Jeff Cutler™ – columns, essays and opinions

It’s not a surprise to anyone that social media professionals are supportive, intelligent and fun people. What might cause you pause is the secret bromances that flourish in this space on a regular basis.

What’s a bromance? It’s the unabashed admiration one man has for another. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve harbored one or two or five bromantic dalliances over the course of my social media career. Here’s a quick look at the who and why of my particular bromances. I’m sure you have your own – please share in the comments.

Oh. If you find yourself on my list don’t be alarmed. My bromances are purely platonic and intellectual. But I wouldn’t mind if you listed me on your broamance list if you felt so inclined.

Chris Brogan – On my list because he’s genuine in his dealings with every human. He’s intuitive and quick-thinking. He also has talent and charm. He also inspires me to write more. Thanks Chris.

Gradon Tripp – While he might be considered by some to be a design geek who should have won the recent makeover contest on Newbury Street, he’s actually a bleeding-heart liberal who does so much for social causes regionally it makes me a little sick. But he’s also a smart, fun and dependable friend. (BTW – Tweetsgiving is coming up – SIGN UP NOW!)

Aaron Strout – He wins on so many counts as a top bromance of mine. He’s a Boston transplant to Austin, TX who still remembers his friends back home. Beyond that, he remembers and even honors those of us who were just peripheral friends a year or so ago. Aaron has always been welcoming and entertaining. He’s a fabulous host who treats everyone as a friend. What a great way to be. I admire and commend that attitude.

CC Chapman – Smart, driven, compassionate and insightful. I was listening to one of his podcasts before I met him and was thrilled at the way in which he connected with listeners and shared his life with us. He’s honest in his opinions and dealings and empathetic to an extreme. He’s also a Miami Dolphins fan which probably would have put him on the bromance list even if he were a complete dink.

General Etiquette:
How To Give A Great Man To Man Hug

Mike Schneider – Who is this guy? He’s someone I met within the last year. He’s a freakish human who would give the shirt off his back to ANYONE who needed it. He’s compassionate to a fault, a hard-working beer genius who also knows a bit about human nature and marketing. He’s currently spearheading our Movember efforts and rallying people to come together to fight cancer. He’s just a great guy who was unlucky enough to make my bromance list.

Mike Langford – Founder of Tweetworks, the lesser-known co-host of NomX3 and a sarcastic, fun and brilliant friend. I tease him about how his two boys will grow up to have more hair and probably get more points on Foursquare. But this coffee fiend is dependable, well-spoken, generally cheerful and a pretty good drunken roommate. I’m glad I met him and that we have become friends.

What’s funny to me is that none of these relationships were based on IRL experiences. They were founded and then fostered using tools like Twitter and Plurk and Seesmic and podcasting and unconferences and even an occasional tweetup and lunch. I’ve grinned the whole time while writing this because I really like the people I’m writing about and I love that there will be people who read this that are uncomfortable that a man can genuinely like another man.

Grow up people. I’m not stalking these guys. I just think they epitomize what’s right with our tiny little fishbowl. Real people who offer real opinions and real support to others. If you have people like this in any part of your life, hang onto them. They’re more valuable than a simple blog post can illustrate.

In this season of giving thanks, I give thanks for bromances. What about you?

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Tags: Austin, author, Boston, bromance, fashion, life, men, movember, podcast, social media

It’s Friday, April 17, 2009. You’ve just turned off the TV and you’re excited because Oprah Winfrey just showed you that Tweeting on Twitter is easy. After seeing Oprah’s short conversation with Ashton Kutcher, you’re convinced that tweeting is going to connect you to vast communities of people.

These groups will inform, entertain and support you. And you’ll do the same for the people in those communities. But it’s not really that easy.

People use Twitter in different ways. As do businesses, organizations, governments and news outlets. Even the celebrity contingent is getting into the fray – as we’ve seen. But a lot of people are stumbling and the first thing to do to eliminate the stumbles is to figure out why you want to use this messaging or micro-blogging tool.

Some people use it to stay in touch with friends and family.

Some use it to find new friends, arrange social events and connect with organizations and businesses.

Companies are using it to pimp their products, market to customers and to strengthen their brand.

PR professionals are all over Twitter trying to find out how this free tool can help them make a buck. They’re also trying to figure out how to reach journalists and bloggers via tweets.

Journalists are here using Twitter to inform and report. They’re also here looking for sources (symbiosis between PR and journalists) for stories.

