The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

I have realized (thanks to blogging about what I read) that I rarely read anything topical (something of a no-no for bloggers). Topical information I get from the radio and tv, not from my readings. Readings are things I prefer to use for getting a "long view", which is what this article in The Journal was all about.

Mr. Zaslow writes about the joy of libraries, something I find so true that our home has three libraries in it and one room devoted to books. Specifically, he compares the 'net to libraries in what I believe is a most eloquent way;
"It's true that older internet-phobes are missing out on an incredible tool. But many tech-savvy kids never experience the library as a place for serendipitous discovery. 'The library is about delayed gratification,' says Dr. Levine. 'It's about browsing through shelves of biographies. 'Do I want Jackie Robinson? Franklin Roosevelt? What will I do when I grow up?' The library slows you down and makes you think."

Wow. Too true. Tomorrow morning's post begins a three part arc from one of my correspondents, Sweetness, on resumes in the internet age. Mr. Zaslow's words fit in so well with the theme that emerges from Sweetness' thoughts; few people are willing to delay gratification, to discover for the sake of discovery any more.

Of course, I speak of myself here. Much of my research is taken on purely for the joy of discovery. When I began my research back in 1991, there was no application for it and I've had to wait (as FindMeFaster's CEO Matt Van Wagner noted during a conversation) quite a while for there to be an application for what NextStage does.

I remember, long, long ago, sitting in front of my family's tv watching "What's My Line?" This was the early 1960's and nobody, not Kitty Carlisle, Bennett Cerf, nobody could figure out what one contestant did for a living. Turns out he was a physicist and he was one of the folks who discovered lasing (as in "lasers"). He explained what it was about (Bennett and Kitty and the others nodded in patient not-understanding) then took out a true 1960's concept of a laser gun. He had two balloons, a clear one and inside that a black one. He fired the laser and it heated the black one, causing it to explode without damaging the clear one.

Neat trick.

And that's what it was at the time. As a kid, I was amazed, thrilled, enthralled, and left wondering who would want to go around blowing up dark skinned balloons inside clear ones.

Now think of our world of the past twenty years without lasers. No DVDs, no CDs, construction levels, surveying equipment, range finders, lasik surgery, plastic surgery, tattoo removal, ....

People ask me if I think NextStage's Evolution Technology^TM will ever catch on.

Yeah.

Oh yeah...

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

I'll be speaking at the San Francisco April '07 Emetrics Summit on Quantifying and Optimizing the Human Side of Online Marketing on May 7, 2007. Come on by and say hello.