Reading that, I realized that the “Google is free” argument used to work for me, but it no longer does. Google apps are not free at all. You’re paying in the currency of giving them complete access to everything you work on, so they can analyze it and target ads. If someone were to make that explicit and ask me, “How much would you charge to give someone the right to scour every email you send and receive and every document you compose so they can build a profile on you for targetting ads?” I would name a figure far, far, FAR in excess of what I’ve paid for desktop software in my lifetime. In terms of my own value system, I’m only now realizing that Google Apps may be the most expensive software I’ve ever used.

What do you think? What would you charge to give someone the right to analyze all your email and documents to build a profile of you? What would you expect in return?

A friend and I decided to schedule a meeting recently. He has three phone numbers, four IM accounts, three email addresses, a Skype account, a Facebook, and a Google Plus account. It took an entire conversation using two forms of email to decide which medium to use for our real conversation next week. Too much choice is making it harder and harder to reach each other. This is not progress.

If you want to spend your time forging relationships and getting work done with other people, choose a single email address, a single phone number, and a single IM account, and give those out as your contact information. Of those ways of contact, decide which one you prefer and let people know. You can even put it on your business card: “Email preferred” or “Please text me” or “Voice is best.” That way, when people need to reach you, they know exactly where and how to do it. It also means you know where to go to process your inbox, rather than having to check a dozen different places.

I didn’t do this randomly, however!

Before beginning, I set out the objective criteria I would use: if I haven’t read an email from that list in over a year, I would unsubscribe. Period. I subscribe to many friends’ email lists. When considered one-by-one, I would never unsubscribe because it would feel like somehow weakening the bond between me and my friend. But make no mistake: there is no bond between me and my friend if I’m never reading their email. (And besides, if their email is mainly business, and we’re personal friends, a marketing email doesn’t keep me feeling a personal connection.) Using objective, pre-determined criteria let me make the decision quickly and cleanly.

And by the way–I kept the list of names of people whose unsubscribes felt personal. I’m going to call them, instead. On the phone. And establish a real connection, not the electronic fantasy of one.

I recently posted a Facebook update: For those that missed it, here’s my popular ‘Modern Vacation’ video spot (don’t worry – just 36 seconds!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt0Bs0frEnM

Once I’d posted it, I re-read it and realized it used language poorly. The evocative words in the post are:

• popular
• worry
• just 36 seconds

As people read each word, they access the meaning of that word and any associated feelings unconsciously. What then comes to mind is a gestalt of those meanings and feelings. How’d I do?

• popular – evokes ideas of something desirable
• worry – evokes the sense that something’s wrong
• just 36 seconds – implies that it’s fortunate that there’s not much of it

Once through the reflection process, it makes sense to ask what feelings I’d like to leave the reader with. Excitement, curiousity, and a desire to see the video would be a better frame of mind for the reader. Here’s my rewrite:

For those that missed it, here’s my popular ‘Modern Vacation’ video spot (the best 36 seconds you’ll have all day): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt0Bs0frEnM

Try reading both versions back-to-back and notice which images and feelings each one leaves you with. It’s subtle, but it has an impact. When you’re writing a longer piece of writing (like a podcast episode or an article), what you write will move people through a series of images and feelings. Think carefully about the sequence! The emotions you evoke may be positive (desire) or negative (fear), but if it’s negative, you probably want to lead somewhere else, like hope or resolution. The feelings people have when reading your material get connected to their concept of you. That’s called branding.

Go forth. Write with emotion. And make sure the emotions leave people in a good place. Giving people nice emotions is good for them, and you’ll find it’s good for you, as well.

I visited. It turned out to be a long-form sales letter. You know the type: they mix testimonials with sincere-sounding stories and revelations of how the writer was poor, destitute, and reduced to eating their own belt in an attempt to find protein as they lived out of their car. Then suddenly they discovered the secret to everything and now you can have a little bit of their juicy goodness by attending their wonderful seminar for just $X hundred dollars. (Even though they’ve enjoyed a seven figure income for years, they are charging you for the information for your own good, of course.)

