Why we need a new definition of conversion

Those of you who work in a Marketing capacity already know what a conversion is. For the others, a conversion is the process by which a marketer manages to get a prospect to perform a desired action. For instance filling up a form to obtain a whitepaper or purchasing a good after receiving a promotional e-mail.

Conversion has traditionally been the objective of every marketer. If scoped and executed well, the conversion process gets him closer to his ultimate goal: nurturing a contact into a lead and passing it on to sales. A lot of things are measured against it. Most ROI calculations for a given marketing activity involve the conversion rate (the percentage of contacts who ultimately performed the conversion action out of the total initial base). To say it’s at the heart of every marketer’s life is an understatement.

Enter Social Media.

If there’s one thing that Social Media is changing forever, it’s the very act of “converting”. How do you measure conversion in social media ? What is a conversion in this new reality ?

Certainly not the fact of filling up a form and register. After all, the individual and his/her identity (you and your audience) is at the very heart of the social media activity, so there’s no need to play hide and seek anymore. Does this new conversion consists in getting someone to attend an event, download a piece of content or click the purchase now button? That’s certainly part of it, but if it’s your only way of measuring conversion, you’re missing the entire point of social media.

Conversions have become conversations.

That, in my opinion, is the key to social media marketing. It’s not about blindly pushing content or offers in the arms of your audience praying for some of it to stick. It’s about triggering (sometimes), provoking (often) and participating in these conversations. You can’t ‘convert’ contact anymore these days (or let’s agree less and less), but you can certainly ‘converse’ with them, and that is a lot more powerful than any other devious marketing scheme you could come up with.

What do you think ? Are conversations the new conversion ?

Why marketing managers should practice their kung-fu

When one thinks about the duties of a marketing manager, a number of pictures come to mind: team meetings, tight budgets, creative sessions, ... This is all true of course, but there’s a large part of being a marketing manager that’s often overlooked, even by practitioners of the art, and that’s the part where you actually do something.

Being in that position myself, I’ve had the privilege to observe many of my peers exclusively focus on part 1 of the job, the management part. Not to take anything away from them, they’re not too bad at it more often than not. At least they try to be as good and effective as possible in managing. However the time they spent managing seemed to be inversely proportional to the time they spent doing.

Let’s face: it too many “marketing managers” fall short when it comes to the do part, and most of the times this part translates in get it done (by someone else).

I honestly don’t think you can be good at managing something unless you’ve experienced it firsthand before. It’s true for every job you can think about. Who’s going to be the most qualified to run the medical team of a hospital ? A doctor or someone who’s only knowledge of medicine is theoretical ? Who’s the best foreman ? The son’s boss or the guy with 10 years experience on the construction site ?

Same goes for Marketing. In this age where online and social marketing are a prevalent and disruptive force on the marketing job market, you can’t pretend you know anything about these things unless you’ve experienced it firsthand.

And by firsthand I mean real firsthand. Below are examples of some of the things I believe marketing managers should have a hands-on knowledge of:

• Know your web site: don’t need to be a web developer, but you need to understand that everything that goes there is your window to the world. Corporate web sites are the #2 source of information for buyers after search engine. You should be familiar with your information architecture and know your analytics by heart. You should have established clear metrics and conversion goals for the things that are going to matter to your funnel.
• Know your search engine: understand the impact of your web site on your ranking, have some basic SEO notions and get the help of the pros when you really want to make a difference. Understand your web advertising process and know how you can save money or increase your conversions
• Know your e-mail marketing: e-mails are cheap and a great way to talk to your base. Understand how it works, see how you can leverage it best and be able to fine tune your e-mail efforts. The technology is here and it’s not hard to use, you just need to focus a bit and practice.
• Know your social media: practice, participate, enjoy, link with people, exchange ideas, engage. Understand that social media are not a fad. They’re here to stay and even if your current base does not use it ... well ... no one has survived long by only talking to their current base right ? At some point you’ll need to engage new customers. Guess where you’ll find them?
• Write: don’t always use copy writer. If you can’t talk about your market, your product or your message, then you’re useless.
• Talk: practice presentations, volunteer, research new styles and designs. The more you’ll do that, the smoother your message will be and the more relaxed you’ll feel.

