Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Mindfulness: Unbundling it from religion

There's a generational divide.  Geezers like Leonard Cohen and the Beatles went to get their training in being present in the now from religious folks.  Today, successful professionals get the secular version.  Hold the religion.  Mindfulness training, without all the religious trappings, is taking place at Raytheon, McKinsey, Ford Motor, Unilever, and General Mills. 

Although a geezer, I have also decided to unbundle mindfulness, or meditating, from its religious platform.  I had to.  In my search for inner peace and clarity, I had trudged off to Buddhist centers. Actually three of them.  That was enough of a sampling to convince me that religion seemed to attract to leadership those needing to control.  The experiences were brutal.  "Bullying" would not be too strong a word.  Acquaintances tell me that there is one Buddhist center in the New Haven, Connecticut Metro area which seems to be bully-free.  I plan to check that out soon. After all, given how mirror neurons operate, we affect each other cell by cell.  By being in a group of meditators I could pick up on their good vibes.

But for now, I remain in the Happy Valley of pure mindfulness.  Several times a day I stop my day.  I sit on the couch.  Next to Jason my feline companion.  We get quiet.  We find our way into the now.

In all three Buddhist centers there were few Millennials.  Will Buddhism die out in the West, if it can't provide consumers with mindfulness without all the dogma?  I might run into different demographics when I sample the fourth Buddhist center in my area.  If I do, I will keep you posted.

Those THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Opinion-Editorials - Killed off by YouTube Advocacy Videos?

Will we ghostwriters be penning fewer opinion-editorials (op-eds) for brandname media like THE WALL STREET JOURNAL?  Instead we could be putting together scripts for online videos in which the speaker argues a point and a social-media expert helps those go viral on YouTube.  Sure seems like that's the direction advocacy is moving in.

Today in THE NEW YORK TIMES, Frank Bruni published the piece titled "Who Needs Reporters?" He explains how instead of giving press conferences or an exclusive to a member of the media, Michele Bachmann and Anthony Weiner said what they had to say via online video.  Of course, one channel of distribution was YouTube.  Hillary Clinton used the same public relations tactic when she endorsed same-sex marriage - late in the game.

With this direct outreach through online video, influentials would no longer be at the mercy of editors.  If they are clever about both how they frame their message and how they distribute it digitally, they become their very own THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Inc.  That means that we ghostwriters have to beef up our scripting credentials.  Then we have to let the influentials know we know how to have their message resonate on the web and mobile.

It's a new day in executive communications.

 

End of the Humanities: Looks that way, at least in some circles

Yesterday I went over a draft of a chapter of a book I was ghostwriting for an entrepreneur under 30.  There was a reference to Jay Gatsby from that classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  He wanted it out.  The target market for the book was Millennials.  That reference wouldn't resonate with them.   At the packed Madison Arts Theatre in Connecticut for the screening of the newest film version of the book, no one was under 40.  When I talk to Millennials about literature they say they read some classics in college and some Shakespeare.  But they haven't bothered with any of that since graduation.

The Humanities seem at their end.  At least in some circles. Me? I will think twice before I insert any references in client assignments.  A better fit will probably be pop culture, such as "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad."

Thank You for Not Sharing Your Photos

No question, we're in a visual era.  But  I have come to select my new friends on the basis of if they spare me the constant updating of their lives and those of their families and pets through photos. 

It used to be in our Baby Boomer youth, young adulthood, and middle age that this visual rite happened only at Christmas.  That cute dog with a red-stocking hat made it onto the family Christmas card. Now, it's several times a day.  And not only on Facebook.

Call it photo fatigue.  I thank my new circle of friends for not sharing their photos.

OUT and THE ADVOCATE: Will they modify upbeat tone?

Alternate-sex lifestyle publications OUT and THE ADVOCATE still arrive snail mail in a plain gray wrapper.  I subscribe to follow trends in outlier media.  However, in the past several months the tone in both has been upbeat.  As it should.  Across generations we have accepted not only gay culture but also gay marriage.

However, with the recent violent hate crimes against gays in Manhattan, a usually liberal mecca, that tone might become more subdued.  NEW YORK Magazine chronicles three incidents.  The battle has not been won.

The success of gay rights, I am convinced, is a model for Baby Boomers to have our own aggressive campaign for better treatment.  We are invisible.  Also, as soon as I walked into job interviews (obviously they hadn't googled me), jaws dropped.  Actually that worked out fine since I have returned to freelancing and am making more money doing that than I would have in any full-time position.

If gays continue to suffer, so will we the aging.