Halfway through reading her site, I began to feel the urge to attend the seminar. I realized that I’ve never made seven figures a year. Looking at all the pictures of the people who have attended and now blow their nose into genuine, gold leaf toilet paper made my knees quiver with a mixture of jealousy and painful feelings of inadequacy.

Then I noticed what I was feeling. I noticed the longing to attend her seminar. I noticed the inappropriately intense emotional reaction I was having. I closed the page, added her phone number to my voicemail spam box, and am adding her email newsletter to my spam filter list as well.

Psychologically manipulative long-form sales letters work really well. I highly recommend developing a knee-jerk reaction to them: delete them and consider the seller totally and completely discredited in your mind. If someone has something of value to offer, refuse to listen until they show you in a non-manipulative way. Ask for a sample. Ask for statistics. “How many of your students are now enjoying a 7-figure income? How long did it take them?” Ask for references. “Please give me their phone#s so I may call and verify.”

Anyone who claims to be a multi-gazillionaire who is generously helping you out if you pay them just a few hundred dollars is a scam artist. If you’re rich and want to give back, give. Don’t sell, give. You don’t have to do it as formal philanthropy, just offer your stuff for free. Coach Marshall Goldsmith, one of the most successful and highly paid coaches in the world, gives away everything he does for free at http://www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com. As he once told me, “I have more money than I could ever spend, why should I charge people when what I care about is helping them?”

If you’re using long-form sales letters in your own business, try seeing if you can resort to selling your product on its own merits. If the answer is “No,” improve your product until you can.

It’s important to note, however, that if I send a long form sales letter, you must buy my products, make me a billionaire, pay for mansions for me, lots of  Rolls Royces, and scantily clad models on both arms. I may be outraged, but I’m not stupid…

Shelle Rose Charvet points out that most people already know the method. Now, when they hear positive feedback, they simply bypass it and wait fo the shoe to drop (then they ignore the final piece of positive feedback, which is obviously just there to soften the negative feedback). She advocates giving feedback in a way that avoids direct negative statements yet still accomplishes the goal, to stimulate behavior change. You can read Shelle Rose Charvet’s “The Feedback Sandwich is Out to Lunch.”

What do you think? If I were to include a “giving feedback” method in the Get-it-Done Guy book, which do you think would be best to include?

The article gave me pause. Upon reflection, I believe he’s right. Ten years ago, usability expert Jakob Neilson was doing studies that showed people skim online, they don’t read in depth. And it’s pretty clear from anyone who’s spent five minutes in a browser that we jump from topic to topic pretty quickly.

I know that my own writing has changed. I used to love writing longhand in a lined pad, and now can barely form a sentence without having a text editor where I can cut and paste. And as for reading? My tolerance for reading long non-fiction books went away years ago. I inch my way through them now. So do I absorb complicated new information that requires Thought and Contemplation? Er, not nearly as much. Maybe it’s simply that I’m older and busier, but it’s true that the Net has habituated me to sound-bite style reading.

That’s one big worry for my upcoming Get-it-Done Guy book, in fact. Part of the reason it is organized as many, many small micro-chapters is that I don’t believe anyone’s going to read a 200-page book straight through. And if I want to give readers value, it has to come in a form they can use.

How about you?

If so, do you have specific examples, questions, stories, etc. that you’d like me to elaborate on? This could be done as a pretty brief topic, or as a pretty big one…

I was thinking: what would you do if you were going to spend $1 bn on a Presidential campaign?

Rather than spend it on vapid attack ads, I might spend it revitalizing a community, or doing something to make a concrete difference in the lives of many people, and then saying, “That’s the kind of thing I want to see happen as President.”

Would it work? I don’t know. But I’d rather see the money directly creating good than going to yet another round of media buys so we can all be inundated with the meaningless drivel that is campaign advertising.