The key thing about many of these items, and useful grammar and punctuation in general, is they’re not just fancy-schmancy rules. They are important rules that affect the meaning of what you say. I think most people would agree is an important component of communication–controlling the meaning of what you’re writing.

Some of them don’t affect meaning, but do make it easier and more pleasant for your readers. That means they’re more likely to read your email, spec, or marketing blurb, and thus get the information you’re trying to convey.

Here are the high points. She goes on to explain them (and beautifully, I might add) in the body of the article.

1. Use the word that is correct (the correct word, which helps your readers understand you, is always a good choice)
2. Wherever possible without sounding dorky, put only in front of the thing it applies to.
3. Keep your intransitive verbs off my body
4. Lay off using lie incorrectly
5. Dangling participles are as bad as you’ve heard.
6. Few and less and more (but is less more?)
7. Remember the comma.
8. Cut down on the parenthetical phrases
9. Forget you ever encountered ellipsis….unless you’re quoting a movie review…and leaving out the…bad parts…
10. Hyphenation is important.

(For what it’s worth, I disagree with her about the serial comma. I think it’s important to use it. There are times when it matters a great deal for sake of clarity, and in those times when it doesn’t matter, it does no harm. Good habits are good habits.)

Go read — and learn well! — the rest: Top Ten Useful Grammar and Punctuation Points I Learned as a Techwriter and in Life in General (and Three to Ignore)

Useful Grammar and Punctuation Points originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2010-07-10 (Saturday).

The Employee name tags might be great for associate trainers or other helpers you’ve got, and the Hello tags for your participants. Unless you’ve got an interesting sense of humor, of course.

Incidentally, the folks who run that site have lots of other free printable stuff for your business, too.

(Thanks, Lifehacker!)

Free Name Tags originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2010-01-16 (Saturday).

In this economy. Think about that. She not only got a new job easily, she created an environment in which they are, relatively speaking, throwing money at her.

As synchronicity would have it, Seth Godin wrote a short article today which explains how she’s doing it:

You will never be out of work if you can demonstrably offer one of the following:

• Sales
• Additive effort
• Initiation

She’s an absolute star at the latter two, and makes up for her current lack of sales skills with wit, charm, and physical attractiveness. Who knows what will happen when she decides to learn to sell.

Anyway, for an explanation of what those three terms mean in real-world terms, go read The three elements of full employment at Seth’s Blog. How you learn to apply them to yourself is up to you.

How to Keep a Job originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2009-10-9 (Friday).

Today I read an article by blogger Anil Polat at the foXnoMad blog, a blog about travel. Apparently, dealing with difficult airline ticket agents is an art form, and Mr. Polat has used Sun Tzu’s work to increse his own success:

Sun Tzu’s book, The Art of War, written more than 2,000 years ago is one of the world’s most famous books on strategy. While Tzu was writing for generals in the army, the fundamentals of his wisdom can help you overcome even the most stubborn airline representative.

I enjoyed the article tremendously, recognizing my approach with angry customers in it.

Read the full article, Use Sun Tzu’s The Art of War To Win Battles At The Ticket Counter, at the foXnoMad blog.

Here’s Lionel Giles’ translation of The Art of War at the Internet Classics Archive. (Free, but not prettily formatted.)

Here’s Thomas Cleary’s translation at amazon.com. (If you want to buy it, though, I encourage you to get it by way of the link in Mr. Polat’s article, so as to thank him for writing it.)

Negotiation and the Art of War originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2009-08-26 (Wednesday).

When they finally paid her what they owed her, she paid me back. Instead of blowing that big check, I paid off my massive debt.

It felt so amazingly good to be free of it that I haven’t had any long-term debt since. (Long-term debt is a contract for more than a year. I bought a new vehicle in 2002 and financed it for twelve months.) And I’ve been saving a large portion of my paycheck for years, too.

So the $4-a-gallon gasoline didn’t bother me. The current “credit crunch” can’t really touch me. I didn’t buy a poorly-built, overpriced McMansion with a subprime mortgage, either.

All around me, though, are people who make two to five times my annual salary and who don’t have a pot in which to urinate. And people who are absolutely flat broke who trade their food stamps for snacks and sodas and spend their government stipend on expensive skin care products and cell phone contracts.

The only thing I can think of that separates me from them is that I’ve been where they are, I’ve been where they aren’t, and I know which one works better. They’ve just been where they are.

In times like these, get-rich-quick schemes really do well… for the grifters who purvey them, that is. And I’ve been active in online NLP forums for ages, so I’ve seen hundreds of “How can I use NLP to get rich?” messages. I just recently responded to one about that so-called “Law of Attraction” nonsense, and since I didn’t get a response I’m guessing I wrote something the poster didn’t want to read. I wish they’d include a disclaimer that said “Only reinforce my delusions, please. No reality checks welcome.”

The funny thing is, even if it all worked, even if all this “huge income with little effort” stuff actually paid off, it wouldn’t help. If you make a million dollars a year and you spend a million dollars and fifty cents, you’re still broke. No matter how big your bucket or how cool and sweet the water with which you fill it, if there are big holes in it you’re going to be thirsty all the time.