And celebrities are here because it’s hot and new. They’re also here because it gives them more power than they might have had before in reaching and interacting with their fanbase.

But there are rules and techniques everyone should know about using Twitter. Here’s my bootcamp version of what Twitter can and can’t do and how you can navigate some of the unwritten rules of this unique social media tool.

Let’s dive right in. I’m going to go through these top-of-mind, so read the entire column to see if I’ve addressed a concern or question. If not, leave me a comment and I’ll respond to it with an answer or a resource that you can use to learn more.

Twitter is for everyone. Naysayers abound, but if you want to be on Twitter, jump on. You’re probably going to make some mistakes and get banged up, but it really is like riding a bike. Get on and get dirty. Write some tweets and see what comes back. It’s really the best way to figure out how to use it.

Only follow the people you want to follow. Some people get on a high horse about follower/following ratio (I do for some clients actually) but if you’re just using Twitter to connect with friends and family and maybe some social groups, go wild. Follow the fun people and listen to what they say.

*Basics like how to follow people and how to compose a tweet are covered in the upcoming book Laura Fitton is authoring for Wiley and it’s already listed on Amazon.

In the meanwhile, to follow someone just click on their Twitter name in the EVERYONE stream on Twitter. If you like what you see, click FOLLOW and you’ll then see their updates in your HOME stream.

*I use the word stream to mean the list of updates that flow down your screen. Here’s a shot of my recent Twitter stream…

Abbreviations can mean actions or words and they can be confusing. Here are some you should know.

RT means Retweet – or the act of sharing an update that someone else put on Twitter first. The format of a retweet is…. RT: @jeffcutler The #redsox won today and I loved the game. Even got a foul ball, FTW!

In that retweet, you can tell that @jeffcutler was the original author. That he was allowing others to search for the word REDSOX (use of the # symbol before a word) and that he was thrilled about the foul ball (FTW means For The Win or YAY).

RR means Rerun. I was part of the four people that decided to start this abbreviation on Twitter. Steve Garfield, Greg Verdino, Melissa Pierce and I were chatting over breakfast in Las Vegas in January when we wondered how people could retweet themselves without looking pompous. I shouted out Rerun and the rest is history.

Now, if you want to retweet yourself, just put RR in front of a tweet. Use RR: instead of RT: and you’re all set.

Most often, people RR tweets when the first occurrence may have been either too early or late to be seen by many people. Or maybe a RR is in order if there are other events being shared on Twitter that render your little message insignificant. For instance, when the plan landed on the Hudson River, every other tweet not dealing with the crash landing was ignored. In that case, I would be busy Rerunning the important stuff the next day.

Oh, that @ symbol. That’s what goes before anyone you want to address on Twitter. If your username is jeffcutler, then the way people would get in touch with you is by typing @jeffcutler. In the case of Oprah Winfrey, her Twitter handle (name) is Oprah and you can address her by typing @oprah into a tweet.

Answer questions. As often as you can, take the time to look at your replies (any message that is @YOURNAME) and then respond to it. I like to look at my @’s a few times a day and give reasoned and valuable responses to them. If you help people a lot, they’ll happily help you when you have questions.

Anytime you type a message @ someone, this is out in the open for anyone on Twitter to see. It also shows up in a person’s @MYNAME field, sort of like an inbox. See circled name in this screen shot – that’s where you’d click to see all @’s to you.

DMs. While the majority of tweets are publicly visible, DMs are the Twitter equivalent of private messages. BUT, you can only send DMs to people who are following you. DMs are a great way to share info you don’t want the entire Twittersphere to see.

140 characters. Yep, it’s all about the characters – not the people on Twitter but the actual number of characters in a tweet. You only have 140 characters in which to make your point. If you go over, Twitter will truncate or shorten your post. SO make your tweets short and sweet.

*The character count includes names, abbreviations and the characters in all links.

There are assorted tools online that allow you to shorten URLs, but I’m not going to digress into side lessons about using the Internet. Back to Twitter.

When you’re on Twitter, you’ll be well served to spend about 80%+ of your time sharing, conversing, responding, retweeting and reading. People on Twitter – as in many communities – want you to care about them. But there’s got to be give and take. If you give more than you take then people will gravitate toward you and you’ll gain more resources from which to learn.

