While the topics I write about vary in subject and opinion, my underlying reason for writing hasn’t changed. I’m passionate about words and ideas. And writing is one of the easier ways to share those words and ideas. Writing isn’t simply something I do but rather something I am.

When I started this blog it seemed another avenue for sharing, another way to express myself. But somewhere along the way, I started writing for an audience, second-guessing my words and ideas, debating whether someone else would find them of interest.

These thoughts have kept me from writing much on this blog for the last few months. I could take the easy route and blame it on my increased workload and the demands of everyday life, but that isn’t the truth. Instead I kept silent, waiting for the moment when the words would start to flow again. Now comes the time to face the hard facts.

I’m selfish when it comes to my words. The more I shaped my words around a potential audience, the less the words meant to me. The more I looked for “relevant” topics to interest my audience, the more I felt I was following in the footsteps of others instead of exploring new territory. The more my site visits went up, the less attention I paid to the words that wanted to escape.

I started this blog under the premise of examining the bold words of others, and while I may continue to do so, I think it’s time I generated a few of my own. I think it’s time that my writing reflected who I am instead of who I think potential readers want me to be. I’m not dismissing the content I’ve generated to date. Instead, I believe I can do better.

For my writing to regain its meaning, I’ve decided that the usual measurements will no longer suffice. I no longer care if I write something I want to post every day, but I will write every day. My writing may be long, it may be short. Ultimately, it will be just right. You may hate it, you may love it, but that can no longer be a driving factor behind why I write. I write because I love it and that is enough.

On my run the other morning, I realized that the greatest product ever designed didn’t happen in a lab or come as a result of opinion polls. Consider some of the characteristics of this amazing product: instant recognition, multiple models, multiple locations, and predictable interactions. Another aspect of a good product is the ease of marketing said product. This particular product doesn’t require a large ad campaign and often relies on word of mouth to differentiate between the various models.

Drum roll please…I speak of none other than the human body. (Imaginary air going out of imaginary balloon). How, you may ask, does the human body count as a product? Let’s put it into context. The purpose of a product is to be attractive so someone takes it home with them or at least is willing to engage for a few hours with it. Few things are more attractive to us than other people. And with the variety of models available, few things are more customized or personal. However, there’s a certain level of predictability, and thus comfort to the human form.

For instance, most everyone has the same parts: heads, arms, legs, etc. While these parts vary in specifics from person to person, they are easily recognizable. The same goes for the differences between the sexes.

I came to my conclusion about the human body on my run as I noticed how, without fail, every single car that went by with a male in it couldn’t help but look, or even stare, as our paths intersected. Sometimes these individuals made eye contact. Now, in the cars where only women were present, I got nothing. No look, head turn, or even acknowledgement of my existence, a somewhat scary prospect when sharing the road.

I’m neither a model nor a troll, so I know there’s nothing particularly eye-catching about me. But it’s like guys couldn’t help themselves. By my very existence as a female, I registered on their radar. The same thing happens if I’m driving somewhere, too. My eyes are pulled to the males, frequently ignoring the females.

What company wouldn’t sell its soul to generate a consistent response to its product like human beings do to each other? I think that’s why I’m so impatient with people who only focus on the marketing aspect and pay little attention to the quality of the product itself. I’ve written before about quality and my frustration over its lack in our modern world. I think the human body makes the perfect case for what can be accomplished if proper thought and investment is put into the outcome.

Too much of what clutters our landscape is crap, created with the sole purpose of generating as much money as possible, as soon as possible, before people discover that’s it’s really just crap. Will we ever say, “Enough?”

I bought a new (used) car this week and was struck by how complicated this process remains. I’m not a shopper by nature, so the car-buying process can feel excruciating. I don’t negotiate for the book I buy at Target. Why does the expectation still exist that I should do so for a car? The same issue exists for home buying. While I can understand the subjectivity of home prices (i.e., few homes are exactly the same), I fail to understand why prices vary so greatly between dealers, particularly since one can easily compare similar vehicles between lots.

