My view on writing - First of all it is important to note that one of the great parts of majoring in engineering was I didn't think I would have to write. The education bore out that illusion - I tested out of freshman comp and only took tech writing. Not much later though, reality slammed into me like a runaway freight train. To be a good professional I was going to need to be a good writer and I most certainly was not!

20 years later, through the school of hard knocks I have learned two important lessons about writing. Here they are:

1. To write effectively, you must be passionate about your topic. You have to care about the thing you are trying to communicate. If you don't, your attempt to get the point across will likely fail. After all if you can't show you care, why should your reader care. This isn't always easy to do, but quite necessary.

2. The second lesson came as the result of having written several grants. With a grant you are given an outline of all the things you should cover in the proposal. I always just get started and write everything I think needs to be said to fulfill the requirements. The problem (good thing in disguise) is that the proposals have page limits. For example for NSF, the limit is 15 pages. I typically write 20+ pages. Now the good part is having to go through and eliminate the things that I thought were important originally, but are probably not essential to get the point across. This having to "filter" the message usually improves it greatly!

TBL - To write effectively, write with emotion and after your first draft go back and see what can be taken out to improve the quality of the message by eliminating the deadwood.

Mike took lots of great pictures today, but it is late and I am at a pay by the minute terminal. I also have to get up in 3 1/2 hours for a flight to Italy. Pics will have to wait till tomorrow.

Sunday from Huntingdon England:

Here is an exerpt from the Sticky-Book. For a little background, the authors tell us that for an idea to "stick" it must have the following attributes: Simple, Unexpected, Credible, Concrete, Emotional, and be told in a Story - they make the acronym SUCCESs. Each chapter of the book goes into detail about one of the attributes. Here is an anecdote from the Unexpected chapter.

A high school journalism teacher was trying to teach students how to create the lead paragraph for a school newspaper story. He gave them this information: "Kenneth L. Peters, the principal of Beverly Hills High School, announced today that the entire high school faculty will travel to Sacramento next Thursday for a colloquium in teaching methods. Among the speakers will be anthropologist Margaret Mead, college president Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, and California governor Edmund 'Pat' Brown.

The teacher let the students go on the assignment. After some time he collected their work. Most students organized the above information into a single sentence. Something like "Governor Brown, Margaret Mead, and Robert Maynard Hutchins will address the faculty next Thursday....blah, blah, blah!". He laid the papers aside and said "the lead for the story is 'There will be no school next Thursday.'"

See how effective that is? It would certainly be communication that stuck!

TBL - Go buy this book!

P.S. I have changed the settings for the blog so people can leave anonymous comments without having to log in.

Here are some pictures left over from yesterday. The first two, though are pics that Mike and Barry got today at the Ely Cathedral (built in 1081).

CAPT Barry hanging out with the young Londoners!

Today’s Bottom Line is more on communication. Each of us has a need to effectively communicate. Recently I bought a book about communication. It is called “Made to Stick” (the book cover is posted below). This book demonstrates how important it is to realize that it is not what we say, but how we say it. The book goes into excellent detail on “how” to get your communication to stick. I have had the book for nearly 3 weeks and am only about 2/3 done. It is so powerful that I can only read 3-4 pages at a time otherwise I get info overload. If communication is important in your career, I highly recommend picking up a copy.

TBL: Any book that has duct tape on the cover has got to be made for engineers!

Today was the one day of my life that I have spent in London. Check out the pictures – Mike, Barry, and I walked nearly 12 miles while seeing all of these sights. In order they are: Platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross, the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, the monument to the fire of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and Piccadilly Circus. I have another big set of today’s pics ready for tomorrow’s blog. Happy Saturday.