What other things would you recommend marketing managers have a hands-on experience?

8 tips for crafting e-mail subject lines that guarantee a one-way trip to the trash can

More than the number of spam e-mails I receive every day, I’m amazed at the number of badly worded subject lines in those e-mails.

I’m not talking personal e-mail here. We have all received several of these spam promising to help you achieve intimate performances that only adult film actors dream of. Surprisingly, these e-mails and their subject lines are quite good. Self-explanatory, eye-catching, clearly highlighted benefits. Unfortunately that’s not the case of what I call “professional spam”, the kind of spam that arrives in your professional e-mail inbox and that is borderline between could-be-useful and not relevant.

Funnily enough, for the past 5 minutes I’ve been writing this note, 2 of those have arrived. The first one says: “WCY - Executive Opinion Survey 2010 for Canada”. First of all, I have no idea what WCY is, second I don’t care about opinion survey, third, I’m not even in the “Executive” category (from a professional standpoint). The second one is “New educational webcast: Moments of Truth”. Seriously ? Does anyone still think that making big stylish effect like “Moment of truth” is going to incite me to read the entire mail ? I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about here, and I can’t see a reason why I would be interested.

So if you’re interested in the art of botching e-mail subjects, here are 8 quick advice for you:

1. Write long subject lines: outlook e-mail subject line real-estate is getting smaller with every version. If you have the preview pane and the to-do bar enabled, chances are you can’t see more than 50 characters or so of the subject line. If you get your e-mails on a smartphone such as a BlackBerry or an iPhone, you might see even less depending on your settings. So if you want to make sure your e-mail go right into the trash, write long subject lines.
2. Put your yet-unknown brand prominently in the subject line: let’s face it, most companies send e-mails to communicate about their services and products and try to sell them to new customers. Which means that these customers probably don’t know much about them, or at least not enough. Which means that if you put your brand (product or company) in the subject, there’s a good chance the reader has no idea what your product/service is about. Which means that unless you’re an established brand or you have a highly descriptive product name, putting some obscure seemingly cool brand name in your e-mail will only guarantee the reader will think: “I don’t know them, they’re not important”. You can always use the Sender Name if you want to showcase your brand but again, be careful with the potential backlash
3. Use big stylistic effects: Come on ! How many e-mails have subject lines which are completely gratuitous, self-centred, narcissistic, boastful and egotistic? The “Moment of truth” one that I just received falls exactly in that category. No substance whatsoever. Why should I, the reader, bother with something that looks like an over-bloated ramble on some “moment of truth”?
4. Cultivate confusion: after all, it is so much more exciting to have the reader wonder what you want from him then explain it. Why give a straightforward, easy to understand statement, when you can sound mysterious and cryptic and force people to puzzle their way around your message by reading the entire e-mail.
5. Never state any benefit: this one’s big. If you want to guarantee your e-mail won’t be read never state any benefit in the subject line. Craft your lines in such a way that if the reader ever wonder “what’s in it for me” he will never find the answer. If the content of your mail is valuable, do not state the value in the subject line. If you have an incentive for the reader to do something, don’t mention it. In short, do everything you can to make this as unappealing as possible. Trust me, it works.
6. Don’t personalize: there’s nothing attractive about receiving a message with a subject line that seems to be unique and to have been written just for the reader. It’s a known fact. People like to be undistinguishable from the others. They hate uniqueness. So do us all a favour and don’t use anything like text replacers to insert your contact name or his company name in your subject line. Besides, it’s risky if your database has holes in it.
7. Spread some negativity: people are too happy these days. Nothing better than a subject line with some negative connotation. Better yet, use the subject line to spread FUD and get your reader scared. That should get him interested in what you had to say. After all, why expose the solution right away when you can scare him to death with problems that everyone else is talking about. Good way to ensure he understands you know all about those problems.
8. Don’t test: if you’re an e-mail marketer you’ve probably heard about this little thing called testing. Waste of time, especially with subject lines. Why should you waste some precious minutes (not kidding, it can take minutes !) to try out 3 or 4 variations of your subject line on a sample of your target. You know what’s good for them, go for it.

