Anne H. Janzer's Blog, page 18

How to Take a Meaningful Pause

The events of the past few weeks have made many people re-assess the lives they were leading before the pandemic. How about you? Do you marvel at how you spent your time when there were no restrictions on your movements? Do you see your relationships with others differently now?

If you are not working on the front line and have some distance from your ordinary daily grind, this is a good time to check if your actions are aligned with your beliefs. It’s an an opportunity to pause. So I checked in with Rachael O’Meara, who speaks and writes about the power of taking an intentional pause to redirect our lives.

Rachael is author of Pause: Harnessing the Life-Changing Power of Giving Yourself a Break. She’s passionate about helping people come through overwhelm and burnout to create a more meaningful life.

Her message is particularly timely right now, as many parts of the world find themselves in a forced, global pause. Businesses are on hold and jobs uncertain. Those lucky enough to be able to work from home are missing their usual support systems and habits (to say nothing of child care.)

Rachael suggests that we approach that disruption with mindfulness and awareness, as a chance to regroup and realign. Here are some highlights from a recent conversation we had. (Find the full interview here.)

Finding intention in the pause

Rachael refers to a pause as any time in which you make an intentional shift in behavior. It’s taking a break and finding a “gateway into being more self-aware.” That’s a lovely idea to bring to our experience of the current moment.

A pause is a “gateway into being more self-aware.”

Even small moments of intention and awareness can help us find meaning in the pause. Rachael suggests, “This is a chance for you to check in with where you’re out of alignment, how you want to live, how you want to be and show up. This is a time to throw the old expectations out the window. This is an unknown paradigm.”

What does this mean for you in the pandemic?

Spend time reflecting if possible. Maybe you can find a few minutes for journaling, or spending moments before bedtime reflecting. Ask yourself how you’re doing, and how you can be more truly with yourself.

You can try something creative as well, whether baking bread, drawing, or writing poetry.

“It’s a great time to be creative, but that doesn’t mean you have to set expectations of churning out a book of poetry.”

What if you want to binge-watch Netflix?

Even streaming Netflix can be a meaningful part of your pause, if you’re doing it with intention, to meet a personal need. What does it mean that you just want to veg out? Do you need to watch something soothing so you can sleep?

Set realistic expectations

What if we have grandiose schemes for this time, and then find that it’s unusually hard to get them done? (Asking for a friend, ahem…)

Rachael’s advice here is to be kind to ourselves and understand our mental load. “Research tells us we typically overestimate what we can do in a year—with or without any Covid-19 virus. Imagine when there’s a stressor like that on board!”

Her advice, then, is to change your perspective and assess. “Allow yourself to take in the reality of the situation. We’re not only home 24/7, but stressors have shifted.”

Be kind to yourself.

Be kind to yourself, be creative, and pay attention to your needs. That’s sound advice for a pandemic and beyond.

More things to check out

Listen to the full interview, or read the transcript, here.

Find the book Pause on Amazon or order it from BookShop.

Listen to the PauseCast.

Download her free gift for blog readers: Three Keys to Turn Burnout into Thriving

Visit her website: RachaelOMeara.com

The post How to Take a Meaningful Pause appeared first on Anne Janzer.

Navigating the Need for Closure: Writing Lessons

Writing Lessons from the Coronavirus Pandemic



Listen to this post

Even while most of us are shut at home, we’re stretching our ability to adapt to changing realities and fluid public health situations.

There’s so much we do not know yet about the virus or how to handle it. Advice that seemed solid four weeks ago now appears quaint or naïve.

The current situation is a perfect laboratory for communicating about topics for which accepted wisdom is in flux. The lessons we learn now can serve us going forward, when we tackle other situations that are similarly ambiguous, even if less deadly.

Here’s the challenge: people want certainty, not ambiguity.

We’re wired to find patterns, infer causes, and create comfortable working hypotheses about situations we don’t truly understand.

That’s all fine until we have to change our theories.

