tells me, of how embarrassing my winning smile can be.

And this just serves to illustrate the second point.  Pouring a cup of coffee for an obliging guest can give you both something to toy with and disguise a clumsy silence as a moment of shared relaxation.

Number three: an excuse to find yourself in the kitchen just before the next screening of Scrubs.

Okay, so we’re mildly saturated with the first six series.  We can quote the best lines, imitate the gestures and hum the theme tune in our sleep.  But there’s just no escaping the truth: the more we see of Scrubs, the less we want it to end.  And it should only take a few more months before series seven repeats again and one day, just maybe, we might get a glimpse of series eight.   (Won’t we?)

Number four: a perfect way to corner an attractive member of the business club, without having to do business.

There she is again.  Damn, that girl is hot.  You need an excuse, and it had better sound plausible.

“Oh, hello, let me fill that for you.”

“Morning – and thanks!”

“So, what is it you do again?”

“Well, it’s a little complicated.”

“Yes, do go on.”

You know who you are, you scallywag.

Number five: it punctuates the day and it’s better than opening the sherry or demolishing the ice-cream for elevenses.

Of course the real purpose of coffee is to reward oneself for the supreme effort of going the distance between breakfast and lunch without resorting to calorific or alcoholic breakdown.

And why not?  It’s hard work getting through the day, especially when there are children / clients / bills involved.   (Delete as appropriate.)

So go on, pop the kettle on and take a break from routine.  Or, better still, investigate your High Street.  Our local pub, for example, is experimenting by opening for morning coffee for a trial period and I’ve been invited to take my lap-top along for a taster.

Good Lord, is that the time?   I think this post is finished and if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m expected elsewhere…

To Buy Or Not To Buy

I wonder, is it nobler in the mind to suffer the blips and niggles of an outrageous computer, or to take virtual hammers against a sea of shut-downs and, by purchasing a new one, end them?

Twelve times: the hard drive clicked in that “I’ll do this all day if I have to” tone and refused to start twelve times this morning.

So the moment that finally I caught it on it’s lunch break and windows xp quietly opened without its noticing, I headed straight for Amazon and purchased its successor. Actually, it took rather longer than that. First of all I backed-up my more recent emails (taking the opportunity to delete 150 assorted offers of viagra, website traffic generators and motivational quotes of the week) before scouring the hottest deals in reliable dual core processing.

I shouldn’t speak too soon. I’ve been on here for the last three and a half hours and it’s been whining at me constantly. The new delivery arrives on Tuesday – allegedly. And I’m weighing the odds of completing this article before my words disappear in a puff of smoke.

If it had feelings, I wouldn’t, on this occasion, be troubled by the risk of offending them. It’s done far worse to me. It has to learn. I’ve warned it; it has five days left to prove itself.

But in one sense, I’m on a losing wicket. It knows what replacing a computer involves – it was once the celebrated replacement for an old one, of course. And despite the pathetic 850 mb of ram, it has, I’m sure, a long memory. I suspect it will have a quiet snigger to itself tonight while I’m asleep, at the thought of my enduring a further 36 hours of software installation. Moreover, it knows full well I first need to locate the IP codes for the broadband and all the other security passwords and drudgery which provide nothing but peace of mind in normal circumstances. Passwords are delightfully forgettable. They need no feeding or encouraging or training, yet look at them: up there defending privacy 24 hours a day. Single-handed!

Twelve times. It’s just more than one can stand.  I’ve started to feel a great deal of sympathy for the poor Prince of Denmark.  But there was one dilemma he never faced.  He never had a credit card.  His philosophy I recall was neither a borrower nor lender to be. Perhaps armies came cheap in those days.

Well, it seems I’ve reached the end of the page and whatever it is that’s rotten in the state of the hard drive still rattles.  Please bear with me – I may not be back for another week.

Just thinking aloud…

Welcome to Wordcaster – a mobile home for the English language.

The last decade has been rather different.  It resembled the decades that other people always seemed to experience – a decade in which skills were transformed, life-changing relationships formed, books written and publishing contracts signed.  Sadly, it was the decade also in which two parents passed away, yet the same one in which a son became a man.

To celebrate the Miracle Decade as it should be known, this blog has been born.  Please enjoy the musings, occasional wisdom, frequent ranting and sincere good wishes of your author.