Just before Christmas, we made a cross-country sojourn from our home in Pennsyl-vania to our new winter home in Arizona.  We packed our Camry with everything it could possibly fit, including our 12 ½ year-old, 120-pound Great Dane/Boxer, Buster, and Zippy, our three-year-old, 22-pound bundle of Jack Russell.  For six days, except for one day spent holed-up in an awful hotel in an even worse town because a blizzard was blocking our Westward route, we drove 500 – 600 miles a day, dutifully stopping every two hours to give everybody a break. 

It was no mean feat, especially since Buster was literally on his last legs, suffering from a progressive condition that was causing him to have difficulty supporting himself on his back legs.  But he was happy, bright-eyed, playful and hungry as a horse.  So we were happy to give him the extra space and attention he needed to make the journey with us.   

When we arrived in Arizona, he and Zippy  took to the new yard like a pair of puppies, playing with each other like nobody’s businesses, barking at all of the new sites and sounds, rolling on their backs and snuggling together on a “muttress” in the sunshine.  

Just six days into his retirement in the desert, Buster woke up in a good deal of pain.  We rushed him to the local vet to see what steps we could take to give him some relief.  Nothing could be done and we made the difficult decision to euthanize him right then.  It was a sad and difficult decision, as any animal owner knows all too well.   

But when his remains were returned to us a few days later in a neat white container, we didn’t receive them with a lump in the throat or a tear.  I was surprised, so I reflected on my reaction.  Am I really that cold and unemotional?  Or had I learned a new lesson?  It was three lessons, actually, about building effective relationships — with pets or people — that never include regrets: 

#1: Keep your agreements.  When we rescue an animal, we make a written agreement with the rescue organization to return the animal if we can’t care for it.  We make an additional agreement with our animals: we’ll take good care of you for life and make sure your life is long and happy.  You’re with us, buddy, no worries.  When Buster’s life was long but no longer happy, we kept our agreement with him, in a way that was painful for us but perfect for him.  Building effective business relationships often requires keeping your agreements, even when it hurts. 

#2: It’s not about you.  We could have used the space Buster occupied in our car to transport more “stuff” to our new digs.  And, frankly, it was no walk in the dog park hauling him in and out of the car many times each day.  But because of the pledge we had made to Buster (see #1), focusing on his well-being was our first and unselfish priority.  Any business would do well to remember that it exists because of the relationship it has with its customers and that they are #1.   

#3: Keep communicating.  Focusing on the other guy and keeping your agreements go a long way toward building relationships that are free of blame, shame, guilt, resentments and regrets and filled with trust, respect, loyalty and, yes, even love.  But that’s not enough without constant communication, which is a two-way, mutually beneficial activity.  With a dog, we listen to barks, whines, yelps, pants and quizzical looks.  We speak with gentle words, pets and scratches, healthy meals, playtimes, walks, car rides and visits to the vet.  In return, we get loyalty and unconditional love.  

In business, we listen and respond, in just as many ways, to our customers.  In my business this is called “two-way symmetrical communication.  In any business, it’s the key to building effective relationships.

I haven’t darkened the door of a barber shop in nearly four decades.  But recently my live-in barber took an extended business trip, and I found myself needing a haircut.  I live in a highly developed suburb of Philadelphia in which there is every manner of hair manipulating establishment under the sun within minutes of home.

Frankly, I didn’t know where to start. 

Figuring I’d be more comfortable at and old-fashioned barber shop rather than a “salon” or “day spa,” I turned to Google and found the most highly recommended nearby barber. 

The place was barebones and the experience was pleasant enough.  After about three minutes with the clippers, the barber pronounced me finished, took my $16 and I was on my way.  I didn’t give much thought to the process, other than to wonder to myself if the cut would “last” until my next out-of-town client trip.

For the past couple of months I have been developing a new workshop about referral marketing.  I have been immersed in that subject and looking at my own experiences with a microscope.  The common thread in the literature about building a referral-based business is that you must first be referral-worthy (with apologies to Elaine Benis of Seinfeld fame.)  To build a business by referral, you have to give your customers an outstanding experience, every time, repeatedly and sustainably.  When you wow your customers, they come back.  They give you more business.  And they recommend you to others because, among other benefits, it makes then look good and feel good.   