We find patterns in uncertainty

The other day, my husband and I took a long walk on an empty, foggy beach. The mist rolled off the waves and across the sand, obscuring the shoreline ahead. The lone runner that passed us dissolved eerily into the grey.

As we walked, we spotted large, dark mounds in the distance ahead of us. Were they enormous piles of kelp? A dead elephant seal washed up on the shore?

As we drew closer, the shapes resolved into a few scattered lumps of kelp. Our eyes combined the piles with a small rise in the sand and vegetation on a distant dune to create something entirely different.

Our visual systems are always constructing the reality we see. Sometimes they’re wrong.

Similarly, our brains assemble facts into narratives and beliefs. We make decisions based on incomplete facts. (Should we stay home? Wear a mask?) We pick a hypothesis and act on it.

For many people, that working hypothesis, once strengthened by action, becomes a belief that is hard to revise. If you’re uncomfortable with ambiguous, fluid situations, you’re more likely to jump on a decision and stick to it, even as the world around you changes.

There’s a psychological term for this: the need for cognitive closure.

The need for closure

Social psychologist Arie Kruglanski coined the term cognitive closure; Donna Webster and Kruglanski developed a Need for Closure scale to assess the differences within individuals. You can find a shortened version of this assessment to measure your own tendencies.

Essentially, this is an individual attribute. We all fall somewhere on the scale. Understanding your own need for closure, and that of others, can illuminate behavior.

People with a strong need for cognitive closure exhibit two tendencies:

They make decisions quickly in uncertain situations (urgency)They stick to their decisions, even as evidence mounts to the contrary (permanence)

If you’re trying to reach a broad audience, remember that some percentage of them have a strong need for closure. You may have to deal with a made-up mind.

Lessons for writers

Today, the uncertain situation on everyone’s mind is the pandemic. But you may encounter closed minds when working on any topic that is in flux or where you cannot possibly see all of the contributing factors; medicine, science, technology, finance, fast-moving industry sectors, and more.

If you write about topics in flux, remember to take care of the readers who are so uncomfortable with ambiguity that they want to jump to a quick resolution. Here are a few guidelines.

Surface the uncertainty. Remember that people with a strong need for closure feel urgency about resolving the situation. Don’t encourage that quick closure by being definitive when the facts are ambiguous.

Over the past few weeks, videos and posts have circulated claiming certainty about exactly how the virus is transmitted: how you can or cannot catch it. These posts are comforting, which has value. But the scientists themselves are still figuring out this stuff, so complete certainty is dangerous. Too much fear or too much confidence: both are hazardous.

Distinguish the known from the unknown, the likely from the certain.

Date and locate your work. What you’re saying today may not look brilliant in a few weeks. Something true in one region may be false in another.

Remember those dark lumps I saw on the beach? Things change when you get closer. So, be specific about when you’re writing: “As of late April, 2020…”

When I speak or write about publishing, for example, I always put a date on the slides and make sure people know that the industry is changing quickly. Advice in that industry has a serious expiration date.

Use your writing skills. When writing about fast-moving topics, it’s not enough to put the data out there and assume that the reader will follow.

Readers with a high need for closure may have committed to a mental stance on a topic. Throwing data at them may rarely works You’ll have to be more creative.

Dig into your bag of writing techniques, using analogies or stories to shift perspectives. Lead people carefully to the situation as it stands now.

Be compassionate. This isn’t the time to get frustrated with people who are slow to change their opinions. The future is always uncertain; this crisis is more difficult and painful for those people who struggle with ambiguity.

Related content

For more on this topic, see the chapter “The Tough Audience” in Writing to Be Understood: What Works and Why. Until May 3, 2020, pick up the book for 99 cents!

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The post Navigating the Need for Closure: Writing Lessons appeared first on Anne Janzer.

Navigating the Need for Closure

Writing Lessons from the Coronavirus Pandemic



Listen to this post

Even while most of us are shut at home, we’re stretching our ability to adapt to changing realities and fluid public health situations.

