5 Principles of "Freakonomics"

I'm reading a book so provocative and amazing that it is challenging many of the "self evident" truths that I've held for quite some time now.

For example, did you ever consider that the late-90s precipitous drop in crime rates in large American cities, including NYC, could very well be a delayed effect of Roe vs. Wade decision? WOW!

Steven Levitt (Univ of Chicago and MIT) is obviously not your typical economist since he asks questions like "what are the similarities between the way sumo wrestlers and school teachers act?"

Here are the 5 tenets on which "Freakonomics" rests:

1) Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life.

2) The conventional wisdom is often wrong.

3) Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle, causes.

4) "Experts" -- from criminologists to real-estate agents -- use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda.

5) Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so.

When we write and design information, isn't that what we all are trying to achieve -- to make a complicated world less so?

Even in sales, you won't sell anything unless you can reduce a list of complicated features into a few solid benefits, correct?

I recommend this book to all my readers who would like to understand not how the modern world SHOULD work, but how it really DOES.

If you like a "tuneup from the neckup" (as Zig Ziglar used to say) you'll enjoy this gem of a book.

The Official Freakonomics Blog

New York Times Magazine Freakonomics Column

Know Thyself, and while you are at it...

"If you know yourself and your enemy, you will not fear battle.

"If you know yourself but not your enemy, you will lose a battle for every one that you win.

"If you do not know yourself and do not know your enemy, you will never see victory."

~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

FREE Copy for Non-Profits in Need

Good morning folks! This morning I woke up with a great inspiration.

If you are a 501(c)3 tax-exempt non-profit organization in need of non-commercial copy for a good charitable cause, yet you are in no position to pay the $75 to $200 hourly fees that most professional copy writers like myself regularly charge, then don't despair.

I've decided to donate each month a certain portion of my time to one such qualified organization on a first-come first-served basis. This would be my own small way of giving back to the world what I received so generously from it -- this precious gift of language and creative expression.

There is no gimmick, no fine-print, no nothing to this offer. It is exactly what it reads like.

If you are one such organization please write to me at writer111[REMOVE this first to prevent spam]@gmail.com and explain your situation and your need. If I think you qualify for my free copywriting offer, I would be happy and honored to be in your service, time permitting.

My thanks in advance for helping us make this world a better place to live, one correctly-chosen word and one well-turned phrase at a time.

QR Code Revolution is on its way

A sample QR Code

Barcode, move aside! QR CODE is here.

Soon we will be pushing flash movies, coupons, MP3 files, good-old text and god knows what else to our cell phones by pointing their tiny built-in cameras to a QR Code, taking a snapshot, and then pressing the SEND button.

The revolution is already well underway in Japan and it's just a matter of time before it reaches the American shores.

Imagine, you are at the supermarket. You see an odd looking bottle of something on the shelf with a QR Code on it.

You point your cell phone camera at it, take a snapshot and push SEND and presto!

Soon you are watching a video about how to use the product, its benefits, complete with a 15% discount coupon that you can use right there at the same store!

Welcome to the 21st century and make all your marketing plans accordingly.

Click here for an excellent article on QR Codes

Facts and Metaphors

“… Facts have a way of yielding to nuance like a jury to a trial lawyer. Under the right influence, they will go along with anything. But the metaphors remain… and continue to give useful service long after the facts have changed.

What's more, metaphors help people understand the world and its workings. As Norman Mailer recently put it, "There is much more truth in a metaphor than in a fact." But the trouble with metaphors is that no matter how true they may be when they are fresh and clever, when the multitudes pick them up, they almost immediately become worn out and false. For the whole truth is always complex to the point of being unknowable, even to the world's greatest geniuses.

The world never works the way people think it does. That is not to say that every idea about how the world works is wrong, but that often particular ideas about how it works will prove to be wrong if they are held in common. For only simple ideas can be held by large groups of people. Commonly held ideas are almost always dumbed down until they are practically lies… and often dangerous ones. Once vast numbers of people have come to believe the lie, they adjust their own behavior to bring themselves into sync with it, and thereby change the world itself. The world, then, no longer resembles the one that gave rise to the original insight. Soon, a person's situation is so at odds with the world as it really is that a crisis develops, and he or she must seek a new metaphor for explanation and guidance…”

By Bill Bonner
President, Agora Publishing