This issue leads me to the car salesmen. And yes, it’s still salesmen for the most part because in my 15+ years of driving, I’ve only worked with one saleswoman on a car purchase. Such individuals sadly fit the stereotype of their profession more frequently than one would like to believe. Characteristics can include aggressiveness (working on commission), condescension (what does a woman know about cars), and over-the-top friendliness (stay out of my personal space, please).

Car Language

Such qualities are not limited to this group alone, but it does make for interesting language. For example, while patiently waiting for my paperwork (why does it take so long?), I noticed a sales call script pinned to the wall. In this instance, the script assumed the caller was inquiring about a specific vehicle and encouraged the salesman to insinuate that the vehicle may no longer be available but that he would check on it. Since it might take some time, give me your name and number and I’ll get back to you. In today’s information society do you really expect me to believe that it takes more than a couple of minutes to access a dealer’s inventory and see if the vehicle is still available?

The script continued on in a similar vein for the follow-up call, but it totally matched my experience except mine happened online. The dealer I worked with has an online site and is set up to let one request an internet quote. I did so, specifically asking for the price of the vehicle and the vehicle’s history (e.g., trade-in, auction, etc.). Here was the response I got back:

My name is X, I am the Internet Sales Manager for Y. Thank you for the recent inquire. We are committed to making your purchase an easy and enjoyable experience. Here’s how it works.

* We will find the right vehicle for you.
* Provide you with great value and all the information you need to make an informed decision.
* Schedule a convenient time for you to come in, test drive and take delivery of your new vehicle.

In order for this to happen I need the opportunity to talk to you. I can be reached at (xxx) xxx-xxxx or by responding to this email. Or just come in and visit me in . I would love to get you all the information that you need to help you find exactly what you want.

Thanks,

Internet Sales Manager

As you can see, this email didn’t answer any of my questions. I sent another email, again requesting the details I had asked for earlier. I received a response, with the actual information, the morning after I’d already purchased the vehicle.

So why did I continue to work with this dealer? They had the car I wanted. The closest similar car was over 200 miles away. So I compromised. I did things the old-fashioned way and went into the dealership and met with the antithesis of most car salesman—polite, relatively non-pushy and clearly more interested in working than the other salesman sitting around the office telling jokes.

Change the Experience

All told, this experience took a significant portion of my day and left me wondering how this process hasn’t streamlined itself over the years. We’ve made it easier to buy just about everything. From online stores like Amazon to self-checkout stands at the grocery store, we’ve found ways to may the buying experience more simple. And yet, things like buying a car, and the language surrounding it, remain unclear and complicated.

Perhaps I’m one of those people who doesn’t like the art of negotiation, so I fail to get any pleasure out of the process. Usually, my negotiating goes like this: I research the vehicle, determine a fair market price, then counter with that number if the dealer offer is higher. If he doesn’t match, I walk away. For you negotiating experts who are shaking your heads in dismay, ask yourself how much money you’re losing (I’m self-employed) by spending hours bargaining. Do you always save more than you lost in time spent?

Alternative Buying

I’d posit that car dealers as individuals are missing an opportunity to set the standard in their industry. Saturn does it to an extent with it’s no-haggle approach (you pay what’s on the sticker), and I know of other non-Saturn dealers who do the same. As a whole, however, the bulk of the industry remains focused on posting a price that few customers ever pay and then engaging in the back and forth with the customer.

I may be in the minority, but if you combined consistent customer service with straight-forward pricing, I’d go back to the same dealer again and again. In such environments, language becomes easier, more clear. One doesn’t need call scripts or crappy sales tactics to “lure” in customers. The experience speaks for itself. And let’s be honest, how many of you really enjoyed your last car buying experience?

How well do the things in your life fit your needs? For example, I know that a man designed my shower because it lacks a much-needed ledge or bench for shaving my legs. Instead, I’m forced to wedge my foot into a corner at an angle I won’t be able to achieve in a few years and pray that my foot doesn’t slip at an inopportune time, say as my razor is negotiating the tricky knee area.