There’s so much we do not know yet about the virus or how to handle it. Advice that seemed solid four weeks ago now appears quaint or naïve.

The current situation is a perfect laboratory for communicating about topics for which accepted wisdom is in flux. The lessons we learn now can serve us going forward, when we tackle other situations that are similarly ambiguous, even if less deadly.

Here’s the challenge: people want certainty, not ambiguity.

We’re wired to find patterns, infer causes, and create comfortable working hypotheses about situations we don’t truly understand.

That’s all fine until we have to change our theories.

We find patterns in uncertainty

The other day, my husband and I took a long walk on an empty, foggy beach. The mist rolled off the waves and across the sand, obscuring the shoreline ahead. The lone runner that passed us dissolved eerily into the grey.

As we walked, we spotted large, dark mounds in the distance ahead of us. Were they enormous piles of kelp? A dead elephant seal washed up on the shore?

As we drew closer, the shapes resolved into a few scattered lumps of kelp. Our eyes combined the piles with a small rise in the sand and vegetation on a distant dune to create something entirely different.

Our visual systems are always constructing the reality we see. Sometimes they’re wrong.

Similarly, our brains assemble facts into narratives and beliefs. We make decisions based on incomplete facts. (Should we stay home? Wear a mask?) We pick a hypothesis and act on it.

For many people, that working hypothesis, once strengthened by action, becomes a belief that is hard to revise. If you’re uncomfortable with ambiguous, fluid situations, you’re more likely to jump on a decision and stick to it, even as the world around you changes.

There’s a psychological term for this: the need for cognitive closure.

The need for closure

Social psychologist Arie Kruglanski coined the term cognitive closure; Donna Webster and Kruglanski developed a Need for Closure scale to assess the differences within individuals. You can find a shortened version of this assessment to measure your own tendencies.

Essentially, this is an individual attribute. We all fall somewhere on the scale. Understanding your own need for closure, and that of others, can illuminate behavior.

People with a strong need for cognitive closure exhibit two tendencies:

They make decisions quickly in uncertain situations (urgency)They stick to their decisions, even as evidence mounts to the contrary (permanence)

If you’re trying to reach a broad audience, remember that some percentage of them have a strong need for closure. You may have to deal with a made-up mind.

Lessons for writers

Today, the uncertain situation on everyone’s mind is the pandemic. But you may encounter closed minds when working on any topic that is in flux or where you cannot possibly see all of the contributing factors; medicine, science, technology, finance, fast-moving industry sectors, and more.

If you write about topics in flux, remember to take care of the readers who are so uncomfortable with ambiguity that they want to jump to a quick resolution. Here are a few guidelines.

Surface the uncertainty. Remember that people with a strong need for closure feel urgency about resolving the situation. Don’t encourage that quick closure by being definitive when the facts are ambiguous.

Over the past few weeks, videos and posts have circulated claiming certainty about exactly how the virus is transmitted: how you can or cannot catch it. These posts are comforting, which has value. But the scientists themselves are still figuring out this stuff, so complete certainty is dangerous. Too much fear or too much confidence: both are hazardous.

Distinguish the known from the unknown, the likely from the certain.

Date and locate your work. What you’re saying today may not look brilliant in a few weeks. Something true in one region may be false in another.

Remember those dark lumps I saw on the beach? Things change when you get closer. So, be specific about when you’re writing: “As of late April, 2020…”

When I speak or write about publishing, for example, I always put a date on the slides and make sure people know that the industry is changing quickly. Advice in that industry has a serious expiration date.

Use your writing skills. When writing about fast-moving topics, it’s not enough to put the data out there and assume that the reader will follow.

Readers with a high need for closure may have committed to a mental stance on a topic. Throwing data at them may rarely works You’ll have to be more creative.

Dig into your bag of writing techniques, using analogies or stories to shift perspectives. Lead people carefully to the situation as it stands now.

Be compassionate. This isn’t the time to get frustrated with people who are slow to change their opinions. The future is always uncertain; this crisis is more difficult and painful for those people who struggle with ambiguity.

