Right depository

We give to various charities - church (not just our own) plus other organizations that touch our heart in one way or another. We're very lucky to have what we have and like to express our thankfulness to God by spreading it around. But I've started to notice one thing. The smaller the organization (church or charity), with presumably the higher need of donations due to lack of cash, the more inefficient their cashing of a check. Whereas the larger the entity the more quickly they get those funds deposited and cleared. Isn't that weird?

On the one hand it is obvious that a larger organization can dedicate people to doing such things. If they have paid staff working in finance they can even designate that making a bank run every day is part of someone's job description. I get that.

Here's the thing - we often get heartfelt, sincere and I am sure quite truthful pleas for support from this small organization or that one. And we are glad to help. But while I am not necessarily expecting them to run to the bank immediately upon receipt of my check, clutching it happily in their fist as they skip into the branch building and slapping it on the counter, shouting at the teller, "Lookit this! Howzabout dat for support? Eh?! Eh?!", I am looking for a semi-timely deposit of my gift. For one, it helps me keep my books in order.

However, there's another point here. If you are part of a small organization and you claim to be heavily in need of funds, then if you receive gifts in the form of checks and don't make semi-regular deposits at your bank (is "within a week" too much to ask?), your actions are belying your words. You are sending one message with your mouth ("Please give"), and another with your inefficiency ("Whatever.") That inaction ends up translating to, "They must not really be that desperate for money, if they can let un-cashed checks lie around indefinitely."

There are some organizations we give to that literally take up to a month (or more) to cash checks - sometimes for every check we send. Really.

Really?


Really.

Even accounting for transit time, clearinghouses, etc., that's sitting on funds for two to three weeks. In general school organizations are the worst at this, and it doesn't seem to matter which school. One month delays are the norm there. But other sacred, social, secular and scholastic non-profits are also bad about it.


I mean, this isn't bills, this isn't expenses. This is income. I don't know about you but while we're not at the door of the pauper house I am not one to let a paycheck just sit around un-deposited. "Oh, we'll get to that sometime. It's only money, har har!" I would think for some start-up charity where a cash crunch would be a normal state of affairs, at least a weekly run to the bank would be a good, businesslike thing to do. In fact, I would look at it as a stewardship thing to do. If you aren't being a good steward of the gifts given maybe you don't deserve more gifts. Not because you're bad, or the cause is bad, but because you're not an efficient avenue for that help and some other group can make better use of that money, getting it working for them and the need they are serving quickly.

Which is the whole point, isn't it?

So my message to any small charity is this - if you really need the funds you are raising then act like it when you receive them. You don't need to waste gas and scant volunteer time with a daily trip to the bank but at least a weekly trip is probably in order. Your actions or inactions will speak louder than words. If you want people to support your charity then act like you notice when they do. Set a goal to deposit those checks within five business days. Is that too much to ask in return for my support? To act like you need the money you requested in the first place?

Spiral cut spam

I tend to write in a "spiral," not linearly. I think that is a big secret to my approach to writing, and one that was not explicitly taught to me. The common approach for teaching creative writing is to "just write." To spew out your thoughts unedited so you can get them down and then refine them later. That is a good way to get past "writer's block." But I don't think it goes far enough in helping, because it implies that "just writing" is still done the way most people think writing is done - in a linear fashion. And that is what causes true writer's block. It implies knowing where you're starting, what you're going to say and where you're going to end before you even know what the hell you're going to write about in the first place.

Sometimes I can sit down and write out a long rant in one pass. [Hint: If I ever use the word "screed" in something, that is probably how it was written.] But often I start with a shell, a shadow of an idea, and will fill it in and figure it out as I go. For that type of writing a direct, straight line is never the right way to approach it. Instead I "spiral" in on the idea. I may write a bit of the beginning, then suddenly know what I am going to say at the end, after which something I want to say in the middle shows up. Thinking of a (usually cute or ironic) title helps (see above). And I rearrange during the whole process incessantly, which is not the same as "editing" in the sense of "critically thinking about it, correcting and excising." I page up and down furiously, transferring text, filling in a sentence, then that changes something I want to say later and I race back down to capture that. Over and over and over again, until something in me says, "Finished."