In fact, I’m hard pressed to think of any situation that isn’t worthy of needful design. OXO has made it’s name synonymous with this concept, although they refer to is as universal design, by improving everyday items like potato peelers and salad spinners:

At OXO, living by Universal Design principles gives us an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. The goal of making products more usable forces us to first identify problems and inefficiencies of existing products (including our own), not only in terms of comfort, but performance as well. This gives us the foundation to meet our commitment of making only products that offer tangible improvements.

Tangible improvements…what would the world be like if other companies committed to the same standard? How often are our lives complicated by things that aren’t necessarily an improvement over the previous version? Our society has slowly but surely adopted the attitude that new is automatically associated with better when such is rarely the case.

Beyond the things in our lives, I also wonder how much thought we give to generating ideas that offer an improvement over the previous. Politicians are famous for touting their new ideas/plans that will make citizens’ lives better. Again, such a reality is rare. How “new” are any of the so-called solutions offered by today’s politicians versus the ones presented a generation ago?

Today, as we embrace social media and the opportunities it presents, are we making the effort to produce something that’s better than before, that offers “tangible improvements?” Or, are we so caught up in the ease of use that we’re confusing quantity with quality? I’m not exempt from this question. It’s one of the reasons my posting has been very light the last couple of months as I’ve debated my goals for this blog. So the next time you have a chance to express yourself, take a minute or two or even three and see how it contributes to the needful design of ideas.

Last October, The Economist published a piece titled “The Battle for Brainpower.” Based on my experiences, tales of friends, and even what I read in major publications, business is scrambling for capable, talented people. I’ve seen firsthand how HR and department heads have rushed to fill a position, settling for any warm body out of fear someone else won’t come along

“[An] international poll of senior human-resources managers, three-quarters of them said that “attracting and retaining” talent was their number one priority. The article highlighted the words of Winston Churchill from an address he gave at Harvard in 1943:

…the empires of the future will be empires of the mind.

It takes brains to make our technology based lives work, so why do we still pick on the geek, the egghead, the dork? I for one am tired of the grief I get if I show my brain cells do more than sit around taking it easy. I’ve watched with dismay as my fellow citizens have shown preference for political candidates that don’t show their intellect but make good beer-drinking buddies. I may not personally care for Barack Obama, but are people really willing to say they won’t vote for the man because he’s “too smart?”

Elite is often substituted for smart, somehow implying that by wanting more or acting differently than the majority, you can no longer mingle with the group. The business world can work this way, too. How many people do you know that are in their positions because they played toadie to the right individual, not necessarily because they can do the job? It isn’t enough for people to be smart and talented. I’ve seen firsthand how people have to play the game if they want to get ahead. I know some will say, “That’s just the way it is,” but I say why is that the way?

Why are we threatened by people being smarter or more talented than ourselves? I’m not innocent of this trait. Depending on the person I sometimes struggle being fair to an individual who is clearly smarter than myself. What I’ve found, however, is that I usually learn so much by being open to these individuals and swallowing some pride. I don’t know everything. Do you?

Our world demands that we produce people with the brainpower to keep things running. When will we stop punishing people for having brains and wanting to use those brains?

Recently, two of the presidential candidates, Clinton and McCain, floated the idea of a Federal gas tax holiday. Despite the warnings of some economists that such a move “would be ineffective or even harmful,” Clinton has said:

…she wasn’t taking stock of their opinions and emphasized that this was a short-term fix that would primarily benefit long-distance drivers.

“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists,” Clinton told George Stephanopolous on ABC’s ‘This Week’ after he asked her to name a single economist supporting her plan. “If we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively.” (link)

While I’m not a proponent of swallowing economists’ predictions whole and without thought, the idea that a potential candidate for the presidency would discount any such advice is baffling. Recognizing the limits of one’s knowledge is a sign of wisdom and appears to be one missing from this particular candidate. Money and finances in general seem to be a blind spot for many, regardless of their political aspirations.

