Sorry about the recording quality of my Blackberry phone cam.<\/p>\n
I saw a video by Vick Strizheus today and the quality was stunning! I want a GoPro Hero3 camera \u2013 it\u2019s on my list.<\/p>\n
As I said in my video above, joining Empower Network lifts people up and really does empower us with ideas plus challenges us to grow and try new things \u2013 like filming a video message every day.<\/p>\n
![\"bits](\"\/suetamani\/files\/2013\/06\/bits-and-bobs.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBits and Bobs<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Yesterday I wrote three pretty good blog posts, even if I do say so myself. Check them out \u2013 they are the three posts before this one \u2013 natch!<\/p>\n
So I have been feeling a bit drained today. That\u2019s why I needed some stimulation this morning and just read a few documents and watched videos suggested by my incoming emails.<\/p>\n
I subscribe to some really interesting stuff that just arrives in my inbox. I used to use Google reader for this but just got out of the habit. I think maybe it was because I can read all day, given half a chance, and get no productive work done at all.<\/p>\n
As a teacher for many years, I enjoyed researching and preparing materials for my students. As the internet developed, I enjoyed it even more. So blogging daily now is getting more and more enjoyable for me.<\/p>\n
I got two comments from a LinkedIn group from people thanking me for my post 20 Top LinkedIn Tips for Network Marketers<\/a>, plus a \u2018like\u2019. I spent quite a few hours writing that post so felt very rewarded by the acknowledgement.<\/p>\n I have already made one SlideShare from that post, but I feel like making another but with less words and a complete picture for each slide. More bits and bobs coming.<\/p>\n Quite a stunning slideshare really!<\/p>\n My older sister was a librarian all her working life so I send all these to her. She loves bits and bobs like me.<\/p>\n The last slides in the series show the decline in actual physical libraries in the north of England. I was born in Grimsby in the north of England.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a bit double minded about the decline in actual libraries. Pretty much everything I want to read I can find online now, even if I have to buy it.<\/p>\n Our local library at Southport<\/a> has a brand new building with dozens of computers inside available for public use.<\/p>\n It\u2019s so popular, you have to book a time and it\u2019s limited to an hour.<\/p>\n But when I want to borrow a book, I just go online, search the catalogue, order it and I then get an email when it\u2019s available. I walk into the library building, get my book off the order shelf (in member surname order), scan it and leave, not even talking to anyone.<\/p>\n So I guess our local council here on the Gold Coast is keeping up to date with some of the rapid changes to GLAMS (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) in our world.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a really short talk, less than 5 minutes, uploaded to YouTube by BigThink. I get an email every time they upload. Just subscribe if you\u2019d like the same.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n I think the information below the video explains it brilliantly.<\/p>\n Published on\u00a0Jun 7, 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cGood prose is like a windowpane,\u201d wrote George Orwell when he was evaluating his own body of work in 1946. When he had lacked a strong motive, Orwell observed, he produced \u201clifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.\u201d<\/p>\n Three years later Orwell published the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which he explored the much more sinister problem in language we refer to as doublespeak. Totalitarian regimes don\u2019t use transparent language. The fictional Oceanian province, which is in a state of perpetual war, uses language as a weapon, distorting meaning in order to make the historical record conform to the Ingsoc party line.<\/p>\n Nineteen Eighty-Four was published 64 years ago today. But what would Orwell think of the types of government and corporate communications we see today?<\/p>\n The investor-relations specialist, Laura Rittenhouse, is a 21st century Orwell, who scours shareholder letters for \u201ccliches, weasel words, jargon, hyperbole, nonsensical statements, and overused words.\u201d These garner point deductions in her Rittenhouse Rankings, a survey that grades 100 big companies based on seemingly unquantifiable metrics relating to corporate culture and candor.<\/p>\n FOG is the acronym for Rittenhouse\u2019s methodology. It stands for \u201cfact-deficient, obfuscating generalities.\u201d Rittenhouse\u2019s analysis reveals that companies that use transparency in corporate communications (like Berkshire Hathaway) greatly outperform companies that use tortured language constructions and obfuscation (like Enron).<\/p>\n So words matter. A letter from a CEO can be a canary in the coal mine, as was the case with Enron. Alternatively, the legendary CEO Jack Welch\u2019s letters were not only clear, but fun to read and informative. Moreover, Rittenhouse tells Big Think, language obfuscation is deeply impacting our culture. Neuroscience is starting to scratch at the surface of how words shape how we think. And so there is not only a cultural and financial cost, but indeed a deep spiritual and cognitive cost, to language obfuscation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Hope you enjoy the mix of material I found for you today. Please let me know if you\u2019d like more.<\/p>\n Til Tomorrow<\/p>\nOK, here is another one of my bits and bobs for today.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s your third bits and bobs of brain food for today<\/h2>\n
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Do you feel like you have just read all the bits and bobs in my inbox?<\/h3>\n
![\"bits](\"\/suetamani\/files\/2013\/03\/My-Siggy.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"bits](\"\/suetamani\/files\/2013\/05\/EMPOWER_BANNER.png\")
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