Related content

For more on this topic, see the chapter “The Tough Audience” in Writing to Be Understood: What Works and Why.

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The post Navigating the Need for Closure appeared first on Anne Janzer.

Using the Future to Guide Us Today

An Interview with Trista Harris

Trista Harris is a philanthropic futurist and author of Future Good. In her role as president of the Future Good consultancy, she helps nonprofit leaders envision and build a better future in their work.

Trista Harris

Futurism, as Trista defines it in her book, is the practice of recognizing trends and anticipating what might come next, so we can harness those trends. The discipline and practices of futurism are most commonly found in big business and the military. As Trista says, “It’s normally used to figure out what color shoes you’re going to want to buy next year or what country’s going to hate us next.”

Trista’s unique contribution is acting as a bridge between the futurists and philanthropic organizations. The practices of futurism apply to individuals as well. Trista says, “I’ve found time after time that those same tools are so useful on the personal side as you’re considering what the challenges are that you might face in the future, and what the opportunities are.”

Although I intended to talk with her about how she built her platform, the conversation wandered into the broader topic that seems relevant right now: How do we use a vision of the future to guide us in the current pandemic?

Here are a few pieces of advice pulled from our conversation.

Create a vision of the future

A clear vision of a positive future gives you something to work toward. That’s more important than ever when the present is so uncertain. In her work with individuals and organizations alike, Trista is finding that those people with a positive vision bounce back more easily from setbacks like the current Coronavirus hiatus.

Having a future vision also broadens your perspective from the current troubles, enough that you might spot the opportunities in what might otherwise be a dark situation. She asks her clients to consider: “How do I leverage this moment to create the most good?”

“How do I leverage this moment to create the most good?”

Try scenario planning

Predicting the future is a nearly impossible task—the world is simply too complex, with many unseen forces at play. That lack of certainty can paralyze us.

We can, however, plan for a fixed number of likely scenarios. You don’t have to know which one will be true; the task is to think through alternate paths. As events unfold, a few of the scenarios will fall off the radar, and others may emerge. (Remember when we thought the virus could stay isolated in one or two countries, or that a shut-down might end early April?)

Scenario planning brings the uncertainty of the future into a more manageable scale, “Instead of a million possible futures, identify four possible futures and what you would do in each. As it gets clearer, you do those things. Often, I find that there are similar strategies that exist in each of those scenarios, and you need to start doing those things.”

Planning also becomes a rational exercise, rather than an emotional reaction to things happening outside your control.

Tune your scenario planning skills now, in a time of crisis, because we’re all going to need them going forward. Which leads me to the final bit of advice:

Imagine your legacy

To set your sights further on the future, think about the legacy you want to leave.

Trista uses the Lottery Imagination exercise with clients: What would life be like if you won the lottery? After you’ve done the obvious first things, what happens next? She asks, “How would you fill your time and how would you live out your purpose if you didn’t have these outside constraints? That can give you a vision of the work you’re doing now. It can give you clarity about what that platform is that you’re trying to build.”

“How would you fill your time and how would you live out your purpose if you didn’t have these outside constraints?”

You don’t need that lottery ticket to start building the human connections to make your vision possible.

Listen to (or read the transcript of) our interview here.

Find more







Find her book Future Good Learn more about Trista at TristaHarris.org

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Fear versus Flow: Writing in Quarantine

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Being stuck at home might seem like a golden opportunity to do more writing. But quarantine isn’t turning out to be a great writing retreat for most people.

How can you write when you’re focused on the news and consumed with anxiety?

Fear can be paralyzing. The thing that we fear occupies all of our attention, displacing creative mind-wandering and open attention. Going online doesn’t help, as nearly every headline and social media post reminds us of the pandemic.

Fear keeps us from writing. Or, so it seems.

Maybe we should flip our thinking.

Instead of I’m too anxious to write, consider this: I’m too busy writing to be anxious.

I challenge you to do the seemingly impossible: find a state of flow in your writing, if only for a few minutes. Yes, even now. Especially now.