Simply put, if you give more than you take, then Twitter will treat you correctly. The companies and people who just spit out links, pimp their blogs and press, and blatantly use Twitter as a PR vehicle see diminishing returns and eventually lose any followers of any worth.

My advice is to treat this social media tool as a way to meet new people and learn about them. Take my word for it, you’ll see how well sharing and contributing works.

Random Thoughts….

Is what you’re sharing on Twitter part of a conversation? Can you really make friends here? What makes Twitter better than the phone, txt messages, blogging or even email?

I’ve been using Twitter since March 2007. I started introducing people to the tool and creating content specifically for the 140-character constraints since day one. Recently I’ve also been tabbed to present Twitter for Business sessions for the National Association of Women Business Owners, and social media tools for journalists for the annual conference of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Continue the conversation or get out. Two examples… A friend of mine was pretty active on Twitter for about four months. He was gathering followers and building a little community of people with whom he could talk and bounce ideas off of.

He was benefiting from the expertise of that group and was holding up his end by sharing his knowledge. Then he got bored and left Twitter for three months. Now he’s having the worst time getting back into the conversations.

People he used to chat with have dropped him because they see him as someone who used them and wasn’t reliable. Now he wants back in as if nothing happened. When the investment people have in you is predominantly digital, you’re only as memorable or as valuable as you most recent exchanges.

His trail has gone cold and now he’s going to have to work twice as hard to get back into the community. Especially now that Twitter is growing so fast.

The second example is that of a restaurant on the South Shore. This company made a splash on Twitter and touted themselves as the best destination for Valentine’s Day. I was excited to see them enter the fray and was hopeful that they would continue to interact with customers. I was even hoping they might run specials for Twitterers that the general public wouldn’t see.

Not happening at all. This restaurant hasn’t tweeted since February and even recent tweets to them haven’t been responded to. They aren’t aware of, or maybe they don’t care, that this segment of their marketing plan is falling flat.

I advise two restaurants on their use of social media – including Facebook, Twitter and blogs – and the one thing I tell them at the outset is not to get into the game if they can’t dedicate time and resources to social media. I say that social media is a long-term investment and it won’t show returns for possibly as long as other traditional advertising or marketing efforts.

If they’re not going to tweet regularly, they shouldn’t even tweet the first time.

Finally, WWOD? What would Oprah do? Well, if I had the chance to speak with Oprah about her use of Twitter, I’d advise her to spend a lot of time on it. I’d say that she should follow only the people who interest her, but not to be focused on numbers.

I’d tell her, Twitter is jam-packed with interesting, skilled and fun people. They’re willing to share and smile with you and they expect the same. Honor that trust and contribute what you can.

And I’d say that if she doesn’t personally have time to interact, not to use it. She’s got enough going on in her life and media empire that Twitter would probably be a distraction.

That said, I might point her in the direction of her handlers or other content creation specialists. These people could coordinate messaging, updates and info that would assuage the demand of her viewers/followers and would probably allow Oprah to benefit from this versatile too.

I hope that the influx of millions of users take the time to each figure out how to use Twitter.

How about you? How is Twitter affecting your life online and offline? And what do you wish you knew about this social media tool?

What did I miss and what questions do you still have?

Find me on Twitter and @ me, I’ll answer your questions.

*EDITED – If you want to see some of what I tell my clients, here’s an 18-page packet of notes I used for a recent talk to 40 small business owners. Download the .pdf. All I ask is that you share this link with people on Twitter, leave a comment below, or link to this post on your blog. Thanks!

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Tags: dummies, Jeff Cutler, Laura Fitton, life, Oprah, social media, technology, twitter

Sometimes I take the people around me and my circumstances for granted. No, I’m not raking in the cash or appearing regularly on network TV or in movies. But I have a comfy existence and I’m surrounded by people who love me and care about me.

Is the cupcake on the counter the best I’ve ever had? Hardly. But it’s still a cupcake. There are plenty of people around who don’t even have the eggs or the milk needed to craft a cupcake.

And what about the heat?

The steam radiators hiss at me like angry cats every time I jack up the heat. But at least I have the option of turning up the heat and keeping myself warm.

Everyday complaints – like there being no cheese in the fridge, having neighbors who mow too close to my house, owning sweaters that are a little scratchy, and having to wait seemingly forever for the tap water to reach a temperature cool enough to drink – are meaningless in the face of bigger issues.

Like what?

