5 Minute Reflection #14.08: Change a life in 5 minutes or less

Has a friend or family member ever passed away or left your life permanently in some other way before you had the opportunity or the courage to say something important - something that you now wish you would have said? It happens to all of us. 

I'm not talking about things you think you should have said to make yourself feel better, to vent some anger, or for other negative or self-serving purpose. I'm talking about the short, affirming conversations that can positively change another person's perspective, maybe even alter the trajectory of their life. 

I will be forever grateful for a friend who in about fifteen words and less than ten seconds changed the way I think about my voice, my right to speak up and my self-confidence.

Is there anything like that remaining unsaid between you and a friend, a family member, or anybody else who values your opinion? Think about it. There's probably somebody you should call tomorrow. Maybe there's more than one. Maybe you have a whole list. Spend five minutes right now thinking about it. Then make an appointment with yourself to initiate that conversation. Your investment of five minutes might change a life. Do not delay.

Insider Speaking, the WSJ Speech Code

Neighborhoods, companies, organizations, and families often have unique ways of communicating that can be difficult for outsiders to decipher. Sometimes called "speech codes" these patterns contain unique idioms, vocabulary, usage, and even grammar. Acronyms, abbreviations, and jargon form elements of a speech code known to the readers of the Wall Street Journal.

Listed below are examples all appearing on the front page of today's WSJ, in order of appearance. Some are unique to business and finance. Some are common idioms, but codes nonetheless. I've also included a few unusual phrases.

Do you speak the code?

VOL., NO., WSJ, DJIA, NASDAQ, NIKKEI, STOXX 600, 10-YR. TREAS., B of A, MBIA, "soured securities', SEC, Pa., CEO, S&P 500, "the bill faces hurdles", "a string of rulings", EU, "private-equity firms", PG&E, KPMG, NATO, "storefront pot shops", "stop and frisk", "Researchers made bits of human bone", FDA, greenback, ICAP, CFO, "Obama is held back by risks on Syria", "Turkey's economy is getting hairier", "Turkey's emergence as a place for facial hair transplants", "be-whiskered boom", "troubled incinerator project".

Finally, this isn't coded or unusual language, just something worth repeating, "The SEC also took issue with Harrisburg officials for doing what many public officials often do: Putting a good face on a difficult situation."

Random Stuff From The BookShelf

Inspired by the recent postings on Facebook in honor of International Book Week, I followed a slightly different procedure. Starting at a random spot on my bookshelves, I found the first three sentences from the second paragraph on page 52 and recorded it below.  Then I skipped three books on the shelf and found three more sentences in the same way.  If they relate in any way to the previous book, you'll see them here. Otherwise, I skipped that book and moved along until I found something that connected, until I had gathered the fifteen sentences, below.  I find the result surprisingly interesting. It doesn't prove much of anything, but I had fun revisiting some old friends on the bookshelves.

Choices between lies and truthful statements, therefore, exhibit the difficulties often thought to beset utilitarianism as a method for coping with moral conflict. But the problems mentioned so far might in principle be counteracted within utilitarianism. They need not invalidate the general effort to weigh factors in a moral problem. (1)  

Emotional appeals can also work as a way of supporting actual claims made in an argument. Quite often the emotion is laid atop logical propositions to make them stronger or more memorable. The technique is tricky, however. (2)  

Often, though, it is the most basic things that distract your audience. In 1954, humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow defined five basic human needs that we all try to satisfy in priority order. These five needs are: physiological. safety, belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. (3)  

It is instructive to remind ourselves that professional persuaders, who realize that the public at large does not always behave rationally, try themselves to arrive rationally at the persuasive techniques they apply on the "non-rational" citizen. The advertiser who sells soap or cars carefully and objectively analyzes the public "taste", its whims and fancies, its buying habits, and carefully tailors his advertising to appeal to those "whims and fancies." (4) 

Give people reasons to listen. We listen to ideas that seem tied to our lives. We want to know why we should pay attention to someone else's words. (5)

References:
(1) Lying, Sissela Bok
(2) Everything's An Argument, Andrea A. Lunsford, John J. Ruskiewicz, Keith Walters
(3) Kruschev's Shoe, Roy Underhill
(4) Ethics of Speech Communication, Thomas R. Nielsen
(5) Public Speeking for Personal Success, Michael S. Hanna, Dick L. Stine, James W. Gibson

I Promise

May we please have less name calling and a little more open discussion?

• If I think you are wrong, I will not call you names. I will not say that you are an idiot, or insane, or evil.
• Your logic is probably sound. We start from different core values and first principles. We may have different loyalties. We base our conclusions on a different set of facts. 
• I take none of these things as permission to attack you personally or to question your intentions. I won’t. I promise. I ask only for the same.

I hate it that I even felt a need to write this but if you spend any time at all on social media, especially Facebook, you've no doubt seen the steady stream, from both the left and the right, of goofy pictures, statements used out of context, rants with little substance, angry and hateful comments thrown at entire groups of good people because of a different idea about something, and so on, and on, and on. So far, the social media communication revolution has done very little to improve public discourse. It has simply made us more efficient muckrakers, complainers, and name callers.  Shame on us!

That's my opinion. If you have a different one, you're wrong. You're not stupid, or insane, or evil. You're just wrong. Let's discuss it.

k only for the same.

@AmericanAir - Best Corporate Tweep!

I've read several articles lately about the customer service folks at major airlines who respond to passenger messages via Twitter. Last week, I had my first Twitter exchange with the people at American Airlines.  They were quick, friendly, and helpful.

This morning I tried a little experiment.  I posted something silly mentioning American, Delta, and United, just to see how they would handle it.  Do they have a sense of humor?  Are they willing to just say "Hi" or maybe even "LOL"?

Here's what I posted at exactly 6:00 AM, Central Time:

Excuse me @americanair @united @DeltaAssist May I please go very, very far on a very, very big plane? Thank you. Have a very, very nice day.

American come back with this at 6:53 AM.

@doug_picirillo Please let us know if we can help you in any way, Doug. Have a great day!

They were not super quick.  In fairness, they didn't need to be.  Maybe my message caught them a little off-guard.  I imagine a Customer Service Twagent (I just made that up! ) calling a supervisor over and asking, "What do we do with something like this? Ignore it?  Answer it?  Answer it how?"  However it happened, somebody on the other end was willing to represent their company and say something friendly and kind to somebody who poked them, in fun, at six o'clock in the morning.  Maybe they checked a list and found that  I've been an AAdvantage member for thirty years, almost since the program's inception.  Who knows?  At the end of the day, they responded as a human being to another human being who wanted nothing more than a response.

Neither Delta nor United responded at all.  Either they have no sense of humor, they are terribly understaffed (which can be the cause of no sense of humor), or they have a policy that prohibits small talk with current or potential customers.

The envelope, please....

---

Doug Picirillo's irregular and completely unscientific
Best Corporate Tweep Award
goes to American Airlines!

Customer Service Dodo Awards
go to Delta Airlines

and United Airlines

Better luck next time!

For a more serious look at airline customer service Twitter trends, check out this guest post on SimpliFlying, A Tweet by Tweet Analysis of US Airlines