As hair is wont to grow, I needed another haircut yesterday.  I spotted a new place on the way to the gym, SportsClips, and stopped in.  I was greeted graciously at the door.  As soon as we established that I was a first-time customer, I qualified for the super-duper treatment (shampoo, haircut, steaming towel and shoulder massage) at the price of the basic haircut.  I’m not sure what the barber found to do up there, but she labored over my locks for 15 minutes with three kinds of clippers and scissors-over-comb.  The warm shampoo, hot towel and shoulder massage were a great bonus.  Then she spotted something she wanted to “refine” in my coif.  When I checked out, she gave me her card, a loyalty card, four coupons and the link to a satisfaction survey, which led to another dollars-off coupon.  And I can stop in any time for a free neck trim. 

I was surprised and delighted.  The experience was so well planned and executed that I now plan to start going to the barber again, not just any barber, but this one.  I am now a loyal customer of SportsClips.  I recommend it to you enthusiastically.  Remember now, that for all intents and purposes, I am as bald as an egg that occasionally sprouts fuzz.  But because of one experience with a referral-worthy business, in a service category that I don’t really need, I have changed a 40-year-old habit.  And I’m telling you about it.

Is your business referral-worthy?  Have you wowed a customer recently?  If you're not certain, maybe it’s time for a haircut.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been working from the new Western office of thePRguy in Chandler, Arizona.  We have family nearby and it’s been a real treat spending time with them. Last evening, I was given bedtime storytelling privileges with my nine year-old niece, Emily. She selected a book about Pablo Picasso, from a series about individual artists. That was my first surprise. 
 
About three pages in, she interrupted me with, “That’s a simile.” (I don’t know about you but I struggled until, well, yesterday to nail the difference between a simile and a metaphor.) So I asked her, “What’s onomatopoeia?” She shot back with, “That’s a word that imitates a sound, like buzz or snap or meow.” A moment later she chirped, “That phrase used alliteration.”  She then shared the mnemonic device she uses to remember her figures of speech. 
 
You could have knocked me over with a feather. (I bet Emily knows that’s an idiom.) And that’s not a hyperbole. I thought that the craft of writing was on its last legs. There’s plenty of evidence for that point of view in the daily barrage of emails, websites, ads, blogs, and TV shows — even in state slogans. (You’ve got a friend in Pennsylvania. Seriously?)  And I can’t tell you how many emails I receive from PR students seeking my “career advise.”
 
As much as I dreaded it at the time, I am forever grateful that the good sisters taught me the fine art of diagramming a sentence and drilled me on tense, person, word classes and poetry meters.   The 12 years I spent studying Latin gave me precious tools, too. I’ve used these tools to build a career.
 
For years I’ve been concerned about the receding heir line (pun intended) for the next generation of people who will wield the words that will inform, entertain, motivate and inspire us. Emily has given me hope that there’s a Future Perfect ahead.

When I started in this business, the IBM Selectric typewriter was state-of-the-art.  I could choose from three different typefaces!  The first telecopier (aka fax) machine I used required placing a sheet of paper in a plastic sleeve, clipping it to a large metal drum that rotated while a stylus crept along the page.  But I could send a whole page somewhere else in the world in less than five minutes — over the telephone!  My first cell phone had an external five-pound battery pack with a shoulder strap.  But I could call people from anywhere!  And it was a leather shoulder strap.

We’ve just acquired a vacation home in Arizona, where we hope to become “snowbirds.”  So I’ve been planning the technology I’ll need to do business there as easily and efficiently as I do in my home office. The hardware part is simple: a laptop computer, a wireless all-in-one printer, a cell phone and an Internet connection.  Software is another story, so I’ve been taking inventory of my programs, licenses, and Web-based services.  Of course, I’ll load the laptop with the standard-issue tools of my trade like the Microsoft Office Suite, the Adobe Creative Suite and Quickbooks. 

I’ve been surprised, however, at how dependent I’ve become on a number of specialized applications and online services that make my life easier and my work more efficient.  Some are free, some require a purchase or a subscription.  Here’s a list of my “must haves:”

Microsoft Outlook Add-Ins

YouSendIt
The online service is free.  This paid service adds a set of icons within Outlook that allows you to send large files through this online service without leaving your email.  It automatically recognizes files that are too large to send through normal channels and offers to send them via YouSendIt.