Finding flow

Sometimes you get lost in the work of writing, losing track of time altogether. When that happens, you’ve been enjoying what psychologists call flow. It’s an ideal writing state, and we only tend to realize we’ve been in it when it’s over.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has studied the subject extensively. In his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he describes nine common characteristics of a state of flow:

Challenging work, but within your ability
Clear goals
Clear feedback through the work
Absorption in the task at hand
Lack of distractions
Lack of self-consciousness
Absence of fear
Losing track of time
Fulfillment and enjoyment

Pay attention to #5 and #7—the lack of distraction and the absence of fear.

By definition, you can’t experience flow while you’re fearful.

But let’s flip that thinking: You cannot be fearful when working in a state of flow.

If you could somehow dive into your writing, you would shut off the fear and enjoy a mini-vacation from the current crisis. How do you do that?

Fake it ’til you make it

I’m a big fan of letting our actions guide our beliefs.

If you can’t seem to get started, try behaving as if you’re engaged in your writing. Create the opportunity for flow, and it might happen. Even if it doesn’t, you’ll have made an attempt to control your attention.

Here’s what I suggest:

Set a timer for half an hour.
Clear a special place to work on your writing. Commandeer the kitchen table, or shut yourself in the bedroom and tell the people around you not to bother you for half an hour.
Spread out your papers and get your favorite pen or writing implement.
Start writing and keep going until your timer rings. No checking the news or social media—it’s just you and your work.

Pick any writing project you feel the slightest attraction to, no matter how frivolous. Don’t worry about what you should be writing. Choose the one you want to work on today. Duty can wait.

Don’t have a project? Start a journal on writing in quarantine. You might enjoy reading it later.

Give the work the chance to catch your full attention.

If you behave as if you are writing in a state of flow, you might achieve it for a short while. And when you’re absorbed in your work, it demonstrates to your brain that you can take a break from the current reality.

I’m not a therapist and make no promises. But I’ve noticed this myself: diving into the writing creates a welcome distraction from the worries of the moment.

What if by writing ourselves into a state of flow, we can take a break from our worries?

It seems worth trying.

Other things that might help:

Read my post on Finding Flow in the Writing Process.

Watch the replay of my Inner Game of Writing webinar, which will remain up through April.

Find Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Flow on Amazon, or support indie bookstores and order through Bookshop.

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The Story Behind The Forever Transaction

An Interview with Robbie Baxter

I first met Robbie Kellman Baxter in 2015, when her book The Membership Economy had just been published. We met at a conference when she delivered a keynote talk on membership. As I had just published Subscription Marketing, we formed an immediate kinship over our commitment to encouraging businesses to take a long-term perspective of their customer relationships.

The Membership Economy had a major impact on businesses adopting subscription and membership models. It also cemented Robbie’s position as an expert in this field.

Her latest book, The Forever Transaction, is released this week. If you’re in a business built on relationships (and most businesses should be), I strongly encourage you to spend part of your “staying home” time reading this book and sharing its ideas with your colleagues.

Robbie generously agreed to chat with me about the book, her writing process, and how she came to be an expert in subscriptions. Listen to the entire interview here.

Here are a few highlights of that conversation that tell the story of how her latest book, The Forever Transaction, came to be.

Her background in membership and subscriptions

I’m always fascinated with how the experts in an area earn their place. Like many of the authors and experts I’ve encountered, Robbie’s answer to that question is nuanced. She chose her area of expertise, but it also chose her.

When she started her consulting career, Robbie wanted to own an area of expertise that was both unique and identifiable. One of her early clients, in 2001, was Netflix. She says, “I fell in love with their business model. I thought to myself, this is something that’s really interesting, that nobody else seems to be looking at in a disciplined or thoughtful way. Maybe this is my thing.”

At the same time, people started calling her because they learned that she had worked with Netflix and wanted to get some of that magic in their own businesses. So the market confirmed the strength of the subject area.