How about people who don’t even have water to drink? Take a look at Charity Water and see that lots of people don’t even have that – then look at what people are doing to change things.

Or my friend’s plight. He worked his butt off for 11+ years and now has millions in the bank. But none of that cash or the success is going to be much solace as his father slips away from him mentally. This guy is only 60 and is predisposed to have Alzheimer’s. It hasn’t hit yet, but the family’s already tense anytime this guy forgets his pants or can’t remember a conversation from a few weeks back.

And this other guy I know is worried constantly about his father’s health. (No idea why it’s all fathers in this story, but it is.) This guy is 68 and battling cancer for the second time in two years. The disease is horrible, but what’s worse is living with the constant stress. Will each time I say “bye dad” be the last time? Will each hug or handshake be the last one?

Sure, the bread truck can round the next corner and flatten you like a pita. Your worries would be over and you wouldn’t be so focused on the water, the heat, the cheese or the family. But I tend to think that if there’s no grief if your life, Charlie Brown, you won’t appreciate the times that everything is clicking along nicely.

You won’t smile at the light snowflakes and the hot fudge sundaes. No giggles as the ducklings swim circles around their duck parents. And no contended sighs or happy tears at the end of a corny sitcom.

Until you take measure of your life in real terms, you can’t really measure the your life’s terms.

Even with a father dying of cancer and a paucity of ducks in the local pond, I have it pretty good.

-30-

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Tags: Boston, Cancer, ducks, Jeff Cutler, life, twestival

[UPDATE - Just turned this into a podcast. Here's the sound file]

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I just spent about 22 minutes taking headshots of myself for a speaking engagement I have in the middle of the month. None of the photos came out correctly because I’m hideous and my glasses kept reflecting the camera flash.

Therefore, I resolve to become better looking and to spend the extra money and get anti-glare coating the next time I buy glasses.

The candy from my Christmas stocking is almost gone because for the past few days I’ve been gulping down Dr. Pepper and shoving molded sugar treats into my face. This frequently affects my mood and my energy level and I don’t think it’s doing much for my svelteness.

Therefore, I resolve to put different items on my wish list and to at least look in the windows of a gym from time to time.

A recent trip to the laundry room revealed that I own 28 T-shirts, half of which are black. I dislike black T-shirts because I worry about my dry scalp and even dandruff. This worry is balanced by my willingness to be cool, and so many new technology concerns put their logos and taglines only on dark T-shirts.

Therefore, I shall rid myself of these dark shirts (except for the Apple ones) and breathe easier each time I dress myself.

When sitting around the house playing online poker, enjoying video games, watching TV shows that have built up on my DVR or clicking around the Internet on my laptop, I often feel tiny pangs of guilt for wasting time. This time consists of moments of my life that will never occur again, so I’m understandably distraught when these moments get ‘wasted’.

Therefore, I resolve to stop wasting time feeling guilt and spend more time enjoying whatever it is I’m doing – with whomever I’m doing it with. No more worrying that I’m missing out on something better or that I’ll be judged as a time waster.

Lastly, the holiday cards are still piling up in the mailbox. Little visual treats from friends all over the nation. Unfortunately, about 1/3 of the cards are coming from people to whom I forgot to send my holiday card. Overlooking them/taking them for granted was never in my plans and now I know why I have so many extra copies of my card sitting on my desk.

Therefore, I’ll be taking the addresses off the incoming cards and sending out my cards a little late. I’ll also endeavor to make 2009 a year where I take people as seriously as I’d like to be taken. It will make me practice being more attentive to those around me and it will probably make people like me even more – which is a win-win in my book.

What are your resolutions for 2009? Share them here in the comments.

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Tags: 2009, family, friends, guilt, Jeff Cutler, life, new year's day, resolution

A few months ago – when the sun still warmed up my little portion of the planet enough to make playing outside pleasant – I came across a woman on a scooter. The same brand as my little scoot, hers was the smaller model with a 50cc engine.

Other than that, it was the same. Immediately I felt a kinship with this woman and I looked for her every time I ran an errand on the scooter.

Two orange scooters against the universe. Never mind that she was a batty woman who reminded me of a cat-lady. Never mind that she only wore a skull-cap helmet and no gear at all. Never mind that during out talks she seemed oblivious to the rules of the road as they applied to scooters and motorized bicycles.

She and I were on the same scooter team and that made everything right.

