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Tuesday, March 12, 2013
No Nuts, No Glory
Can you have it almond?Photo by Gary Kazanjian/AP
The first time I ate a nut I was 4 years old.?Almost instantly, I felt a tight itchiness in the back of my throat. Eventually, my pediatrician diagnosed it: a tree nut allergy.?With each subsequent exposure, my reaction intensified. Eventually, eating errant nuts prompted trips to the emergency room.?My mom stocked her purses and my backpacks with EpiPens, Benadryl, and bottles of neuroticism. ??
My food allergies aren?t?and weren?t?as severe as those of Tessa Grosso, the young girl profiled by Melanie Thernstrom in this week?s New York Times Magazine. Thernstrom details the struggles of Tessa and her own severely allergic son, Kieran, as they attempt to do normal things like go to birthday parties, swim, and play with friends at school. The kids are miserable. Tessa, at one point, is so shaken from a reaction that she refuses to eat.
Enter Dr. Kari Nadeau, an associate professor of allergies and immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine. A few years ago, she developed a special oral immunotherapy treatment to eradicate reactions like anaphylaxis in allergic patients. How does she do it? Nadeau desensitizes allergic kids to allergens through exposure. They begin her clinical trial by consuming a miniscule amount of the allergen. Gradually, after a couple of years of increasing the allergen dose, they?re chomping on full servings of the once toxic foods. Nadeau has also discovered she can immunize kids suffering from multiple allergens at once?which is what she did for Tessa and Kieran.
But for me, the revelatory moment of the piece came toward the end. Thernstrom relays happy news: Thanks to Nadeau, Tessa can now tolerate her allergens.
And then, in a line that many readers may pass over, Thernstrom exposes a vital truth about those who suffer from allergies. ?Profound change is profoundly unsettling,? she writes. With the successful treatment, ?Tessa lost a defining aspect of her identity.?
That might be a tough concept for someone without food allergies to grasp. Wouldn?t I love, for example, to eat chocolate souffl? at a restaurant without worrying that the cake contains almond extract?and fearing that the waiter has determined the nut content by peering into the cake?s insides? (?It doesn?t look like it has nuts!?) What if I could stroll into a bakery and select any of the beckoning pastries, regardless of whether the chef made it in a clean bowl?
Of course I want those things. But at the same time, I?m grateful for the positive ways my tree nut allergy has defined my identity. It?s shaped my behavior in ways that transcend restaurant encounters and transfer to my everyday noneating hours.
It has taught me to be assertive and persistent. Restaurant waiters and store clerks are often condescending and flippant when I ask about ingredients. ?You?re fine,? they say with a dry sneer. ?I?ve worked here for a while. I know the menu.? At first, I clammed up in response to their dismissiveness; I never wanted to ?make a scene.? Today, I grill them. I don?t care if it?s a fancy restaurant or if I?m dining with people I don?t know well. A few weeks ago, I was out with my boyfriend at one of Washington?s swankier establishments for Restaurant Week. I told the waiter about my allergy and asked that he talk to the chef but got the sense that he didn?t really care. (Blank stares and silence are always so reassuring.) I continued questioning him as each dish arrived. As it turned out, several of the dishes he brought me did contain nuts, and he had to sweep them away at the last minute.
My nut allergy has also taught me to be my own protector and guardian. Family members and friends mean well, but they?re fallible. (They?re also even more frustrated by my interrogations than restaurant waiters because they?rightly?interpret questions as distrust.) The truth is even one?s best friends and closest family members can forget or overlook ingredients: Long-time residents of allergy world have learned, like Dave Navarro, to trust no one. A couple of years ago, my aunt hosted a wake for my grandmother. She?d been offering food at the house for days, and I?d asked her about every morsel. Her exasperation was obvious. At the wake, I once again asked her what I could eat. She told me everything was safe. I grabbed a slice of marble cake from the kitchen; it contained almond flour. Soon, we were zooming to the ER.
It was a typical trip in that she and my family members were far more rattled than me. That?s because I?ve also learned to remain calm in high-stress situations. When I eat a nut, there?s no time to freak out. If I want to live, I must immediately inject myself with epinephrine (a shot of adrenaline which temporarily halts the effects of anaphylaxis) and explain calmly to those around me what they need to do.