And you, what would you do to create the least effective e-mail subject line ever?

Letting go

It’s been a while since I’ve fed this place however unlike countless others before me, I’m not going to make any promise on future notes. That said, I’m embarking on a interesting journey and I decided to use this place to talk about it from time to time. I want to give it some sort of public scrutiny and officialization at the same time, probably because I’m halfway between masochistic and egotistic. Here’s the big news: I’ve decided to let go of anything that has to do with my health.

OK, before anyone gets the Moralizator™ going, let me rephrase. I’ve decided to let go of anything that has to do with my health and let my better half be in control. Yup ! She’s going to be in charge of my diet, medical exams and exercise program from now on. I’m fully and wholeheartedly putting my health into her hands. And she’d better succeed, let me tell you !

Those who know me a bit will tell you two things. I’m seriously overweight and I like to be in control. The one thing I’ve come to realize is that unless many other things in my life, I’ve can’t solve #1 by making use of #2. I’ve tried. It does not work. At least not for me. So I have no choice: since being in control is the only thing of the 2 that I still control, what I need to do at this point is ... relinquish the control. Get my point?

I don’t really want to think about what’s it’s going to be like. I’m sure some of it will be uplifting, some of it depressing, some easy, some tough. Nothing really different than anything else in life. One thing I know for sure though, is that it’s going to be different from anything I’ve done before. So as I’m going to learn to let go and trust a good chunk of my life in her hands, if you happen to know her, wish her luck !

Think Different

Introspection, Revelation and Tenzing Norgay

So I knew something was wrong and I knew something radical needed to be done to start doing some real marketing. But what ? I remembered my very first pro mentor which I met while I was doing one of those internships during business school. He taught me one thing: look at the numbers. Seems obvious hey ? But how many of us do really use numbers accurately, consistently and appropriately ?

So I went hunting numbers. Any number: sales numbers, marketing numbers, industry numbers, analysts numbers ... you name them. And that's when I learned my first lesson: you're going to have to earn your numbers. Good numbers won't come to you, and by good numbers I mean those which give you real insight and actionable intelligence. Instead, you'll need to make serious efforts to get to them. Bad numbers are as easy to find as chicken nuggets in a McDonald, good numbers are as hard to find as gold nuggets in a mine.

I worked hard at getting my numbers, dumping entire database into Excel pivot tables and other business intelligence tools. I managed to get a fair amount of data about how we "had" been doing, and sure, it was great at first to analyze the past and draw some conclusions. But I also realized something else: number have a ephemeral lifetime. Actionable customer intelligence vanishes as fast as it comes. What good does it make to analyze 10 years worth of revenue, slicing and dicing your sales by every possible category if you don't know what your prospects or customers are doing today ?

That was my second lesson: for numbers to truly help you drive your marketing strategy and operations, you need to set your organization/department/group up in such a way that you get a consistent and accurate feedback loop in place between you and your audience.

At that point, I realized that even if I had been able to overcome the lack of numbers for the past by working the Excel machine, I did not have the feedback loop I needed. And as much as I could feel it was important to get to that data, I truly did not know for sure what to collect and how.

And that was my third lesson: marketing doesn't have to be a lonely path. The very problems you are encountering, other people have encountered as well. Look for a guide, look for someone that has walked this path before and can take you through it. Another reason why you want to look for a guide, is because it will likely give you insights and comparison points into what others in the industry are doing.

If you're not familiar with the name Tenzing Norgay, he was the Nepali Indian Sherpa Mountaineer who reached the summit of mount Everest along with Sir Edmund Hillary. The photo you see on that post is the one of Tenzing posing at the summit in May 29, 1953 and was taken by Sir Hillary. Tenzing Norgay is the impersonation of the ultimate mountain guide, the strong and knowledgeable aide without which there is no chance of achieving success.

I knew I needed my Tenzing Norgay and after some research on the web settled for a marketing community with a fitting name: marketingsherpa.

In the next post I'll talk about enlightenment and putting things in motion.