Earlier tonight I wrote the following screed (see hint, above) to help a fellow student who was having trouble getting started with a term paper for class. It describes my approach to writing about as well as anything, so I thought I would capture my process here (since it gives me a blog post - I am a big believer in recycling). My advice:

I would concur that just starting to write (while turning off the internal editor until you're finished) is best. But that can be hard to do. Here are some practical tips I've evolved over the years and used in the current assignment:

1. Create your new Word doc. Title it, put your name on it, get the headers and footers set up for page numbers, font size and line spacing for the paragraphs, etc. There! One thing done! Only 99 left to go. :)
2. Lay out a few section headers titled for where you think you may be headed. NOTE: These are not permanent! They are just way stations and placeholders.
3. As thoughts come to you - from one word that reminds you of something you want to cover later to a whole paragraph of inspiration, WRITE IT IN THE DOC, AS QUICK AS YOU CAN TYPE IT, in the "appropriate" section.
4. Ctrl-X (cut) and Ctrl-V (paste) are your friends, as are Page Up and Page Down. I write something quickly, then realize five minutes later it belongs with something two pages up, so I cut and paste it right then. BUT I STILL DON'T EDIT, not yet. This is just "organizing" and watching my thoughts coalesce.
5. Be open to the possibility that halfway through the paper your focus will change - that something is suddenly going to jump out at you as a "theme" you didn't even know existed when you started. This happened to me in this very paper, in fact. I was going in one direction and ended up in a completely different place, and threw away about a third of what I wrote on the way. THIS IS A GOOD THING, not to be seen as a "loss" of that work. It means when you find that theme you will suddenly have the bursts of inspiration, because now you know what you're going to say, where you're going.
6. Wander in front of your bookshelf a few times, looking at other books you've read in the past that may have something to bear on the topic at hand. Pull 'em out. If you have dog-eared pages or highlighted sections, glance through them. Do they have something relevant to say? If so, use it. If not, don't. Let the "past you" who thought certain theological points important enough to remember help the "current you" by pointing them out via those highlights. Gee, you just experienced time travel! Pat the "past you" on the back and say, "Thanks, pal! I owe you one!" :)
7. Lather, rinse, repeat.
8. DON'T WORRY ABOUT POLISHING UNTIL YOU ARE 75% FINISHED. Then, start getting a bit more serious about editing. Continue to cut and paste stuff around to make it "flow" better. This process will actually help you refine your points and you'll come up with still more to say, hopefully.

As a follow up I would add that for me the first pass at editing at the end is removing 95% of all the commas.

Anyway, this process works for me, and has for a couple of decades now. It was only in the past five years or so that I actually started to recognize it as my "process" and appreciate it and let it work for me, as opposed to trying to write "the right way." It helps.

So...How do you write? Do you have any "tricks" that help you get "unstuck?"

Say it again, Sam

A few days ago I overheard a conversation that was happening far enough away that I could hear the "notes" of the voices but not understand the words. It hit me that all cultures have a certain "music" to their language. Think of someone exclaiming, "Hi! How are you?" I bet in your head you played a certain "tune." And I bet if we each hummed or whistled or played that tune we'd be real close in terms of the notes and duration - the "melody" of the phrase.

That got me to wondering if there are some linguistic tunes that are the same or similar across cultures? Could we recognize some phrases simply by their melody? Obviously there are other "songs" when speaking that are not the same in each language. Could those cause conflict, especially if one is speaking in a language that is not their native one? We all know that differences in accents and where someone puts emPHASis on different sylLABles can cause difficulties in understanding. Can a change in pitch, cadence and literally the notes used in speaking also cause such problems?

Since then, I've also started noticing people who speak in more of a monotone, and how hard it is to follow what they're saying. Their "song" is missing, and that causes the communication to be less efficient, it seems.

Have you ever noticed any of this?

So, whaddya wanna talk about?

A quick one today. It hit me this morning that if the Bible enjoins us to refrain from gossip (and it does), and (being humble) we're also supposed to keep from talking about ourselves, then if everyone follows just those two rules:

1. Don't talk about others.
2. Don't talk about yourself.

...the amount of allowable conversation topics just got a lot smaller. Worse, it will be driven toward the sort of inane "small talk" that drives me crazy - the weather, sports (but not anything personal about the players, obviously), politics (but not anything personal about the politicians, obviously) and entertainment (but not anything personal about the entertainers, obviously). Actually, looking over that list, you can roll it all up into "weather and entertainment."