But perhaps the most important skill I?ve learned in nut world is the ability to relinquish control. Inevitably, even after I cross-examine family members and waiters, each bite is still a risk. By learning to let go, I?m able to enjoy my meal and the company. I refuse to live in a bubble of phobia and fear.
Of course, I?m still terrified each time I accidentally pop an almond or walnut. So let me be clear, lest the above exaltation paint me as a total nutcase: I?d happily trade in my anaphylaxis today for a life of carefree cupcake consumption. Dr. Nadeau, sign me up for your next clinical trial. I?ve learned all of the lessons I can from a life of food allergies?and I?m more than ready to discover the perks of an allergy-free life.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=ee8393140b38607686c511a81face555
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Avoid Jargon in Copywriting and Earn More: A Case Study ...
In copywriting 101 we learn to avoid jargon, but that doesn?t mean that we apply the knowledge. If you will not listen to your English teacher, maybe you will listen to Google?
Here is proof that jargon can greatly damage your website?s profitability and effectiveness.
What is Jargon?
Jargon is language that ?dresses up? a message with a sense of importance, but has vague meaning. Experts use jargon all the time, until it becomes second nature. To you, your own jargon is crystal clear. But listen to someone else?s jargon to understand what your jargon sounds like to others.
The natural response to jargon is ?huh??
The Jargon Police, A.K.A copywriters
I?ll borrow the command of master copywriter, Robert W. Bly:
Don?t use insider jargon when writing to non-specialists.
Even when writing to specialists in my MBA program, I found that avoiding jargon whenever possible helped my essays stand out from my classmates? jargon-riddled papers, and earned me higher grades.
My professors can understand MBA jargon perfectly well, except that it takes extra effort even for them. Jargon is difficult to understand even to someone who knows it.
Is jargon always bad?
Bly?s article provides some great examples of when to use jargon (if you are a used car salesman or as a kind of secret handshake among industry insiders).
As a rule of thumb, you should use jargon in your copy less often than swear words, i.e. pretty much never.
Here is another well-written article from professional copywriter, Sid Smith: How Too Much Jargon Will Ruin Your Message. Smith points out that your users cannot understand what to you seems so clear, so you should get out of your head, listen to how your ideal clients describe what you do, and borrow your user?s language to describe your solution.
The takeaway? Avoid unnecessary jargon.
Maybe you are thinking, ?yeah, yeah, I get it. No jargon, yada yada yada. Now leave me alone, word nerds.?
That is what my client thought too, but no longer.
A one-word change = 100x result
Often a little tweak, something we normally overlook, makes the biggest impact.
After some keyword research for a client, I recommended that they use the phrase ?sales tax refund? to describe their services. They opted to use the phrase they always used, sales tax recovery, figuring it was close enough, and more technically proper.
How much difference could it make? Besides, most competitors also call it sales tax recovery. They can?t all be wrong?
Well, maybe they can be.
Here are the number of monthly searches for each of the two terms: 170 for ?sales tax recovery? and 5400 for ?sales tax refund.? Whoa.
[You can do this kind of research right now for free. Search for keyword tool in Google, it will be the first result, and use your free Google account to log in. Check the box for "phrase match" to replicate these results].
Let?s do the math. The simple term?with a mere one-word change?is searched for 31 times more often than the jargon term.
Also, if you notice, the competition for the more popular term is actually lower. More competitors use the ?proper? jargon term too, leaving empty space for competition that uses the term people are actually searching for.
This research suggests that using ?sales tax recovery? instead of ?sales tax refund? will get roughly 100x the results with the same work.
I asked my client the difference between the terms. Is a sales tax refund actually different than recovery? They said the only difference was that ?sales tax recovery? was the proper term. Then I showed them my simple chart.
Although we already sent them a comprehensive keyword report with this data included, sometimes it takes a simple comparison with the simplest possible research to change behavior.
It looks like your English teacher was right. People don?t search for jargon, unless they are experts, in which case they don?t need expert help.
This also illustrates another principle: people don?t care what you do (tax recovery services), they care what is in it for them (tax refunds).