As she worked with clients, she analyzed the overarching principle, exploring how they applied in different settings. She says, “I was learning things that allowed me to come into a new client and predict what their problems and challenges were, and have useful ideas to help them based my frameworks.”

The story behind The Membership Economy

As her research and expertise grew, people told Robbie to write a book to support her consulting practice. So, with her characteristic diligence, she researched the process, dove into the project, and landed a book deal with McGraw-Hill.

The resulting book was much for than a one-pound business card for her consulting practice. She had a message to share with the world, and the book did so effectively.

She tells me, “I wrote The Membership Economy because people didn’t get what I was saying. I would say, ‘You should really consider subscription pricing, you should consider a membership model. It can work for you to smooth out cash flow, improve your valuation on the public markets, be more attractive for acquisition, learn more about your customer behavior, and better predict what products they’re going to need in the future, if you take this long-term mindset.’ CEO after CEO would say, “Well, Robbie, it’s not really relevant for my business….’”

Her key message was an important one: your success doesn’t depend on the pricing model. It’s all about having the mindset of treating customers as members. According to Robbie, membership “is a metaphor for helping organizations focus on the long term, which justifies the subscription process.”

Membership is a metaphor for helping organizations focus on the long term.”

She shared this message at a pivotal moment—in 2015, when subscriptions were just starting to transform many industries. Delivering the right book at the right moment in time changed her career. She says, “It’s changed the kind of work I do, it’s changed my reputation, it’s changed how I get work, it’s changed how I spend my days.”

Why she wrote The Forever Transaction, her latest book

With the experience of the first book behind her, Robbie knew she would write another one. “Writing a book taught me a lot about how I think and how I come up with ideas. I learned that writing a book forces me to take everything I’ve done and make frameworks and distinctions and rules that can be helpful on an ongoing basis. Having learned that, I knew I would probably write another book.”

Today, in 2020, you don’t have to convince companies to consider a subscription model. Most understand the potential. But in the years since her first book was published, many non-profits and companies have turned to Robbie to help them in their struggles. “Wherever they are in the subscription maturity, there’s a special set of challenges that are different from business-as-usual transactional business challenges.”

And so began the next book. She says, “I wrote The Forever Transaction to help companies that were struggling. I wanted to share what I’d learned in the trenches, working with dozens if not hundreds of subscription companies. This book is more about the how than the why.”

Having seen the book as it came into being, I can testify to its success. The Forever Transaction is filled with practical advice for doing the hard work of transforming a business, delivered with clarity and engaging storytelling.

You might think that launching a book into this pandemic is tough timing. Obviously, the many in-person events scheduled for the book launch have been canceled.

But in many ways, this is exactly the moment that non-profits and corporations alike need the advice in this book. Because the most resilient organizations are those with strong relationships with their customers—the ones that treat their customers as members.

To learn what keeps authors like Robbie up at night or to hear our thoughts on what constitutes a good business book, listen to or read the rest of the interview here.

Find The Forever Transaction on Amazon. Or, support your indie bookstore and order from BookShop.

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Three Reasons to Write, Especially Now

If you are practicing social distancing right now, life may have just gotten strange.

For a while, the “new normal” is anything but normal.

Writing may help you get through this time.

Perhaps you feel too anxious to write. The kids are underfoot. You’re worried about your parents, your neighbors, or your job.

These are legitimate concerns, but ruminating on them makes you feel worse. Writing might help.

Here are three reasons to write your way through the “shelter at home” period.

#1 – Write for your own sake

Writing can be a healthy way to deal with an uncertain time.

If you write fiction, you can escape into worlds that you build. That’s not a bad thing.
Nonfiction writers can work to make sense of the world, putting some order around the chaos or understanding it better.

Even if you’re writing about dark subjects, you control the narrative. You may not have a lot of control over outside events, but you control your writing.

As human beings, we constantly construct our own narratives. Write a positive narrative for this time, if you are able, by doing something meaningful.

Can you achieve a state of “flow” while writing? You know, that state where you lose track of time and get absorbed in the work?