Vraie question

D'après les journaux, il y a eu 23 suicides chez FT depuis Février 2008 . D'après les statistiques nationales de 2008, il y a un peu plus de 16.2 suicides par 100,000 personnes en France par an (wikipedia). FT emploie un peu plus de 180,000 personnes (wikipedia aussi).

Le taux de suicide annuel des employés de FT est donc largement plus bas que la moyenne nationale:

23*12/18 = 15.3 suicides par an pour 180,000 employés

15.3*100000/180000 = 8.5 suicides par an pour 100,000 employés

On a donc d'un côté 8.5 suicides par an pour 100,000 (FT) versus 16 suicides par an pour 100,000 (population française).

Vraie question: sans jamais discuter le fait qu'il est nécessaire de contrôler les dérives sociales d'une entreprise de cette taille, pourquoi utiliser l'argument du suicide qui ne tient pas face à l'analyse et à qui profite le haro médiatique ?

Ou alors y'a un truc que j'ai pas compris et si c'est le cas merci de m'éclairer.

A marketing journey: introduction

OK, let me say it once and for all: I hate these 2.0 or 3.0 or 2.5 or whatever other crappy BS label people have a tendency to stick after everything and anything new these days. No it's not cool. No it does not mean a thing. Yes, it reflects a narrow technologistic (yes I made up that word) vision of the domain to which you're slapping this number.

This is the reason why the next series of posts is not going to be called "Marketing 2.0" even if, I guess, this would be how most people classify it. Enough justifications.

Those of you who know me are familiar with the company I work with (and if not, it's not too hard to find either). I've been in this company since 1998, started in France as a presales, moved to Canada in 2001 to work as a product manager and eventually was put in charge of all products and marketing for our Connectivity solutions group.

I've always worked in that group, regardless of what was going on around us: in 1999 the company I worked for decided to shift their positioning to become an ECM vendor. They eventually got acquired by a much bigger ECM vendor, the company I work for today. Those years were not easy on us. My colleagues and I had to adapt to a new reality where we were not the poster child of the company anymore, however our business was solid enough that we continued to enjoy a solid revenue stream and good profit levels.

So what do you do when the focus suddenly shifts away from you, you've just been acquired by a company which core business is lightyears away from yours and all it seems you have to look forward to is a slow and painful trip to nothingness ? Many people would probably start looking for another job either in another department within the company or in a new company all together.

I took a different path.

I saw this new situation as an opportunity for me to revisit what we were doing and how we were doing it. Lack of attention was a blessing. Lack of attention would give me time to take a good hard look at our marketing strategy and operations and make any adjustment that I deemed necessary to improve our performance.

This was in December 2007, and I had just been put in charge of our Connectivity Marketing solutions group. I knew I had a lot in front of me ... and boy was I right.

This series of post will describe what we've been going through, the changes we've made and how we've grown from not-even-close-to-amateurish into what we are today. This journey is ongoing. There are many more changes we're making this year and I'll document them here as well.

I believe all marketing organizations are at one stage or another of this journey. Some of them are right where we were a year and a half ago, some are where we are today and some are much further ahead. I hope that sharing my experience will give the readers some sense of what needs to be done if you have to modernize a marketing organization, what pitfalls to avoid and what to look forward.

In the next episode: introspection, revelation and Tenzing Norgay.

Security 101

I usually work from home but with my mother in law visiting us for 3 weeks I decided I would go to our office in Montreal during that time. Not that I don't like my mother in law (Josy, if you read this ...) but working from home requires somewhat of a quiet environment (at least for me) and I couldn't picture myself telling my wife and her mother to keep quiet for 3 weeks.

I arrived pretty early this morning (7:20, I like to work in the morning), but realized that I had forgotten my access card at home. I went to the security desk and asked the guard if he could come with me and open up the door to the office. Not being the first time that I forgot my card, I had done this little maneuver a couple of times in the past without trouble.

This guard I had never met before, and it was obvious he was from one of these 3rd party security company hired by the buildings to keep watch on the premises at night (not that there's anything wrong with that). Of course, being a new guy and not having seen me around before, he was, understandably, a little suspicious.