We are supposed to be in community. We are supposed to care about one another. But that seems real hard to do if we can't talk about each other or ourselves. All those long, awkward pauses I feel when interacting with others? The ones that occur not because I am not thinking of anything to say, but because from personal experience I know better than to say it? Those just got a lot longer and more awkward.

So...how 'bout that weather? Sure is somethin', huh?

PURLs of wisdom

A friend posted an interesting experience he had the other day on Facebook. He had been checking out a company's web site and later on they called him (without him asking) to see if he needed any help or further information. His response, and the response of all his friends in the thread, varied between "I'm never doing business with that company!" to "Creepy!" I think pretty much anyone would respond that way to what appears to be an "unsolicited" phone call.

I followed up with him and it turns out he had clicked through on a link in an email that was in response to a request for info he had sent in to them. Which brings us to our topic of "personalized URLs," or "PURLs" (pronounced "pearls"). PURLs are simply URLs, or web addresses, that, surprise!, have been personalized to uniquely identify you when you click on them. They are a hot thing in marketing right now, because they allow a company that uses them to:

• Customize the "landing page" you arrive at to be specifically tailored to your interests.
• Track which pages you go to and the amount of time you spend on each page.
• Monitor further requests you make for information, helping to determine their marketing campaign's effectiveness.
• Follow up with further emails (or in this extreme example, phone calls!) that are even more specific.

The whole process of using PURLs in conjunction with targeted marketing campaigns is called "lead nurturing," and it's a hot topic in marketing.

Now, before you get all "That's Big Brother!" in reaction, remember, most businesses could care less about invading your privacy. What they are really looking for is (a) finding new customers (b) to provide with exactly what they need (c) in the most efficient mechanism possible (d) for both the company and the customer. And PURLs are a good way to help in that process. It is no more nefarious than the tracking and suggestions that Amazon or Netflix make (both of which can be quite good), except it can happen without any prior relationship with you in place. All it takes is your email address (and hopefully some inkling of what you're interested in).

However, there are still times when you obviously don't feel like being "nurtured." You just want some information so you can mull it over, and if you're interested you'll come back. That's it. So, how to protect against PURLs in those situations?

• Remember, this has nothing to do with tracking based on browser cookies (although it is often used in conjunction with them), so turning off cookies or using your browser's "anonymous" browsing functionality will not help protect you - all the information they need is in the link itself.
• Don't click on links in emails. For security purposes this can be a good idea, anyway. For avoiding PURLs, it is essential. In most mail clients if you hover over a link it will show you the URL, or address, so you can tell where you are going to land if you click on it (this is always a good idea). If the address has a long string of gobbledygook characters in it, it is quite likely a PURL. 
• Don't ask for information from a company and give them your email address unless you want them to start tracking you via PURLs when they send you a response.

If you receive an email with links with PURLs in them, you can still go check out the web site without triggering the PURL tracking. Simply open a new tab in your browser window and type in the base part of the address (just the domain name) without the rest in there. For example, if the PURL is:

http://weknowwhoyouare.com/3edf-387ufewnmf3==ed08ifefd3er

...or:

http://3ff390dfgf3q2g.weknowwhoyouare.com/

...then you can simply browse to weknowwhoyouare.com and check it out without them knowing it is related to that email marketing campaign. If you are really paranoid (but still interested) turn on anonymous browsing and obviously don't give any personally identifying information (PII - such as email addresses) unless you decide to do business with them.

You should note that in the extreme example of a company being so tone-deaf as the one who started off this thread, it is quite probable that they will say they are protected from prosecution from the "no-call list" law because it all started with a simple request for information from a potential customer, to which they responded with an email, to which he clicked through on a link and motored around on their site. So there was an "initial request for information," which is probably enough of a "business relationship" to "justify" their being able to do a lukewarm call (not exactly a "cold call").

Hopefully this helps. And again, remember, most companies aren't trying to be evil with PURLs. Just efficient. And there are times when you may want that efficiency. In which case, click away! But you should now know enough to know when you want to be "nurtured," and what to do when you want to be left alone. So don't cast your PURLs before swine (sorry, I couldn't resist! :).