So for a little while, let’s put aside our money-making strategies and work on some money-keeping strategies.

There’s a blog called No Credit Needed and I encourage you to read it all. The author started from debt-plus-no-savings and worked his way to financial stability, and he chronicled his journey. Excellent stuff. First-class exemplar of the skill. In a post today, he offers up the10 basic steps he followed to escape the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

There are good books, too, like The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley and The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. (FYI: those are Amazon.com links.)

Shop around at local or regional banks, too, for your banking services. They’re less likely to have been caught with their scruples down and are doing a bit better right now.

If we’re going to fix this economy, we have to do it the way we do everything else: go first.

Oh, by the way: stay safe at work. Being screwed by Worker’s Comp is no way to live!

Put More Water in the Soup originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-12-4 (Thursday).

How much time does it take you to find a virtual phone company, a web designer, or another business or service professional to help you with your small business?

No doubt you spend precious hours trying to find just the right person, which are hours that would much better be spent growing your business.

The Ultimate Small Business Owner’s Resource Guide lists over 100 businesses that can help you be more successful in running your web-based small business.

The result is that you will be saving tremendous amounts of both time & money!

You can order the print version from the link above, or download a PDF of the book for free, with many thanks to Lifehacker.com!

Small Business Owner’s Resources originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-09-24 (Wednesday).

• Pacing and Leading in a camera store
• Reframing in a coffee shop

There’s nothing more useful than a good story.

Lessons from the front line originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-09-21 (Sunday).

You open your inbox first thing in the morning and are cheerily greeted by 400 new emails, all demanding your time and attention. Janice needs the numbers, now Frank wants your opinion And your mom has sent you a picture of a kitten wearing a hat. Adorable. But, Mom? I’m busy over here. You had grand plans to work on that report, but now its lunchtime and you’ve been dealing with things your inbox has thrown at you all morning. Wasn’t email supposed to make us more productive?

No matter what Stever does, you can believe it’ll be first class. Go get his new audio program, You Are Not Your Inbox, now!

Overcoming E-mail Overload originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-08-5 (Tuesday).

“What does this remind me of?”

That’s the subliminal question that people ask themselves as soon as they walk into a room. If it reminds us of a high school cafeteria, we know how to act. If it’s a bunch of round tables set for a chicken dinner, we know how to act. And if there are row upon row of hotel-type chairs in straight lines, we know how to sit and act glazed.

He goes on to suggest the size and shape of your ideal room (which may be smaller and narrower than you think it is!) and how to make it work well.

Read the rest at Seth’s Blog: How to organize the room.

In Soviet Russia, ROOM works YOU originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-06-28 (Saturday).

Here are the top five reasons why “The customer is always right” is wrong.

1. It makes employees unhappy
2. It gives abrasive customers an unfair advantage
3. Some customers are bad for business
4. It results in worse customer service
5. Some customers are just plain wrong

I think my customers are always right about one thing: they have a problem that they want solved. That’s pretty much it.

Now, for those who fall into categories #2 and #3 above, I’d say that their problem is that they need someone to abuse. I’m smart enough to realize that I may not be the one to solve that particular problem, and I’m willing to concede that perhaps someone else can better serve that customer.

Though I am in full agreement with the above five ideas, I’d like to suggest a sixth: It’s simply too much to ask of our customers that they always be right.

My thought is this: our jobs are becoming more and more specialized, and we, the providers of service, are therefore expected to know a great deal about very few things. To place on every customer the expectation that he or she will know, even better than we do, what “good” means in the context of the service we’re providing is too heavy a burden for them.

My favorite example of this (I think I read it in a book by Tom Hopkins, but I’m not certain) is about a car salesman. He sold high-testosterone cars, something along the lines of Ferrari, the commission on the sale of one being a year’s salary for just plain folk. A traveling salesman came in and asked to be shown one of their top models. The salesman found out that the guy put about five years’ worth of miles on a car every year and sent the customer down the street to a Mercedes dealership instead. His rationale was that the Mercedes, having a diesel engine, was a much better choice for someone on the road that much.

There was no way that particular customer would have known that. Cars weren’t what he knew. If the salesman had chanted, “The customer is always right,” he would have created one very unhappy customer… and that customer would have been telling everyone who asked him about his car that he was really unhappy with it. If I’m recalling the story correctly, the customer instead had sent several friends and acquaintences to that salesman, more than making up for the “loss” of commission.

Of course, working in a hospital, I see a lot of customers who are “just plain wrong.” Consider, for example, the suicidal patient. If we would consider him to be right, we’d hand him a razor blade and a set of instructions. We don’t do that because, even though he’s our customer, he’s wrong. He doesn’t know what we know. That has to be OK.

I have a story of my own that had to do with a customer who was a great combination of numbers 2, 3, and 5. Nasty human being she was. I can’t mention any of the particulars, but I’ll say this: in the process of helping her with what was apparently a medical emergency, I left a bruise, and she had the audacity to file a formal complaint against me for it. She took it all the way to our CEO and demanded that I apologize to her. The CEO refused to either compel or allow me to apologize to her because she was wrong and he knew it. Now… would you care to ask me how I feel about working for him? Or do you already know?