Part of this blind spot could be attributed to overconfidence in one’s ability. We pull meaning from random data, looking for patterns that support the decisions we want to make. In the gas tax example, Clinton does this very thing by stating that “the tools of the presidency” will be enough to counter the predictions of multiple economists. If the tools of the presidency are enough to make such an impact, why hasn’t something been done before now to correct all the problems of the nation?

Politics aside, this same principle applies in multiple areas. If everyone was a better-than-average driver, there’d be fewer car accidents. If everyone was a skilled predictor of the markets, there’d be more millionaires. This post is not meant to be pessimistic in the sense of saying that one can’t accomplish something in spite of detractors. Instead, I would challenge those individuals seeking the different path or pushing back against the status quo to embrace the detractors and find ways to disprove rather than ignore. Ignorance, despite its proponents, isn’t always bliss.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how people shouldn’t be afraid to say no. Now I’m wondering why people can’t just say yes. Example: Teenagers have gone nuts with the dating ritual. The other night while working, I heard a ruckus in front of my home. A peak out the window revealed three teenagers piling wheels on my front lawn. Perplexed, I wondered what was happening until I saw the sign: “Yes, I ‘wheel’ go to the dance with you.” Once informed that the person they were looking for didn’t live here anymore, they packed up their wheels, moving on to the right house, I assume.

The word yes is powerful all on its own. Why do we insist on wrapping it in a bunch of nonsense? Politicians are particularly skilled at avoiding a standalone “yes.”

Beyond the power of the word, “yes,” there’s also the potential of what can happen when one embraces the word. I was reminded of this when Chris Brogan pointed me to The Moth Podcast and the performance by Elna Baker, “Yes Means Yes?” (you can subscribe on iTunes). She explores what happens in her life when she starts saying, “yes,” and her experiences prove that life takes interesting turns when one looks for opportunities to say the magic word.

How much thought do we give to what we’re saying yes or no to? How much of our lives have we put on auto-pilot? Even more thought-provoking, why do we focus so much attention on areas that carry relatively little weight in the big scheme of things? Like the dating scenario I described earlier, when did asking for and agreeing to a something become so complicated? Why can’t we just say yes (or no)?

Recent research indicates that more than company profits fuel the stock market.

In a new study [John Coates] reports that traders who start the workday with high testosterone levels make more money on that day than their low-testosterone colleagues do. A hot day on the market sends their levels of the natural steroid up even more, Coates says; under the influence of their own hormones, they start to take bigger risks in hopes of bigger rewards.

Classical economic theory assumes that people make financial decisions in a rational way. But Coates’s finding is part of a growing body of work explaining why, in reality, they often don’t: they’re at the mercy of their biology. This school of thought helps illustrate how economic trends can get out of control, ballooning until they burst. It also suggests one reason why central banking is so tricky: policymakers don’t often take hormones into account. “[Former Federal Reserve chairman] Alan Greenspan spent his whole career trying to control economic bubbles,” says Coates. “I don’t think he realized he was up against steroids.”

…Anecdotally, Coates says that during his Wall Street days he thought that “women traders didn’t seem to be as affected” by irrational exuberance. A 2001 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics backs up that observation. “In areas such as finance,” it found, “men are more overconfident than women.” As a result, male stock traders tend to do more buying and selling than female traders do. Each trade costs money, and over the long term that money adds up. In the final calculus, according to the 2001 paper, it’s men, not women, who underperform. (link)

This study highlights one of the overlooked aspects in the gender debate: men and women DO respond to things differently and acknowledging these differences does not make one a gender basher. I know there are individuals who are resistant to this part of the gender equality debate because they feel it undermines their position.