When you’re in flow, you are without fear and anxiety, at least for that time. Find flow, if you can, and you’ll leave behind your worries for a while. (See my post Writing in the Zone.)

By writing, you are taking control and doing something positive.

#2 – Write for your readers

Writing is an act of connection and communication. You’re writing isn’t finished until your words land with a reader.

When you write works for others to read—whether or enjoyment or enlightenment—you are connecting with another person. And we need connection, now more than ever.

Write with others in mind. Write something people will find inspiring, informative, engrossing, reassuring, or funny.

Writing, revising, polishing, sharing, and publishing—these are generous acts.

#3 – Write for the future

This week is uncertain; so is the next. You’re not sure how long you’re at home, what your income will be, or when your kids go back to school.

But maybe you can focus on beyond: What happens after?

What would happen if you end this first period of isolation with a collection of poems, or a story? What if you record an audiobook, or create a book proposal?

Good things can come from the darkest of times. Let’s find and hold onto those good things.

Related Posts

During these uncertain, distanced times, I’m gathering inspiring posts, videos, images, and more here. Check back regularly to see what’s there—and let me know what you’d like to see.

 

 

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Karen Catlin and Better Allies

Building a Platform for Change, One Tweet at a Time

Everyone knows that if you want to change the world, you need a platform.

That need dissuades many people from taking action. How do you build a platform? You want to make a difference, but who is going to listen?

Maybe you can think about this platform thing differently.

It’s possible to start by putting your thoughts out in the world, letting the platform grow organically. That’s what my friend Karen Catlin has done.

After a successful career in software engineering, including a stint as vice president of engineering at Adobe, Karen made a shift to coaching women in technology in leadership skills. You won’t be surprised to hear that she was frustrated by the limitations women working in the technology industry faced, having experienced it herself and seeing it again with her coaching clients.

She wanted to do something to change the conversations about women in technology. She says, “Based on my experience, a lot of men either don’t see what they could do and therefore don’t take action, or they’ve taken action in the past and had some interaction that caused them to pull back.”

So she started a Twitter handle, @BetterAllies, to address those men, offering insight into productive actions they can take.

To reach this audience, she kept her own voice anonymous; she wrote as if she were a man taking a pledge to do things. A few of the pledges include:

“I will notice when interruption happens in a meeting and redirect the conversation back to the person who was interrupted.”

“I refuse to speak on all-male panels.”

“I amplify voices of underrepresented people in meetings and on social media.”

This started in 2012. Today, in 2020, she has published two books and writes in her own voice as the public curator of Better Allies posts.

Her story is one of starting small and growing, in reach, scope, and influence.

A growing audience demands new content

The handle grew organically as people found and shared it with others. They started reaching out to “the Better Allies organization” asking for speakers. As an accomplished speaker, Karen was happy to oblige, while keeping quiet the fact that she was the only person in that organization.

Eventually Twitter posts weren’t enough, and she started a newsletter, building an email list. And when she spoke, people asked for more; they wanted a book.

She wrote and published Better Allies: Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive Workplaces in January 2019. After that, and again in response to requests from the field, she published The Better Allies Approach to Hiring.

Engaging the audience expanded her scope

While she started writing about women in technology, she quickly realized that women aren’t the only group to suffer from unconscious bias and invisible barriers. She expanded her focus to under-represented groups of all kinds in the technology industry, such as racial minorities, members of the LGBTQ community, older workers, and people with different abilities.

Furthermore, her words are reaching far beyond the technology industry; she’s speaking at credit unions and apparel manufacturers, and hears from physicians that the guidance helps them understand how to interact with patients from underrepresented groups.

“I started out to change the world, yes, but I had no idea I would be speaking, writing a book or two, and publishing this newsletter. I never anticipated that my focus on tech could be applied to all of these other professional areas and have that impact multiplied further.”

How about you?

There are many lessons in Karen’s story, but the most powerful may be this:

You don’t have to start with a grand gesture or big commitment.

