Steve Neiderhauser

Who else wants to write like Hemingway

Copyblogger provides 5 tips for writing well. You may want to pay special attention to these, because they come straight from Ernest Hemingway. The tip -- Be positive, not negative -- shows how important it is to overcome the influence of negative thinking that surrounds us. In fact, it's more effective to direct the inner image making device that resides in each person's mind to picture what something is.

Here's an example from the Copyblogger post:

By stating what something isn’t can be counterproductive since it is still directing the mind, albeit in the opposite way. If I told you that dental work is painless for example, you'll still focus on the word "pain" in "painless."

• And instead of saying "this software is error-free" or "foolproof," say "this software is consistent" or "stable."

The world is flat, oil is round

Seems the rising price of oil has pushed the costs of shipping a container from Shanghai to New York from $3K to $8K. This ABC news story details the fallout -- Companies are moving furniture manufacturing jobs from China to North Carolina. Nice to see the world-class furniture makers in High Point generating new jobs.

Marketing via Quality

About a month ago, I listened to a podcast -- featuring Seth Godin -- that was produced by Elizabeth Marshall of Author Teleseminars. At one point in the podcast, Seth made the following point -- Six Sigma, the continued improvement in the quality of your products (the lack of product defects) is a form of marketing.

Because most of Seth's books (Purple Cow, for example) had focused on the marketing power of remarkable product design, his comment about quality made me think. Quality control is a part of project management, so in many ways project managers who can deliver quality products on time, increase the chance that customers will do more business with you.

If you work in a business where you engage a customer and deliver a software project, you can impress your customers by meeting all milestones and delivering the project on time. This may sound simple, but few software projects are delivered on time. By delivering quality software on time, you'll be marketing your product in a way that marketing can never accomplish.

Design your story by designing your ending

I don’t see how anybody starts a movie without knowing how its going to end.

-- John Barth

When I finished the first draft of a short story, I asked for feedback from two screenwriting pros. They both said the same thing -- You’re jumping around in the story. Your protagonist is all over the place. There’s no story throughline.

"What’s a throughline?" I thought. Ya mean I can’t be innovative, use a top-down design and dream up whatever I want? Come on. I’m a creative factory. And yet, what I learned is that when you design the ending of your story first, you become more creative and are able to foreshadow events and put twists into your story that keep the audience guessing what will happen next. Just think about it, if you don’t know the ending, how can you foreshadow events that you don’t know will come. Consider Robert Towne's script for Chinatown:

GARDENER (to Gittes)

Bad for glass.

GITTES (not understanding)

Yeah sure. Bad for the glass.

In this example, the screenwriter foreshadows with dialogue. Of course, he only used this dialogue because he knew the ending and knew the killer wore glasses.

Rachel Ballon does a great job of teaching the create-the-ending-first concept in her book, Blueprint for Screenwriting. She uses a travel analogy to depict the importance of the story ending. If you don’t know your final destination, how do you know which flight to get on. She answers the question -- How do you create the story framework and throughline?

"You do this by knowing how your screenplay ends and then working backwards to find the opening for it."

She also talks about the step outline and how it can be used to help define the blueprint for your story. Creating the story ending first and using a step outline is a great approach to building your story.

How can we use these story concepts in business? I’ve thought of two areas.

Customer Experience Design -- Determine what you want the final experience to be for your customer. When you know the ending, design positive surprises that delight your customers.

Presentations -- Create the ending for your presentation first, then work backwards to the opening. This approach will allow you to use visuals to foreshadow the ending. People love making connections, even if their subconscious makes the connection. Your customers will remember you, and look forward to your next story in a presentation.

Perhaps you can think of other ways to use story in your business.