The idea that recognizing the validity of an opponent’s position is a bad thing has hindered so many issues. Employees vs. companies, Israelis vs. Palestinians, citizens vs. governments, rich vs. poor. When we’re in a fight, why are we so unwilling to see the other’s side? Doing so doesn’t require that we agree 100% with our opponent. If anything, knowing and acknowledging the other side’s position puts one in a position of strength. Isn’t knowledge power? When did we decide that this wasn’t the case?

If, as Elie Wiesel says, “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference,” I wonder why some people inspire equal parts adoration and loathing. The current presidential race, for example, highlights the almost 20-year love/hate affair the American public has with the Clintons. Individuals seem to either love Hillary or despise everything she represents.

Ayn Rand

Hillary is hardly the first person to inspire such strong feelings. History is littered with individuals who generate powerful emotions, both positive and negative. Without realizing it, I stumbled onto one of the more divisive figures when I was 11. An aunt, only six years older than I, was a fan of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. Wanting to follow in her footsteps, I located a forgotten copy of Rand’s Anthem in my middle school library. At my age, the philosophy portion went right over my head, but it didn’t stop me from moving on to The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

I know there are critics who have no liking for Rand’s writing, and I’ll admit to skipping over some of the individual soliloquies. However, on the whole, I enjoyed the stories for themselves, philosophy aside. I loved The Fountainhead because the main character, Howard Ruark, was an architect, a career I planned to pursue until the realities of calculus and physics intruded. In Atlas Shrugged, I found myself wishing I was the strong female lead, Dagny Taggert. I quietly enjoyed rereading these books throughout high school, even if I didn’t totally understand them. My classmates had no idea what I was reading, and the only comment the books seemed to generate was related to their size. Then, I got to college.

Why Hate?

In my philosophy 101 course, I asked about Rand’s role in modern philosophy. My professor made no effort to conceal his loathing of Rand and also made it clear he thought less of me for asking the question. His reaction made me curious and eventually led to a research paper I did on Rand’s life in a writing course. While I don’t subscribe to or agree with all aspects of Rand’s philosophy, I’m still baffled by the anger often directed at Rand, which takes me back to Mr. Wiesel.

For instance, the loudest critics still generate attention for the individuals or causes they dislike the most. What would our world be like if we showed indifference to the people and the things we didn’t love? How would it change the marketing appeals made to consumers? What about parents and teenagers? How much of the behavior is driven by the idea that the kids know the parents hate it? Indifference carries a power of its own, one that we often overlook in our search for solutions.

Flexible Indifference

Indifference leaves us with the time and energy to put into the things that actually counter the people and the causes we don’t agree with. Subscribing to indifference also leaves you room to change your mind, to refine your opinion. While love can be equally blinding, hate carries its own peculiar baggage. From my experience, it’s incredibly difficult to back away from hating something, less so to fall out of love. If the world only appears black and white, love and hate make sense, but the shades of gray that invade my daily life have made it clear that I need the option of indifference.

(Image by NickStarr. Some rights reserved.)

Many of the most popular causes in the world have a word problem. In particular, I wonder if proponents of global climate change would face less resistance if the words global warming had never been associated with their cause. This post isn’t about the validity of the cause but rather what’s happening because of the words associated with it.

For instance, it’s April 13 and there’s still several inches of snow on the ground where I live. Spring has been colder than previous years by several degrees, delaying planting in my farming community and increasing comments about how the global warming people must have got it wrong. For the world as a whole, the words global warming fail to entirely explain what’s happening, making it easy for opponents to push back.

Ultimately, it becomes a question of accuracy and the ability for words to remain flexible. Perhaps these two goals seem contradictory, but I believe that the most accurate words leave room for day-to-day realities and allow causes to gain authority. What would happen if the words global warming were no longer relied on to describe climate events around the world? What if proponents only used global climate change? Isn’t easier to defend such a position versus the too narrow definition of global warming?

One can argue that if the words are too broad their impact is lessened. Again, it comes back to a question of accuracy. It also becomes an issue of whether one is willing to take the necessary time to find the best words. How many causes, products, service, etc., do you know would benefit from using different words?