Maybe you start with something small—a Twitter handle. Maybe you start by addressing your small corner of the world in a way that makes sense to you. Maybe you leverage your viewpoint and your opinions in an empathetic way to influence others’ behavior.

Are you inspired yet?

Listen to the Conversation

https://annejanzer.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/KarenCatlin-34202.13PM.mp3

Find the transcript of the interview here.

Check out the Better Allies website or follow @BetterAllies on Twitter.

Read Karen’s book Better Allies.

The post Karen Catlin and Better Allies appeared first on Anne Janzer.

Using Your Voice: A Conversation with Catherine Johns

Want to share your ideas with the world? Learn to use your voice.

If you want to be an author, thought leader, or a little of both, you’re going to need to speak in public—whether on a stage or on a podcast. The way that you use your voice matters.

Catherine Johns is an expert in using her voice. After decades of radio news experience, she now coaches people on effective and authentic public speaking.

We had a delightful conversation about using your voice with authority. Topics include

Advice on commanding the room
Balancing command of the room with connection
The importance of eye contact
Speech patterns and pitch (particularly for women)
The power of the pause

There’s much in here for women in particular. Near the end, Catherine says, “The world is full of women who haven’t fully shown up, and so we’re missing out on their brilliance.”

Learn how to show up as your best self.

Listen to our conversation below:

https://annejanzer.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/CatherineJohns-3162011.14AM.mp3

Listen to our conversation here.

Find the transcript here.

Visit Catherine’s website: CatherineJohns.com

Check out Catherine’s book: Show Up and Shine

The post Using Your Voice: A Conversation with Catherine Johns appeared first on Anne Janzer.

The Truth Needs a Boost

Why Write? Why Now?

Perhaps you think “everybody knows” the things you want to write about. You may feel like what you have to say is common sense—obvious, even.

Still, I suggest that you write. Share your ideas. Make your viewpoint known.

Here’s why.

Someone else probably has written or spoken about your idea. (There are no new ideas under the sun, after all.) There may be a TED talk on it, along with a best-selling nonfiction book and a whole mess of online posts.

All the same, your perspective may just be the thing that someone needs to see the idea clearly.

There’s a more urgent reason: By amplifying common sense ideas with your own slant, you give reality a boost in the online world.

A surprising number of people look online for accepted facts, without checking sources carefully. (“Just Google it!”)

Truth needs a boost because false stories spread more easily.

Researchers from MIT Media Lab and MIT Sloan analyzed the spread of both verifiably true and false stories on social media—specifically Twitter. They found that the false posts “diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information.” Political falsehoods led the pack in propagation.

You might be tempted to blame the Twitter bots—accounts managed by software that connect, post, and retweet content on Twitter based on software algorithms. But no, researchers discovered that the bots were on the whole unbiased; they propagated both true and false stories at the same rate.

The problem is a human one.

False news often inspires emotions like fear, disgust, and surprise. The truth is generally less surprising. It draws less attention fewer clicks.

How falsehoods become common knowledge

Here’s another important thing to know about human beings:

People expect to see true statements more often than false ones.

This general tendency is part of the illusory truth effect. We’re more likely to think something is true if we’ve seen or heard it a lot.

The problem with the spread of false news is that over time, the more we see it, the truer it seems.

(For a fascinating analysis of how information flows through networks, read The Misinformation Age by Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall.)

What You Can Do

As citizens of the Information Age, we all have an obligation to tip the balance towards facts, truth, and responsible content. Here are my suggestions:

Propagate and amplify verifiably true stories and avoid the temptation to spread the surprising (yet unverified) ones.
Check your sources, particularly if something seems unexpected or scandalous.
Add a comment to invite engagement on legitimate or well-researched posts; this will help them show up on social media or other places that use algorithms to rank stories.
Add your own particular spin; write about the truth from your perspective.

The truth needs a boost. We can all do our part.

Find the press release about this study on the MIT website. Read the study itself in Science Magazine.

If you want to geek out, download the PDF of a study about the illusion of truth from the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

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