A reflection on domestic violence

It's "Domestic Violence Month." Of course, for the unfortunates in that situation, every month is domestic violence month. And it's a sad world we live in when some locales denote the month by decriminalizing wife beating (and shame on the city government of Topeka - what douche bags).

My daughter Meghann wrote a piece about domestic violence and how it has affected her and her husband through some neighbors they had in Texas. I recommend reading it. I am proud of her for writing it. I am proud of both of them for trying to help. I am sitting here after reading it with tears in my eyes - proud.

I was in the midst of commenting on her post when I just kept writing and writing, until I finally realized, "Instead of spamming her post with this, I had better spam my blog viewers with it, instead." So, here:


When I was 29 or 30, I volunteered for a mental health hotline in Kansas City. As someone who had wrestled with suicidal thoughts and made multiple attempts up until one that proved to me that I didn't really want to go that route, I felt it was a karmic thing - something to pay back. I was glad to do it.

On the hot line, we had lots of training - both up front before we were allowed on the phones and ongoing. How to talk to someone who's suicidal. How to talk to someone who's mentally ill. What resources are available. What resources are available at 12:30am on a Sunday morning. We had a whole day of training just on domestic violence - what you can and can't say, including things not to say because it will make it worse by making her stay with the jerk. It was eye-opening. Basically, my side of the script was:


"Here's the number. Call the shelter. They will help you."

That's really all you could say. If you came down too hard on the guy, you might cause her to actually defend him. If you tried to tell her what to do, she could reject that as too scary. All you could do was calmly give her the info and encourage her to use it.

"Here's the number. Call the shelter. They will help you."

What finally made me leave that volunteer gig weren't the calls from the depressed, the suicides, the random crazies - like the guy who liked to repeatedly call and ask the volunteers what kind of shoes they were wearing...really. That became part of the shift turnover report: "Oh, and the 'shoe guy' is calling again." It was funny. And I was actually pretty darned good with the suicidal calls, having been there myself.

No, what made me quit were the domestic violence calls. Because they were always the same. Always.

Always.

They were right out of the training scripts, actually. And in every case, she would be on the phone (it was always a she - I know there are men who get abused, but the numbers are just much, much lower) and in between describing her fear, telling whatever horrific thing had just happened to finally trigger her to call for help, me trying to give her options and numbers to call, etc., she would be DEFENDING him. "I know he's a good guy on the inside, he just has trouble controlling his temper." "I know I give him reasons to be mad at me." "I know he really loves me deep down." Sickening.

There was one call I'll never forget. She was calling from a phone booth in the middle of the night (my shift was usually 10:00 to 1:00 or 2:00, something like that), her little children huddled around her legs, telling me of her fear because the beating had been bad, and she knew he was out driving around, looking for her, and it would be bad again when he found her.

"Here's the number. Call the shelter. They will help you."

"I know he loves me..."

"Here's the number. Call the shelter. They will help you."

"I'm afraid my kids and I won't have a place to live. And sometimes he can be really nice..."

"Here's the number. Call the shelter. They will help you."

"I just don't know what to do..."


"Here's the number. Call the shelter. They will help you."

She ended up hanging up. I still don't know what happened to her and her children. I can only pray she took the numbers and called one of them. Please. God, please. Please.

It was shortly after that call that I stopped volunteering on the hot line. Because I knew I couldn't keep doing it and stay "on script." Sooner or later, I was going to say, "Tell me where you're at, I'll come get you." Then I was going to continue, "And then we'll go get a gun and hunt the SOB down and take care of the problem once and for all."

That wouldn't have been helpful.

So there are other brave souls out there manning those phones instead. I think they are heroes, because they are doing something I can't do.

I have been lucky - I grew up in a loving household without abuse, try to provide the same to my wife and kids, and honestly don't know of anyone who is in that situation. I know it is a "hidden crime," and more common than most of us think, but I honestly don't think any of my close family or friends are in that type of relationship. If they are, I hope they reach out to Les and me. And I hope we're as brave as my daughter and her husband in trying to help them.

And I hope you are, too.

Or, if you are in that situation...

Here's the number. Call the shelter. They will help you.