Time Bridge
This free service synchronizes with your Outlook calendar and publishes your available times.  It makes it easy for anyone to schedule a meeting or phone call with you.

Xobni
The basic service is free; an upgrade with key functions is paid.  The program, "Inbox" spelled backwards, does a superior job of searching your emails, keeping track of files and messages you've exchanged with others and bringing social-media information for every email sender right into Outlook.  The latest Outlook (2010) has added some of this functionality but Xobni beats it, hand-dwon.

Google Products and Services

Earth
Free and indispensible for directions, bird's eye views of the world and street-level views for many locations.

Picasa
A free photo-album package, it synchronizes your computer's photos with online albums (or not; you choose).  The most amazing feature is facial recognition.  Just identify each person in your photos one time and the software will identify every other picture of the same person, whether in a group or alone.  It's uncanny and very helpful.

Voice
A free service that lets you use your current phone number or a establish new one to add all sorts of functionality to your life on the phone.  For example, I have a phone number at a remote office that, when called, will chase me down at my other phone numbers, depending on where I am and how I've set it.  It also transcribes voice mails and emails them to me.  It's a great way to have a telephone presence in any area code you choose at no cost and never to miss a call.

Chrome
This free Internet browser is far superior to Internet Explorer in so many ways.  I find the all-in-one address bar to be a big time saver: just type a web address or a search term in the bar.  The only problem I've found is that some online services don't play well with Chrome.  For example, a website I manage through a content management system won't show any content with Chrome.  So keep a standby on hand.

Google+
This free social-networking service is growing like kudzu and will give Facebook a run for its money.  Right now, it's populated by 25 million geeks and early adopters like me.  But as the rest of the world discovers how much it can do that Facebook can't, there's bound to be a mass migration.

Other Online Services

Constant Contact
This paid service allows even tiny businesses like mine to do email marketing with a level of sophistication and tracking that were once only the province of huge corporations.

Survey Monkey
There's a free version with limited functionality of this sophisticated online survey service.  The professional version adds an array of design, logic and analytic features.  For anyone doing opinion research, it's a must have.

Spamarrest
This paid service is worth whatever they charge!  It completely removes spam from your inbox.  (Except for the occasional Nigerian attorney representing an incredibly wealthy widow.) The formula is simple: if you receive an email from someone who is not on your white list, Spamarrest sends the person a "challenge" email that says, basically "If you're a human being with legitimate business, click here and we'll put your email through."  I forward all of my email addresses to Spamarrest.  It scrubs out the junk and I collect the good stuff only.

Pandora
This miraculous music (and now comedy) service, free with periodic commercials, $1 month for no commercials and better sound quality, grew out of the Music Genome Project, an ongoing project through which human beings are methodically tagging the "genomes" of millions of songs from among hundreds of options.  So a given song might be instrumental, with background violins and dominant piano, classical, Baroque, 32 beats per minute and so forth.  Pick a song and the database creates a custom "channel" of music that matches the genomes of the song you selected.

Mikogo
Another free service, this provides just about all of the functionality of expensive screen-sharing/teleconferencing services like GoToMeeting.  Share your screen, or share others', in conference calls, webinars and other gatherings.  The conference call functionality is free, too.

Skype
Free videoconferencing that is nothing short of astounding and earth shattering.  No wonder Microsoft just acquired it.  You know all about it.  Just start using it.

Hybrids

Windows Live Skydrive
This free service is similar to GoogleDocs, a service that allows you to share documents and other files with multiple users.  I prefer it to GoogleDocs because it's so well integrated with the Microsoft Office Suite and, well, that's the way of the business world.  If you're weary of endless email exchanges of files with ever-expanding names like "new release with Joe's comments in red," run, do not walk to Skydrive.  (If you need more than the amount of free storage provided, you can purchase more space.)

Carbonite
This paid service is the best off-site backup service I've found and, believe me, I've tried a bunch.  For $5/month, everything I create on my computer is automatically backed up to "the cloud" and I can access it anywhere. Need I say more?  One nifty feature is a system of color-coded dots placed next to every file that lets you know that it's already been backed up or is pending backup.