I told him who I was and that he should have my name on file but he decided not to take any chance and to call his boss. After a short exchange in russian with this superior, he turned back to me and told me he couldn't let me go up there because they didn't have an authorization from our office manager (not that he had checked anything by the way).

I then asked him if he wanted me to call the office manager for our company to reassure him that it was OK to let me enter, to which he agreed. I called the person who I knew was identified as the office manager (in the meantime he was battling with the computer to find the same information) and let him talk to the guard. The guard asked him for his name and put it on a piece of paper.

After the conversation was over, he escorted me up and opened the door of the office where I'm now sipping my coffee while I'm writing this.

This incident was interesting because it contained a number of basic security lessons:

• Someone who's tired shouldn't be trusted with security duties. Same goes to someone who can't stand a bit of pressure.
  
  
• Never assume the identity of anyone, at least do some dues diligence and ask for an ID (I had to insist for him to write down my driver's license # and check my name against an official ID).
  
  
• If there is a security procedure to be done (like calling the office manager to check my access), don't let the same person that you're trying to authenticate do it for you. Multi factor authentication only works when each authentication step is performed independently and does not assume anything about the previous one.
  
  
• Don't just parrot your security mantras ("we're not authorized to let you go up because we have no approval from your office manager"), if you're not ready to meet some resistance and argue. Not everyone is going to take "no" for an answer. Be prepared and have the right arguments (such as: we need a 'written' approval from your manager)

As we climbed up the elevator, I told him: "You realize that I could have fooled you easily. On one hand you want to show you have a hard stance on security by not opening office to people, which I think is a good thing, but on the other hand a little bit of pressure and seemingly truthful information and you and I are now riding this elevator. I could have lied to you on everything and connect you to a friend of mine on the phone. If I had not insisted for you to look at my ID and write down the number, you wouldn't have any trace of me."

And his answer was: "Yes, I realize that, but you know, I have to show my management that I did something to check, even if it's useless. That way I won't be blamed if something happen."

Checkmate.

Crumbling to pieces

Yesterday, a woman died in a restaurant, squashed by a block of concrete that fell from the 18th floor of the building where the restaurant was located. This happened precisely 200 meters from where our office is located. Thousands of people walk these streets every day.

Accident ?

Sure but not only. This accident is one more reminder of one of the most critical issue with Quebec today: its fundamental lack of investment in its structures.

During the winter, there is not one week without a water pipe breaking causing havoc for the morning traffic. More than one third of the pipe network is more than 50 years old. You bet it's going to break with the -30 in the winter and +30 in the summer!

Our biggest highway interchange, echangeur Turcot in Montreal, has already lost many of its pieces. Last summer, almost day for day, the transport ministry closed several lanes under the pressure of engineers who raised a red flag after auditing the structure.

On September 30th 2006, Viaduc de la Concorde, an overpass of the city of Laval, suburb of Montreal, collapsed causing the death of 5 person after blocks of concrete were spotted falling on the highway. In 2000, several beams from Viaduc du Souvenir, another overpass, had fallen on the highway causing the death of 1 person.

This is Viaduc Rockland, an overpass that goes over the railway, which I drive on almost every single day. Last year lanes were closed in order to lighten the load of the structure. The apron has supposedly been reinforced to handle the traffic. Wait and see.

Quebec is crumbling in pieces. Most investments date back from the 70s or before. And you know the saying here: "faut en avoir pour son argent" (you have to get your money's worth). The sad reality is that this attitude has been governing most of the decisions made by the Province or the municipalities.

And now it's costing people's life.

Shameful.

Honduras 2 - This one in French

Quelques infos fraîches pour compléter mon poste précédent:

En fait, il ne faut plus parler d'un coup d'état mais d'un retour à la démocratie compte tenu des actes répétitifs illégaux commis par l'ex Pdt Manuel Zelaya qui avait decidé d'effectuer un réferendum (organisé en sa faveur et soutenu par Chavez) entre les deux tours des élections dont la dernière étape sera en Novembre 2009, puisque les internes ont déja eu lieu et le peuple Hondurien a choisi ses leaders pour chaque parti.