1-800-799-SAFE or visit www.TheHotline.org

Too big to be good

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."- Kay

The above is almost a truism. With very few exceptions, it's hard to find a completely unlikable human, let alone a completely evil one. Jerks exists, yes - there would be no time-share condo salespeople nor megalomaniacal dictators nor talk radio hosts if they didn't. But even jerks will coo to a puppy in their "dog voice" or answer a toddler's ringing toy phone:

No, instead, something happens when we get together in groups. And it doesn't seem to matter the purpose of the group. A business. A political organization. A religion. A neighborhood association. A poker party. A family. Humans acting together causes normally nice folk, people who will say "Ah...Wookit da doggy!" and compliment you on your pictures of your kid or grandkid, to act like dishonest, mean, calculating, cruel, uncaring, inhuman jerks.

Lots of reasons have been given as to why. Depending on your philosophical outlook, it can range anywhere from original sin to class struggles caused by dialectical materialism. Regardless, there seem to be a few common factors:

• There is no way to stop it from happening.
• The bigger the group, the worse it gets.
• Some people are "amplifiers" who can make an entire group worse.

I think I've come up with yet another theory as to why it happens. I don't know if this can lead to any insight into how to stop it, though, although it does argue for a limit on the ultimate size of a group for it to remain "good" (which unfortunately does not equal "effective").

Let's take as a given that no person is 100% "good" - honest, likable, straight-dealing - however you want to measure "good." If everyone is just 98% "good," that's all the explanation we need for why groups go to hell in a handbasket, and quickly.

You would think that if you had fifty people who were 98% good, then the "goodness" of the group would also be 98%, that is, the average of everyone's goodness. But I don't think a group's goodness is an average. I think it's multiplicative - every person in the group, interacting with the others in the group, magnifies each other's non-goodness. In other words, a group of fifty people, each of whom is 98% "good," is not a 98% "good" group. Instead, it is:

x = 0.98⁵⁰ = 0.36417 = 36% good

You'll note that fifty's not that large of a group, and the above is counting on everyone being so nice you couldn't actually stand to be around any of them. In reality, the spread of "goodness" within the group population will be wider, and the negative effects much more pronounced. For example, a single jerk, someone who is 50% "good," can make the above group of fifty people worse - fast:

x = 0.98⁴⁹ * 0.5 = 0.3716 * 0.5 = 0.1858 = 19% good

Now, obviously this weights every person in the group and their influence on all other people equally, when in reality some will have more impact, especially those in higher (management or leadership) positions. But that just proves the point more. Because as people rise in a group, the type of people who tend to rise (broad generalization, I know) are going to be the ones who leave their goodness at the door. Yes, I am sure honest executives and politicians exist - but I am more likely of ruining the grill on my truck by hitting a unicorn on the way home from work than of personally knowing one. And the bigger the group, the less likely the people at the upper reaches are "good," even as their impact on the group grows.

Now, let's get back to the sizing of groups. Even if we give everyone the benefit of the doubt and count every person worthy of veneration, the above still implies there is a limit to the size of a group before its "goodness" crosses below the 50^th percentile and moves into evilness. A bit of back-of-the-envelope fiddling leads to the following:

x = 0.98³⁴ = 0.50314 = 50% good

So, this would lead you to think that up to 34 people, you're OK - your group is "good." But remember, that's with every single person in that group being at 98% "goodness," and especially with no one less than that in a position of power. That ain't gonna happen. So in all likelihood I am betting the number is lower...much lower. Ten? Five? Somewhere in there, most likely.

Anyway, the next time you wonder, "How could x get to be so cruel/dishonest/fucked-up?" (where x is a club, committee, church, company or country), all you have to remember is that if x is larger than 34 people, it's all in the numbers. They're screwed simply because they're too big to be otherwise.

Make sense?

Well, that was "Qwik"

A month ago, as part of the Netflix fiasco, I pointed out that with the name "Qwikster" they were keeping all the "goodwill" in the Netflix brand name on the streaming side. Well, apparently I wasn't the only one who thought that was a bad move. Here is the announcement from Netflix CEO saying that DVDs will be staying at Netflix. Which still doesn't change the point of my original post - I think all of this is just part of the death throes of physical media.