I’ve felt the same way about the other woman – easily in her early 120’s – who owns a Scion the same color and year as mine. Far be it for me to admit to driving a car that attracts ancient woman to the driver’s seat, I still beep and wave whenever I’m cruising past her. Two Gray Scions passing in the day.

Where does this superficial kinship develop? And more so, why?

Think about the people who whip out a cell phone similar to yours. Don’t you get a smug feeling of being ‘in’?

Or the friends who tell about their vacation to St. Kitts, a place you enjoyed almost simultaneously.

But there is a line. It’s drawn at clothes and watches and hairstyles and pets.

I’m not sure why, but if you see a similarly dressed person out on the town you feel it’s your obligation to cover up your garments so as not to seem like a twin.

And I know I’ve tugged my sleeve down when seeing that someone else had the same altimeter watch I used to favor (it now sits gathering dust on my nightstand).

For all the spouting we perform about our independence, we’re a funny species. We want to be ‘in’ without being ‘also’. Maybe that’s the real distinction.

Looks like it’s going to be warm today. I’m going to go ride my scooter. Maybe I’ll run into that wacky lady. I just hope she’s not wearing the same gear.

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Tags: belongings, clothing, freedom, individuals, Jeff Cutler, life, scooter, similarities, taste

Death sucks. My uncle died last week and it caused me to think a little bit more about what I’m doing to make my life more fun before the axe falls on my existence.

Before you dash away from this column to your latte and email, this isn’t going to be a rambling diatribe about the unfairness of the universe and a complete downer. It’s poised to be a celebration of all the things that we do that really don’t matter in the grand scheme. And it makes fun of them all.

For the purposes of bringing a smile to your face, I’m going to use myself in all examples. This will keep me from being killed in my sleep by members of my family and friends who know where I live. But don’t think for a second that the situations I’m about to list ALL apply to my provincial life.

What are we doing being so stressed about email? When you don’t get an email, it’s not as if you lost your luggage, misplaced a child at the NY State Fair or let a dog you were sitting run into the street and get mauled by a doddering woman who should never have been behind the wheel of a blender, much less an Oldsmobile 88.

A recent email snafu almost sent ‘me’ over the deep end when I was unable for 12 hours to send or receive email. Breathing is the best medicine. If you are still breathing, then you can fix almost anything. If you’re not breathing, why does it matter?

Burned or undercooked food. Aside from getting food-borne diseases from the undercooked variety of chicken products (and this COULD lead to death), these are nothing to be worried about when compared to the dirt nap you could be taking.

Fender benders. Car crashes are literally just bumps along the way. Unless you’re maimed or smushed like a Peep on Easter, then you’re likely better off than those in the horizontal wooden condos in the ground.

As I type this, I’m thinking it might fit well as a Things to Worry About piece, GO HERE, but this is about the NOT WORRYING portion of your existence. So let’s move on to a couple more and then you can get back to living.

Hairstyles. While Sarah Palin may have bangs to die for, the lack thereof is really not a death-worthy situation. Bear in mind that her bangs are just the product of an overly managed campaign and I suspect that even her hairdresser appointments, hunting trips with Gorbachev and heart-to-heart talks with her pregnant daughter are all being scripted by John McCain. Before you jump off the bridge or seal up your garage for a little CO2 vacation, compare your life to hers…you’re better off alive.

College or high-school drop-outs. If you’re on the verge of being flushed from the great intellectual institutions in this country, take heart. A great many great people didn’t ever go to college. And some didn’t even finish high school or grade school.

Further, I’m a college grad who has also taken a bunch of graduate courses and I can’t even name these famous people for you. So the education you’re getting right now from this column is worth far more than that Trigonometry class or Business Ethics Symposium. Grab hold of your newfound freedom and make your mark on the world by living a fun, fantastic life.

This pep talk in column form brought to you by the makers of Xanax. They know that if you’re dead, you’re not using their drugs to keep yourself sane.

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Tags: ambition, control, Dan Regan, death, fun, Jeff Cutler, life, live, remembrance, world

When I was chugging along famously in my previous career as a writer for hire at businesses all over America, I steadfastly kept a tea schedule. At 10AM (unless there were meetings) and at 3PM I’d stroll to the hot-water dispenser or to the cafeteria to steep my tea and assess my day.

Sometimes I’d be able to entice others to join me, as tea is traditionally a social event. But on many occasions the full-time staff would either be coffee addicts or too afraid of ‘the man’ to abandon their desk for seven minutes.