Forward.Us - Facebook doesn't understand power

Is power an old man's game?  Maybe.  Facebook's Millennials have shown they know how to make money.  But their attempt to leverage power to influence public opinion has blown up.

As TECH CRUNCH reports, the Facebook lobbying vehicle Forward.us has become a sort of public nuisance rather than a public-opinion game-changer.  Its mission is to create a conversation about the controversial Keystone Pipeline Initiative.  However it has been doing that in state politics like California in a hardball manner that has been triggering a backlash.  Hardball is the game played in Washington D.C.

In the world of business, companies are not only evaluated on their earnings but also on their power.  The Facebook brand is taking a major hit.  Its founder Mark Zuckerberg looks foolish.

Kevin Cao: Thumbs nose at Harvard acceptance, opts for U of Virginia

Did the Harvard brand just take a major hit?  It did if it values what's communicated about it via social media such as Facebook.

In BOSTON Magazine, Steve Annear reports that high school senior Kevin Cao turned down the acceptance from Harvard. Although he was one of the 5.8% of applicants who are accepted, when he went to visit campus he was turned off.  Both the students and alumni he found snooty and wealthy.  He picked up the vibes of the cut-throat competition.  And he was told that he could be lonely at Harvard.

He wrote all the reasons down why he was thumbing his nose at Harvard and posted it on Facebook and Google docs.  It has gone viral.  The good news is that someone who has been put on the wait list will be let in.

Next years Cao will attend the University of Virginia, which is right in his home state.

Lunch Break Dance Parties: No-tech disruption for tech overload, obesity

With a bit of complimentary Absolut vodka office workers start shaking their booty at lunch time dance parties instead of staying by their computer screens gobbling down a sandwich.

That's the new trend THE NEW YORK TIMES reports.  And this no-tech introduction could disrupt the tech overload among professionals and deep six obesity.  So huge could be its implications that organizations could start creating incentives for employees to get out of the office and onto the dance floor at clubs which provide this time-out.

Before the company gym was introduced, we Baby Boomers remember how restorative it had been to grab our coat and flee the cube for a walk for a few blocks.  Along the way we peeked at store windows and even got fresh ideas for our work.  Instead of consuming a 700-calorie lunch, we might have just sipped a can of those diet meal drinks which were in vogue then.  And, all was right with the world.  We were in control again.

BigPharma such as Johnson & Johnson which is so concerned with obesity and emotional health might partner with the sponsors of these lunch break dance parties.

Y Combinator: We ghostwriters need that kind of pitch boot camp

Y Combinator, Nathaniel Rich at THE NEW YORK TIMES tells us, is a sort of camp where entrepreneurs learn the art of the pitch for funding. 

We ghostwriters need exactly that kind of training in how to sell our services in a changing marketplace.  During the past 18 months, I had to figure out on my own how to sell myself to pick up those growing number of lucrative assignments for print and e- books, articles and opinion-editorials for publication in brandname media, blog posts, white papers, and case studies.

Somewhere during the two recessions in the 21st century, a shift took place.  Instead of just looking for a ghostwriter, prospects recognized they needed a communications strategist, media-placement expert, and pragmatist savvy about repurposing the original content such as for their own media center or direct-response marketing.  When we pitch we have to focus on those requirements.  Demonstrating that we are good at ghostwriting per se is not enough. 

For me that has meant getting the hang of presenting myself as a player, not a inward-looking scribe.  On these sales calls I find out that the prospect has received 200 to 300 replies to an ad or a "casting call" put out there by a recruiter.  From the get-go, I have to speedread their real agenda, such as becoming a brandname in digital marketing, and then explain how I know how to configure the manuscript so that it becomes a platform for that.  Sometimes they might not even be aware that is their end goal. Yes, we have to discern that, quickly.

Just like entrepreneurs we have to master performance art, sending the signal to prospects that we can provide a superior return on their money.  In this case it's a fee for service, not an investment with a 7% stake in profits.

 

 

H7N9: Will this be it?

We survived Sandy and Nemo and weren't in Boston at the time of the Marathon.  Now, some of us are wondering if the H7N9 flu will be "it," that is what does us in, at least here along the Northeast Corridor where so much traveling is done. The World Health Organization classifies it as one of the most lethal strains of bird flu.

There I could be on #4 subway rolling along  to lower Manhattan and the man or woman next to me coughs.  That person has just returned from China.  A few days later I am too tired to finish an article I am ghostwriting.  Within several hours I am in the Emergency Room at Yale Hospital.  Before I die I have exposed many doctors, nurses, and staff to H7N9.  This could make all the tragedies of 2012 and so far in 2013 seem like warm-up acts for the big one.