Some fall photos around Jeff City

Yesterday Erin and I got up early to go take photos around town. She is in a digital photography class at school and had some assignments to get finished, whereas I was just the chauffeur with a cell phone camera. Which had some odd settings turned on, apparently, because a lot of my shots came out "funny." Even so, there were a few good ones, I thought. Hope you agree.

The underlying issue

I am sure it will shock some readers here, but I just finished reading a book that wasn't about religion (although, once my agnostic and atheist friends see the title, they'll tell me it still was). The book is The Big Con, by David Maurer. I picked it up from the bargain shelves at the local Barnes & Noble.

The book, by a linguist, is about the specialized argot used by con(fidence) men. But to explain what it all means, the author ends up describing what it takes to make a good con man, what the roles were, the various schemes (as of 1940), how grifters picked out "marks" (victims - read as "you and me"). It was a fascinating read. In fact, the movie The Sting is based on the book and one of the schemes described in it ("The Wire").

But to me the most interesting part was about the marks. Because it turns out that cons, all cons, are based on one thing - the greed and cupidity of the victim. None of the cons work unless the mark is trying to make "something for nothing." In fact, many of them work by getting the mark to believe he is actually helping defraud someone else. Not only was it a fact of human nature that made it easy to find potential suckers, but it helped limit their ability to go to the police - "Officer! There's been a crime committed! Well, ya see, we were trying to cheat this guy out of $10,000 and instead they cheated ME! Wait! Where are you taking me?"

I thought two things through the whole book. First, while the schemes seem dated now, I am sure - positive - that they are being run in one form or another today, this very minute (Bernie Madoff, anyone?). Second, what makes me sure of that is because human greed is constant. We see news reports all the time about people falling for some Ponzi scheme, something that seemed "too good to be true," and was. And we smugly think, "How could anyone be that stupid?"

I hope I never find out.

You gotta problem with that?

I hate conflict.

No, really. I HATE conflict.

This may seem strange to many people who know me - especially people who think they know me because they've worked with me (where I can project a very different front as a defense mechanism), or who are a tangential "friend," distant relative, or someone who just stops by and reads the various bits and bytes I spew here and on Facebook, Twitter and g+, where I sometimes come across very aggressive, without even the benefit of the passive part.

But if you are close enough to me that you've spawned me, been spawned by me, practiced spawning with me, can name everyone I've ever practiced spawning with or its outcomes, have helped me move one of the 19 times since I turned 18, or in general put up with my shit for more than a decade and still return my emails and phone calls, then chances are you're a "hide the body" kind of friend. And that means you know.

I hate conflict.

It's really no surprise. Most people do, I think. I mean, we all know there are some who seem to enjoy it, to feed on it, to need it. But we're not talking about prison guards and debt collectors. Average people mostly want everything to be "nice."

For me the thing I've started noticing is that I actually hate conflict to the point that avoiding it causes other problems. I need to make some changes with various businesses Les and I use and keep putting it off, because even though doing so will save us money, I fear the possibility of the momentary conflict that may arise while it happens. Some person I don't even know,who I will only interact with for five minutes on the phone, may try and thwart me by being momentarily unpleasant. They may give me a hassle. Express their disappointment. So I delay, over and over.

There is another situation where I need to tell someone I have changed membership from their organization to another, and I feel I owe them an explanation as to why (and why that means I haven't been participating for some time now), but I am afraid that the conversation may end up being heated, even though it probably won't, and I don't want that to happen. I like and respect this person, so I want to remain on good terms with them, and fear it may not end well. So instead, it is just like I've disappeared for no reason whatsoever, which is worse.

A while back I was delving into procrastination and read an excellent book about it - The Now Habit (recommended). One of the things the book pushed was the idea that often, when we procrastinate, we are actually getting a reward for stalling. That reward may be something like simply wanting to do something fun instead. But often it is by holding off something unpleasant, even though that means the unpleasantness simply "collects interest" while it is waiting. And I realized that often my procrastination is built upon conflict avoidance.

So, a goal I've set for myself is to start trying to step up and face these things, without any emotional escalation. To acknowledge, "Yes, there may be some conflict in this," preparing for it, and then getting on with it. I think I need to develop and practice some standard procedures for this, so I can act in a practiced manner and not just react, or worse yet, not act at all. I will never enjoy conflict, but I need to put my fear of it in its place and get on with my life.

You gotta problem with that?