My contention to them was that smokers have an eight-minute break about once an hour all day long. The company pays their healthcare costs and also pays them for an hour’s worth or work and gets only 52 minutes in return.

Over the course of a 2000 hour year, that comes out to 1733 hours worked – a loss of 267 hours or more than 6.5 WEEKS! That means a smoking worker is being compensated at a rate more than 13% higher than every other employee. And people make a fuss over a 3-4% raise. They should start smoking.

But I digress.

My twice a day tea break afforded me the opportunity to clear my head and give quality thought to some of my assignments. It allowed me to stretch my legs and rest my eyes (something ergonomic experts say should be done as often as every 20 minutes). And it served to create a tea addict of a mild-mannered writer.

That’s right, an addict. Forget the gentle schedule of 10 and 3. Now I boil water continuously throughout the day. I stop at Dunkin’ Donuts regularly for a large tea, two tea-bags, milk and sugar. I frequent any local café I can find to ‘test’ their tea selection. And my cabinet at my studio is jammed with this evil elixir.

Do you really want to know why I bought a scooter? (Notice that the tea has me jumping around from subject to subject with no rhyme or reason.) I bought a scooter because the shop in Providence that sells scooters ALSO sells tea.

Why did I agree to let my girlfriend move in? That’s right, she had a teapot and a handful of large mugs so I wouldn’t even have a gap between cups of tea while pounding away at the keyboard.

What are the most purchased items on my Peapod shopping list? EXACTLY! Milk and sugar. As I mentioned, I’ve already got a cabinet jammed with tea.

Is there a solution to this madness? Am I destined to go all Holmes-Heroin, but with tea?

That’s really up to the editors. The more they put me to work, the less time I’ll have to dilly dally and boil water. It means I’ll spend less time chugging the evil brew and more time chasing down leads. In fact, my current pile of freelance assignments is keeping me from steeping a pot of my favorite concoction.

Luckily I already made a pot this morning, and a steaming cup of tea rests at my elbow as I pen this entry.

Look at the time, anyone want to join me for tea?

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Tags: business, columnist, freelance, heroin, Jeff Cutler, life, shopping, smoking, sugar, tea, vacation, wasted time

This column was first published the other day on my other blog, but I found that the more I looked at it the more I liked how it was written (back patting noted) and wanted to share it with the people who don’t subscribe to both publications.

Let me know if you like the story and the style. And tell me if it should become a podcast column as well.

Thanks!

I’m surrounded by crap and I’ve decided to unload it on other people. The way we do that here in the United States is by putting up paper signs all over town, taking an ad out in the local paper, posting a note on Craigslist, and then spending the best part of a weekend sitting at card tables surrounded by this crap while people paw through it and toss coins at us.

I’m certain that if you did this sort of thing on a city street it would be called panhandling and you’d be arrested for it. But on the back roads of New England, people find these little sales quaint.

They used to be called ‘tag’ sales because the pricing method in the past was to tie little tags to each item with a price on it. Hence, price-tags.

Now we use stickers (or the absence of stickers) to garner what we want for our junk.

I’m prone to haggling. I think without tags people are either frozen and can’t buy anything OR they bid high and you leave with more money than you planned. Clownface feels differently. She says that her goal in the yard sale process is to rid herself of everything and if she makes any money, that’s a bonus.

One big problem is that I remember with glee and a sense of nostalgic economics, when and where I got something, the feelings that the item evoked, and pretty much what it cost.

I want to get a couple hundred bucks for each camera I’m selling this Saturday, but I’ll probably get about $15 each. That will pain me.

There are also some cassettes. It doesn’t matter that I can’t listen to them anymore or that I’m not inclined to digitize them and add them to my iTunes library. But it does matter that CF put a price of $3 on nearly 120 tapes. Thinking back, each one of those – even if it was a K-Mart bargain bin buy – went for more than $3. That’s a loss of about $357 just to save a little space.

I know I’m going to take a bath on the N64 system too. I hardly ever play it, but I put a ton of cash into the games and the accessories. Maybe I should list that separately and see what it will bring on the video game boards.

And then there are the dishes and multiple household implements that are now duplicates with CF’s recent migration to Hingham. Stuff I bought a year ago at IKEA is going for a song. So are the glass dishes I bought in 1984. Maybe some of the stuff on the chopping block should have been there a while ago.