Roboform
If you use the same password for every site you use, shame on you.  Get Roboform.  I did when I was a one-password-fits-all kind of guy and my PayPal account was hacked.  That led to some major scrambling.  Never again.  Roboform generates unbreakable passwords for you and remembers them for you.  The free version remembers them on one computer.  But the paid version keeps all of your passwords in "the cloud" and synchronizes them with any device on which you'll loaded the Roboform software, including mobile devices. 

Tweetdeck
A free, excellent social media dashboard that allows you to track your social media activity in one place.  It's no wonder Twitter just acquired it.

Software

SnagIt
This paid software supercharges the "print screen" function built into Windows and includes a photo editor.  You can capture a scrolling screen, a section of a screen, onscreen video with audio and many other options.  It has a great editor that allows you to annotate your screen captures with text, arrows and other symbols and to apply a range of photo effects.

TweetAdder
It's paid.  Full disclosure: I use it so much and recommend it so frequently that I became an affiliate.  It's the best all around Twitter manager I've found, with an array of features for following and unfollowing, searching for other Twitter users based on keywords in the their profiles and Tweets, automating Tweets and re-Tweets and a more. 

DVD Fab Decrypter
Simple, uncomplicated DVD copier and converter that works like a charm, better in my experience than some of the high-priced suites like Roxio and Nero.  Make a back-up copy of a precious video in your collection or convert a video you own to an iPad or iPhone version.  Buy annual licenses for just the functions you use.

Share your favorites!

A few days ago, I was looking for something on the Web, landed on an error page and burst out laughing.  The page read, “Oh, snap!  Something went wrong.”  Would you rather do business with this company or its competitor with the “Error 404, page not found” message?  Thought so. 

That laugh-inducing error page is a perfect example of what I call person-ality.  Too many organizational communications are missing exactly that — a person behind the communication about the brand or the organization.  Some organizations insist on speaking with us as if there’s no body home at either end of the message, using passive voice, impenetrable jargon and insightful executives statements such as “We are pleased about this good news.”  When I receive an email that speaks to “some of you out there,” I know that nobody in there knows who I am.  

I conduct a variety of communication skills workshops for executives.  Most participants arrive wanting tips, tricks and techniques — formulaic rules for giving a speech, handling a question, navigating a crisis, narrating a PowerPoint presentation.  Don’t get me wrong: the social sciences have given us many useful tips for all sorts of communication situations.  

But effective communication is authentic communication, in which the speaking or the writing is aimed at building a relationship of mutual understanding, respect and trust.  Try accomplishing that while picturing your audience naked because you’re trying to “overcome” your fear of public speaking.  But when a website says “Oh, snap!” to me, I know that someone has given some serious thought to our relationship. 

Authentic communication comes from a commitment to authentic relationships.  It’s not so difficult to figure out what that means.  Just think about the relationship you have (or want to have) with your spouse, your kids, your parents.  When that relationship of trust and respect is present, communication occurs.  When it doesn’t, you’re probably acting like most corporations.

So here’s a free tip: lighten up.  Speak and write from people to people.  Try the first-person singular.  Take a break from the superlative adjectives.  Pitch the passive voice.  Forget the executive quote.  Put a name and face on it.  Speak from you to me.  Give it a try and, oh, snap, something will go right.

Anthony David Weiner, the U.S. Representative for New York's 9th congressional district, has been in the news of late. I‘m flabbergasted that a guy with a name like Smuckers would do anything to associate himself with the particular body part that shares his mis-pronounced surname. (For the record, “wein” in German, meaning wine, is pronounced “vine” not “veen.” The “er” means “of the,” which may explain his poor judgment).  In his stage act, the drag comedian, Dame Edna, picks a woman from the audience and says to her, “Oh, my dear. You have obviously given a great deal of thought to that outfit. What were you thinking?” Oh, my dear, Mr. Weiner.

To students of crisis management, this guy has offered up a perfect case -history, videos and dissections of which will be common in PR and MBA programs for decades. The lesson is simple: don’t do anything he did after he did what he did. The crisis, you see, was not the discovery of pictures of his body parts in the hands of nubile nymphs across the nation. The crisis, entirely of his own making, began when he lied.