So I think putting employees head of customers is a great idea as long as the employees are putting the customers first. We on the front lines have to know that our managers trust us to do the right thing.

I did say that I wasn’t going to make this blog into a customer service blog, but this one was too good to pass up. Thanks for indulging me.

The customer is always right, except when they’re not originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-05-31 (Saturday).

Macho, insensitive bosses share certain characteristics. Their behavior is arrogant, quick-tempered and controlling. Their motives are typically selfish and manipulative. They show little concern for others and few signs of understanding why others don’t trust them. Most of all, they are quite unaware of their failings and the impact they have on their subordinates. No only do they see no need to change, they often make their high-handed behavior a source of pride.

That’s why you can trust them to be some of your best teachers about productivity and success.

Read the rest of the article at Lifehack.org.

An interesting take on modeling originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-05-23 (Friday).

One of my favorite writers on this subject is the anonymous author of the Waiter Rant blog. In a very recent article, he writes from a customer perspective, and the person providing him excellent service was his chef:

Oh sure, I’ve dined in some expensive places during the past few weeks, but when you experience hunger sated by human kindness, well, that beats all the three star Michelin Chefs in the world combined.

It’s long been my position that a manager must treat his or her employees the way they want employees to treat their customers. I’ve seen it work too much and too well to believe otherwise. This little tale illustrates why it works.

Go read the full story about his Miracle Pizza.

Who’s YOUR customer? originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-03-27 (Thursday).

What do you do when you have big goals and you realize that your customer base sees you as a small-time operation? It’s time to realign your value proposition and how you offer your services to them.

Go read Does Your Value Proposition Say that You’re Small Time?

(I love the way she creates headlines. )

What you are versus what you say you are originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-03-14 (Friday).

I got a card in the mail yesterday. From the envelope, it looked like a greeting card or an invitation. As there were a couple of recent events for which a card would have made sense, I was curious. The return address was in Florida, nine hundred miles away from me. I have friends in Florida, so I actually looked forward to what I’d find when I opened it.

It was an ad from the Dodge dealer where I bought my vehicle a few years back. Bummer.

It started with “Unnamed Auto Dealer cordially invites you and your family to our Open House Reception.” Opening the card, I found it continued with, “Unnamed Auto Dealer’s Open House Reception is our way of thanking you for your patronage over the past several years.”

That was interesting, I thought. Have a little party for your former customers, get them to think good thoughts about you, and when they want to buy a new car they’ll want to come back.

But no.

They immediately went into a sales pitch. “This exclusive event offers you, our valued customer, special pricing on over 300 brand new vehicles. In addition…”

Then they got all breathless about a “free gift” and a chance to win a $1000 shopping spree, “just for stopping by!”

No little get-together. They were trying to con me into coming in and looking at their inventory, intending to get me to trade before I want to.

The “exclusive event” ran for three days, from 9 in the morning until 9 at night. I’m supposed to believe that they’re shutting down the dealership for three twelve-hour days and that nobody will be allowed in without the little “invitation”? Or that if I didn’t have the little card they sent me, I couldn’t buy a new car at the same “special price” I could get with the card?

And don’t get me started on the fine print on the back.

So here’s how to persuade me to not cross you off my list of approved businesses:

• Don’t lie to me. If it’s an ad, don’t call it an “invitation” and make it look like there’s a party going on.
• Don’t lie to me. If it’s a reception, don’t try to sell me something. If you want to try to sell me something, don’t claim it’s a “reception”. Unnamed Auto Dealer could have created a lot of customer good will with a few hundred dollars’ worth of hors douvres and three or four hours after closing time on Saturday night, but they blew it.
• Don’t lie to me. If the card is from someone fifteen minutes from my house, the return address shouldn’t be for a place sixteen hours from my house. Could it have cost extra to have the dealership’s address printed on the envelope flap? If so, it would have been worth it.
• Don’t lie to me. If it’s an exclusive event, it should exclude someone. If everybody can get in, don’t call it “exclusive”.
• Don’t lie to me. Parties to which we send out written invitations don’t last three days. Parties that last three days don’t shut down at nine in the evening. It’s not a party; it’s you wanting to move some inventory.

Don’t lie to me. Level with me. I’ll respect you for it. And I tend to do business with people I respect.

Don’t lie to me originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-02-20 (Wednesday).

Let’s think of these points as applying to the practice of NLP, though, and see where it takes us:

• Write simple parts connected by clean interfaces. (Rule of Modularity)
• Clarity is better than cleverness. (Rule of Clarity)
• Fold knowledge into data so program logic can be stupid and robust. (Rule of Representation)
• When you must fail, fail noisily and as soon as possible. (Rule of Repair)
• Programmer time is expensive; conserve it in preference to machine time. (Rule of Economy)
• Prototype before polishing. Get it working before you optimize it. (Rule of Optimization)
• Design for the future, because it will be here sooner than you think. (Rule of Extensibility)

What do you think?

Go read the full article: Applying Unix Philosophy to Personal Productivity

How Unix geeks get things done originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-02-16 (Saturday).