Is letting go of belongings something only humans do? And then, is it something in which only a percentage of the population partakes?

Think of the havoc that’s wreaked when a building or home burns to the ground. The horror can’t be just that a dwelling is gone. It’s got to be partially the loss of belongings. But the prevailing wisdom says that people can’t be replaced and that stuff is just here to remind us of the people who can’t be replaced. So what’s with the long faces? Why the shrieks of despair?

In a move that anyone with half a brain should duplicate, I put my photos and music and essential files on a backup drive and then backed that backup drive up as well. Now I have no fewer than three copies of my important files and memories, and I’m still not calm.

I can’t wrap my head around the reasons for this separation anxiety, but that’s probably all it is.

The other day I was thrown off kilter when I found that the Ramen Noodles had been moved to a cabinet across the room. My sense of balance was offended and my world was tipped a few degrees sideways for a second.

Are some of us so uneasy with change that selling a mix tape from 1985 necessitates a psychologist referral? Don’t you think I could probably function productively without Perfect Dark, that fabulous futuristic game on N64?

You’re right. I’m probably too infantile to take to this new situation of a trimmed-down pile of stuff right away. But you’re also right if you think that I will adapt and the money earned by foisting my crap on other people will ease my pain a little.

C’mon by. And come on buy!

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Tags: capitalism, emotions, life, psyche, style, writing, yard sale

One of my favorite mantras is a kid’s joke about how to eat an elephant. The punchline makes it clear that kids think about problems in a purer way than jaded adults, and it helps me remain on track when overwhelmed by deadlines, projects, aspirations and avocational desires.

Right now I’m sitting in the study at my house writing query letters, drinking Wegmans-brand Gatorade and listening to podcasts. I’m trying to figure out how to get everything done (become a more prominent columnist, get clips in ESPN the Mag, Wired, The Boston Globe, and any Rodale Press publication) without losing my mind and without letting household tasks stagnate.

I’m also wondering when I can fit in time to ride my scooter, swing by my parent’s house to say hi and I love you, hold a yard sale (scheduled for this coming Saturday), concentrate on fitness and participate fully in my ongoing relationships.

Then I think of the elephant and it calms me.

Oh, if you’re not familiar with the joke, the punchline essentially says that you can’t eat an elephant all at once and the best way to eat an elephant is in lots of little bites.

So, if you’re paused or frozen or stagnating, think about the great grey mammal and come up with your favorite recipe. I assure you that you’re never going to find a pan or oven or even an open pit big enough to take care of the entire meal at once.

But just thinking about the approach will calm you and put you back on track to getting things done, one bite at a time.

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Tags: #spj08, cooking, Elephants, Jeff Cutler, life, motivation, scooter, tasks, writing, yard sale

The one problem I’ve had all my life has been that I’m a semantics freak. I’m a holdover from times when people would get irritated if phrases were misused or words were spelled incorrectly. It seems that the category of people who care about language and messaging has morphed into a collection of messagers (or messengers with messages) focused on the speed with which a message can be delivered and not with the accuracy or efficacy of a message.

Here’s a billboard that I saw last week in Syracuse, NY. Please tell me (leave a comment on this post) what you see wrong with the message.

Wait a second. I don’t want my comment fields filled up with angry pro-choicers or pro-lifers battling for their particular cause. Just tell me what’s wrong with the words in the message.

That’s right. The word CHOICE was used by a clearly pro-life group. What a horrible copywriting mistake.

Why would you ever validate the opponent’s tagline or cause descriptor by using it in your own messaging?

And worse, the way this billboard is written leaves the discussion open.

I’m not telling you which way I lean, but let me argue both sides.

PRO-LIFE: We are using their messaging against them. Bwahahahahaha. We are showing them that abortion isn’t a good choice.

PRO-CHOICE: Let’s rejoice. The opponent just wrote that abortion is always the wrong choice, which means they have finally come to their senses and realize that having a child IS a choice. They have given validity to our cause.

From a purely semantic point of view a different word would have worked much better and stifled any joy the pro-choicers could take from the messaging.

I posit that this tagline would be stronger, more direct and less assailable.

Abortion is a decision nobody can live with.

It turns ‘choice’ into a decision. It implies finality. And it connotes the serious message I’m sure the pro-lifers wanted to convey.

I guess they’re not too proficient at teaching communication skills in church.

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Tags: abortion, choice, church, fetus, life, new york, opinion, school, semantics