A couple of years ago, I participated in a seminar with Bob Woodward, who has been chronicling, since breaking the Watergate scandal, the stupid behavior of powerful men. (See TIME magazine’s recent piece, The Caligula Effect: Why Powerful Men Compulsively Cheat for some fascinating reading on the subject.)

Someone asked Woodward, “As a reporter, what do you want to hear when a company or public figure makes a mistake?” “The only acceptable answer,” he replied: “We did it, we’re sorry and we’ve taken steps to make sure that we never do it again.” An earlier author who went by the name of John, said it another way, “The truth will set you free.”

Eastern philosophers (and Werner Erhard, as I recall), expressed the concept underlying modern-day crisis management in two principles: “resistance causes persistence” and “re-creation causes disappearance.” Resistance in a crisis situation can take many forms, such as not answering a reporter’s questions or denying something in plain evidence like, oh I don’t, say a picture of you in your underwear. What happens when you don’t answer a reporter’s question? Why, the question persists until it is re-created, that is, answered. Once answered, the question disappears. /p

Crisis management, as it turns out, is really very basic, a lesson that bears re-visiting from time to time. Tell the truth and fix the problem. Yes, my dear Mr. Weiner.

Osama Bin Laden is history.  That’s a fact you could not have missed even if you lived, as he was presumed to, in a cave.  Whether you witnessed our national chest-thumping with bemusement and embarrassment or you participated enthusiastically in a flag-waving-USA-shouting-we-got-him-at-last street party, this particular perpetrator of mass murder is gone. 

The information he left behind showed him to be a venal hypocrite, dying his beard to record rants to his followers and flipping channels to get a glimpse of himself.  Someone was actually in charge of delivering the quintessentially American Coca-Cola to his million-dollar compound!  (Note to every CEO on the planet:  walking the talk builds credibility.)  

Amid the 24/7 news reporting, which still consumes more airtime than the unfolding disaster along the Mighty Mississippi, you may have missed one small detail that every professional communicator and corporate executive should note:   Sohaib Athar, “an IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains,” live Tweeted the helicopter flyovers and explosions that were part of the raid on Bin Laden’s hideout.  He was none too pleased with the ruckus, writing  in one Tweet, “I guess Abbottabad is going to get as crowded as the Lahore I left behind for some peace and quiet.  *sigh*”

By now, every person in business who has a heartbeat recognizes that social media such as Twitter have permanently changed the very nature of communication.   To many, the unfolding Arab Spring is also known as the Twitter Revolution.  Yet in an ongoing (and decidedly not scientific) poll on my website,  fewer than one-half of those responding say that their organizations use Twitter as part of their planned communication activities. 

Not employing social media as part of an organization’s ongoing relationship building is almost a forgivable sin, compared with using these powerful tools clumsily or without purpose.  Not a day goes by that I don’t encounter a company that is ready to start Tweeting away with no objective in mind, in ways that offend the very communities they hope to enfranchise.  

Here’s an example I use in many of my training programs.  Every gym has a culture of its own, with social behavioral norms that are different from place to place.  Is it cool to drop your dumbells with a thud, or not?  Is grunting a sign of hard work or bad manners?  Do people “doing a circuit,” take priority over users of one machine in the circuit?  Do you wipe down your treadmill with sanitary wipes or not?  When is it OK to refuse a request to “work in?”  Yet when the folks that gym rats call “The New Year’s Resolutionaries” appear in early January for their fleeting  stays, most never bother to learn the cultural norms of the gym and blunder about making everyone else crazy.

The current issue of my Update newsletter includes links to several sets of homespun advice on the subject of social media norms.  If you have a role in your organization’s social media planning and execution,  consider reviewing them before you … ahem … work out the details of your social media program.

Don’t color me green, yet.  Don’t get me wrong:  I’m not unconscious about my impact on the planet.  I recycle, plant lots of trees and pick-up OPT (Other People’s Trash) when I walk — and pick up after — my dogs.  But there are some steps I haven’t been able to take, even though I “should.”  