Ayant imposé, par tous les moyens son référendum EN DÉPIT de l'illégalité qui lui avait été signifiée par tous les organes institutionnels protégant la constitution nationale (Congrès national, Cour suprême, Tribunal suprême d'élection), jusqu'à destituer de ses fonctions le chef des armées qui refusait d'exécuter un ordre illégal contre la constitution en refusant d'accompagner et de protéger un référendum rejeté par le peuple.

Le Général a été instantanément restitué a l'unanimité par la totalité des députés du Congrès national et declaré héros national par le peuple et les médias. Mr Zelaya a continué dans un aveuglement sans limite à vouloir organiser son référendum pour le dimanche 28 Juin ... toujours en parfaite illégalité par rapport à la constitution nationale, d'ou son arrestation et expulsion du pays dimanche matin a 1h00 am.

Instantanément la constitution transmet les pouvoirs au Vice Président, lequel a déja démissionné il y a plusieurs mois pour se présenter a la candidature pour justement les prochaines élections de Novembre, donc en l'absence de Vice Président, la constitution transmet les pouvoirs au President du Congrès national (Robereto Micheletti) qui a lui aussi beneficié instantanément de l'unanimité des votes des députés, tous partis confondus.

Ici à part quelques actions sporadiques, pneus brulés et lancers de pierres par quelques mutins (d'ailleurs toujours spectaculaires pour la presse internationale) la journée s'est d'ailleurs passée normalement dans les rues, tous les commerces ouverts, je suis allé travailler normalement, fais mes courses au supermarché normalement et récupéré une des filles qui était partie célébrer l'anniversaire chez un ami ..... Bien sur l'armée et la police protègent tous les sites stratégiques.

Le danger vient de l'extérieur, Chavez formule des menaces afin de remettre son émule au pouvoir, ce matin le Chancellier Hondurien annonçait offciellement que des mouvements de troupes avaient été déclarés présents à la frontière avec le Nicaragua (autre compère du Sr Chavez, qui a récemment rejoint l'ALBA, alliance revolutionnaire Bolivarienne, orchestrée par le Pdt du Venezuela) ainsi que plus de 900 individus de nationalité vénezuelienne, cubaine et nicaraguayenne ont investi le pays en possession de passeports honduriens. Certains de ces éléments sont connus pour être des professionnels de la mutinerie et ont déja été interpellés en possession de grenades a mains. Pour ramener le calme, un couvre-feu est proclamé le soir entre 21 h pm et 6h am.

A letter from Honduras

2 very good friends of mine are currently in Honduras. One of them is born there, the other one has lived a good part of his life there. Whenever a major event arises (and unless you've been too busy with MJ you have to know there's been a coup in Honduras), it's always interesting to compare what the people in the country have to say with what the media have to say.

Needless to say I have very good reasons to trust what my friends are telling me about the true reasons behind this coup and the misrepresentation that's being made of the situation in our news media.

Surprisingly, some of them are starting to relay the real thing. A few minutes ago I received this article from Mary Anastasia O'Grady from the Wall Street Journal. My friends asked me to relay it because it finally sheds some light on what's really going on there.

And yes, it's more complicated than the good president being overthrown by the evil army.

For the records, let's just say that I was told the majority of the facts below 2 days before the coup took place, including the part of the article which discusses Mr Zelaya ability to run the country.

Honduras Defends Its Democracy
Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton object.

* By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution. It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.

But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya's abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground.

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating "the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter" and said it "should be condemned by all." Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.

Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.

Many Hondurans are going to be celebrating Mr. Zelaya's foreign excursion. Street protests against his heavy-handed tactics had already begun last week. On Friday a large number of military reservists took their turn. "We won't go backwards," one sign said. "We want to live in peace, freedom and development."

Besides opposition from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general, the president had also become persona non grata with the Catholic Church and numerous evangelical church leaders. On Thursday evening his own party in Congress sponsored a resolution to investigate whether he is mentally unfit to remain in office.

For Hondurans who still remember military dictatorship, Mr. Zelaya also has another strike against him: He keeps rotten company. Earlier this month he hosted an OAS general assembly and led the effort, along side OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, to bring Cuba back into the supposedly democratic organization.