How Jargon Hurts Profits
The refund vs recovery debate concerns one of my client?s high-value, flagship services. A slight edge here means a lot of extra profit in the long-term.
Once a website can convert traffic into revenue, doubling traffic will double revenue. Almost always, doubling revenue more than doubles profit (because your fixed costs remain the same). Jargon not only decreases traffic, but it also decreases conversions, a double whammy.
Okay, so what? Big deal, right? This is just one case and one keyword tweak. Besides, every page will have dozens, even hundreds of keywords.
The point is that applying a few basic copywriting fundamentals to your website?s articles and pages can make a massive difference over time, even if you never do any keyword research at all.
Additionally, ?avoid jargon,? is just one of many advanced copywriting techniques that you can employ to everything you write or speak.
Simple Guidelines for Jargon-free Copy
Learning the principle ?avoid jargon? will not actually prevent you from using jargon, as this case study shows. That is because you need to develop a process for what to do instead, or you will go back to old habits.
Yes, you should use clear and simple language, but the problem is that what is clear and simple to you is not clear and simple to newbies. How do you get around that?
Three things that get in the way of jargon-free copy:
- A desire to appear intelligent and professional.
- A fear that being different than competitors/peers will make you seem weird in a bad way.
- The extreme difficulty of seeing a problem from a beginner?s perspective as an expert (the curse of knowledge).
Now that you understand the problems, you can begin to apply the solutions. I?ll present some simple antidotes.
- Apply the George W. Bush communication strategy: use simple language, repeat a clear and simple message, and don?t be afraid to stumble over your words occasionally. Simple, common language inexpertly delivered helps people trust you more than they otherwise would. In other words, highly effective language conceals its own skill, just as great makeup makes you look like you aren?t wearing any.
- Listen to your users struggle to explain their problems. Capture their exact words. Use their exact language when describing your solution. Hint: the internet saves verbatim records of the struggle to understand your field on help forums and Q&A sites.
- Apply keyword research to uncover the most common terms people use to describe the core problems that you solve with your business.
- Use concrete analogies when your subject is complex, abstract or vague. Concrete means you can visualize it. See this article on vivid analogies?for more depth.
- Test your messages on newbies and watch for confusion. This is the hardest part, but also the biggest opportunity to stand out. You will be surprised how little actually gets across, but most likely your competitors have no idea how little of their message gets across.
It is natural to drag your feet. Jargon busting requires effort and practice. Yet its difficulty is what makes jargon busting such a great way to stand out online.
I totally understand that you are busy. That is why we are working on article-writing templates that walk you through a proven article-writing process. That is why we focus on simple principles that you can apply any time, even while watching TV. And that is why we offer copywriting services.
Okay, so try these simple jargon-busting techniques for at least a week and see if your awareness of jargon and geek-speak is not enhanced. Do you have any additional jargon-busting techniques you find useful? I would love to hear them in the comment section.
Source: http://falconerwebmarketing.com/avoid-jargon/
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Monday, March 11, 2013
The Weekly Roundup for 03.04.2013
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 7 days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/10/the-weekly-roundup-for-03-04-2013/
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Venezuela candidate: Govt exploits Chavez death
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles gestures during a press conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, March 10, 2013. Capriles announced he will run in elections, scheduled for April 14, to replace late President Hugo Chavez, who died of cancer on March 5. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles gestures during a press conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, March 10, 2013. Capriles announced he will run in elections, scheduled for April 14, to replace late President Hugo Chavez, who died of cancer on March 5. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
People queue outside the military academy where Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is lying in state in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, March 10, 2013. Chavez died on March 5 after a nearly two-year bout with cancer. He was 58. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
People rest outside the military academy where Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is lying in state in Caracas, Venezuela, early Sunday, March 10, 2013. People continue to parade to see the body of Chavez, who died of cancer on March 5. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
People enter the military academy to see the body of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez lying in state in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, March 10, 2013. Chavez died on March 5 after a nearly two-year bout with cancer. He was 58. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
People queue outside the military academy to see the body of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez lying in state in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, March 10, 2013. Chavez died of cancer on March 5. He was 58. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles on Sunday launched what many consider a doomed candidacy to replace Hugo Chavez with a no-holds-barred attack against a government he accused of coldly betraying Venezuelans' trust.