Take lighting, for example.  My partner and I are lighting fanatics.  Every room has to be “just so” in terms of ambient, task and art lighting.  To give you an idea of our collective insanity on this subject, you should know that when we travel, we pack light bulbs to replace those dim, harsh, hotel-room fluorescents that evoke the ambience of a down-on-its heels K-Mart, minus the tinny music and blue-light- special announcements.  (We also pack a shower head but that’s another story …”) 

But as the countdown to a Federal ban on incandescent bulbs progresses, we have tried to be better citizens of the planet by replacing some lights in our home with environmentally friendly CFL (aka fluorescent) bulbs, those twisted contraptions that look terrible on and off.  But up until now, the only bulbs that have survived are in outdoor fixtures and the basement storage room.  The light these bulbs produce is just too white, bright and unflattering to people and their possessions.  We’ve been in homes in which the owners have jumped in all the way, producing a lighting effect somewhat akin to an airport landing zone. 

For years, we’ve been asking, until now only rhetorically: When will someone make a fluorescent bulb that produces decent light and, oh, by the way, can be dimmed, too?  Finally, someone has.  The secret, as it turns out, is Kelvins.  (No, not skinny jeans from a famous designer.)  Degrees Kelvin is a measurement of the color hue of a light source.  .  It turns out that the light most people find appealing is around 2,700 Degrees Kelvin.  When we made this discovery and learned that our local utility company is subsidizing the cost of bulbs of this very temperature, we bought a boatload and went on a gleeful rampage throughout our home, retiring incandescents in favor our 2700 new friends.  

So why exactly are you reading about this on a website devoted to building better relationships through effective communication?  Because this tale underlines the importance of listening as the first step in effective communication.  I’m a reasonably intelligent guy.  Yet despite five years of concerted efforts by everyone one from Congress to Wal-Mart, I didn’t adopt this new technology until about two days ago.  It hasn’t been because I don’t know the benefits to the environment and to the size of my utility bill. 

 For me, having my home look and feel “like home” has a higher value than cost and eco-consciousness.  (I know I’m not alone; I’ve had this conversation with a hundred friends and acquaintances with CFL-free homes.)  One manufacturer finally got smart, listened to the chorus of people like me, and figured out how to make a bulb that we’re willing to live with.  As a result, I’ve not only added to that company’s top line, I’ve also become an evangelist.  No amount of rational information exchange or Congressional take-away got me to change my behavior.  

Someone just had to listen to me.

Excuse my enthusiasm; it is Friday, I am seeing a Broadway show this weekend and I did have a very productive week. Among other projects, I found myself doing manual content analysis of loads of text from survey responses.  It's a trusty, reliable and decently accurate way to characterize the tenor of a large number of responses to open-ended survey questions.  But I found myself wishing for a way to illustrate the truism that "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words."  So I went searching for and found a terrific, free (how do they do that?) online tool for generating so-called "word clouds," www.wordle.net/create.  Just "paste in a bunch of text," the location of an RSS feed or a del.icio.us user name and generate a beautiful cloud of words.  You can manipulate the content, colors, typefaces and layouts.  When you're happy with the result, save it to an online gallery, print to a pdf or grab it with a screenshot.  Here's a word cloud I generated for the contents of my blog:

In my business, which most of my readers share, our work product is often the written word.  This year, for example, I have already written at least one of each of these: blog, customer letter, customer-satisfaction survey, direct-response letter, Email, employee communication, e-newsletter, Facebook post, feature article, LinkedIn post, marketing communication plan, news release, OpEd, pitch to media, PowerPoint presentation, Q&A, Quora answer, research report, speech, Tweet, Web page and white paper.

 I recently devised a writing challenge as part of a client's process for hiring several high-level people, each of whom would have significant communication responsibilities.  The results were appalling.  They included typos, poor grammar and even complete unresponsiveness to the instructions for the challenge.

Sadly, I say with certainty, use of the English language will only get worse.  The next generations of communicators have developed their writing skills (such as they are) chiefly in social media, often with the imperfect input tools of mobile devices.  In social media, speed (an enemy of good writing) counts, shorthand is gr8 and punctuation doesn't exist. 

I shouldn't complain: the lack of competent writers in corporate America means long-term job security for me.  However, if you're one of those folks who clings to the idea that words have beauty and power, this issue of my Update  newsletter is for you.