Chavez's political heirs have toyed with Venezuelans' hopes, lying to them about his deteriorating health by suggesting he could recover and even producing decrees he supposedly signed, said Capriles, whom Chavez defeated by a 12-point margin in October.
He did not make direct reference to the decision to embalm Chavez and put him on permanent display, but he said: "You are playing politics with the president's body."
Capriles accused the socialist government that Chavez left behind after 14 years in power of meticulously planning a campaign to assure the election of Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's desired successor.
"Who knows when President Chavez (really) died," he asked. The government says Chavez succumbed to cancer on Tuesday after a nearly two-year battle. It has offered almost no clinical information.
Capriles also called Defense Minister Diego Molero a "disgrace" for publicly backing Maduro. The constitution forbids the military from taking political sides.
"Don't fool yourselves that you're the good and we're the bad," Capriles said in a 45-minute speech at his eastern Caracas campaign headquarters. "No, you're no better than us. I don't play with death. I don't play with pain."
A picture of Chavez behind him, Maduro appeared almost immediately afterward on state TV, accusing "the losing, miserable candidate" of defaming Chavez and his family.
He called Capriles a "fascist" trying to provoke violence by insulting the "crystalline, pure image of Commander Chavez."
"You have made the biggest mistake of your life," Maduro said. He said that if Chavez's family seeks legal action "don't say afterward that you are being politically persecuted."
Capriles, a state governor, acknowledged facing long odds against a candidate who wields vast public resources and a state media machine ? and has the backing of the country's electoral council.
"As one person said today, 'Capriles, they are taking you to a slaughterhouse. Are you going to be lowered into its meat grinder?'" he said.
Capriles said, however, that he felt he had no other choice.
"How am I not going to fight?" he said. "How are we not going to fight? This is not Capriles' fight. This is everybody's fight."
In some upper-class districts of the capital, people launched fireworks, shouted and honked horns as Capriles announced he would run. Political analysts wondered where the Capriles they witnessed on Sunday had been during last year's campaign.
Capriles laid out potential major themes for his campaign, bemoaning violent crime, persistent poverty and a troubled economy that led the government to devalue the currency last month by more than 30 percent.
The electoral council has set the vote for April 14. Formal campaigning begins just 12 days earlier.
Unlike Capriles, Maduro made repeated references to the possibility of violence in the superheated, abbreviated campaign ahead.
Yet he also called for calm.
"We have to continue to rise above every provocation with peace, peace, peace and peace," Maduro said. "Respect, respect, respect."
Opposition critics say Maduro's swearing-in Friday as acting president was unconstitutional. The charter designates the National Assembly interim head of state if a president-elect cannot be sworn in.
Capriles decided to run fully aware that a second presidential defeat could end his political career.
Political consultant Oswaldo Ramirez, who is advising the Capriles campaign, said the candidate must strike a balance between criticizing the failures of Chavez's government and Maduro's role in it, without being seen as attacking the late president.
"He can't speak badly of Chavez, because this feeling on the street is still in full bloom," Ramirez said.
Public opinion was as divided as always Sunday in a country that became dramatically more polarized during Chavez's 14-year rule.
"It's not fair," said Jose Mendez, a 54-year-old businessman of the choice the opposition leader faces. "(Maduro) has an advantage, because of everything they have done since Chavez's death, all the sentiment they've created ... But the guy has nothing. He can't hold a candle to Chavez."
But Ramon Romero said the opposition was just making excuses, and had no chance of victory in any case.
"Now their odds are even worse," said the 64-year-old waiter and staunch Chavez supporter. "They don't care about anyone, and we (the voters) have been lifted out of darkness."
___
Associated Press writers Jack Chang, Frank Bajak, Paul Haven and E. Eduardo Castillo contributed to this report.
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GitHub Hit With Another DDoS Attack, Second In Two Days, And ?Major Service Outage?
Services on code-sharing site GitHub have been disrupted for over an hour in what started as a "major service outage" because of a "brief DDoS attack." This is the second DDoS attack in as many days and at least the third in the last several months: Yesterday, GitHub also reported a DDoS incident. And in October 2012, the service also went down due to malicious hackers.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Tb8YPrOJx3Y/
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