The OAS response is no surprise. Former Argentine Ambassador to the U.N. Emilio Cárdenas told me on Saturday that he was concerned that "the OAS under Insulza has not taken seriously the so-called 'democratic charter.' It seems to believe that only military 'coups' can challenge democracy. The truth is that democracy can be challenged from within, as the experiences of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and now Honduras, prove." A less-kind interpretation of Mr. Insulza's judgment is that he doesn't mind the Chávez-style coup.

The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem. In failing to come to the aid of checks and balances, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Insulza expose their true colors.

7 ways to help you think your presentations through

One often overlooked but critical step in preparing for a presentation is the thinking stage.

All of us who have ever had to do public presentations have probably shared a similar experience: someone comes up in your cubicle/office/life (circle correct answer based on your hierarchical/emotional relation with said person) and asks you to prepare a 30mn or so presentation for the end of the week.

Before you know it, you've launched PowerPoint, Keynote or Impress and you've already written ten slides using the default template (you know, the one with those dreaded bullets - did I mention I hate those?). By the time you've spent the first 15-30 mn working on this, you've created a monster, a hybrid, half-scratchpad half-presentation: ideas are not organized, there's a good chance you've overlooked a good half of your topic, your slides are uninspiring and you're pretty much guaranteed to put the audience to sleep in less than a minute.

So put this mouse down, close the presentation software and start thinking it through. Everyone need to take some time to put their thoughts together, organize their ideas, do some research, decide how they are going to tell the story and map out a plan of their presentation.

Putting the effort will be highly rewarding and I guarantee it will dramatically enhance the quality of your presentation, even if you are short of time and think you know your subject.

So here are 7 ways to help you during that stage:

1 - Close the computer: take a notepad and start throwing out ideas. I know it sounds lame but if you have nothing at your disposal (not even a connection to the Internet) that's still the best way I know. In fact, you should incorporate that in every "thinking" phase, regardless of what other method you use.

2 - Map your ideas: one disadvantage of the notepad is that once an idea is on the page, it can't be edited easily. You need to add some spatial dimension to your ideas and be able to move them around to better organize them. You can use post-it on a whiteboard or a mind mapping software such as mindjet mindmanager for instance. First throw as many things as you can think of, second, organize ideas in logical group, three, further explore some ramifications, four, before you now it you have a plan.

3 - Google it: type some search terms that relate to your topic or a specific aspect of it, and look for information sources. Look at the "Images" results to help you do some free association and find new ideas. Append "filetype:ppt" or "filetype:pdf" to your search string to restrict the results to a certain type of files (you'd be surprised how many powerpoint presentations are accessible directly from Google). Use Google Trends to measure and compare the popularity of search terms.

4 - Slideshare: if you're not familiar with it, slideshare is a web site on which people put their presentations for everyone to see, and sometimes download. It's a great source of inspiration when you want to see how other people have tackled the same topic you need to. Careful though, ripping is not inspiration. It's perfectly OK to use ideas that you'd not have thought about in the first place, but re-using slides as it is not a good idea and will make your pres look like an unfinished patchwork.

5 - TED: another great inspiration source is TED, a conference which has gathered some of the most brilliant people on the planet for quite some years in an effort to get them to share their thoughts and experience. The best part about TED: there are several hundreds of video available online (and some of them feature the very best presenters and presentations in the world) and the choice of subject is very large: culture, tech, economy, history, psychology, ecology, biology, physics, education ...

6 - Take it from the pros: no matter what you're talking about take some presentation lessons from the pros of this world to help you achieve new ways to frame your subject. I recommend looking at presentations from Garr Reynolds from Presentation Zen, Seth Godin (youTube is your friend), Edward Tufte and the work from Duarte Design (I recommend their book: slide:ology). You can also venture in the world of design to help you express some of your ideas with great visuals.

7 - Talk: OK, so you're in the middle of the jungle, you have no power, no Internet and you just broke a nail. There's still one thing you can do to help yourself prepare: talk. Try to pitch the core of your presentation to the first available human being you can find (who is not hostile and seems remotely interested in your subject). 2 things will come out of it: while pitching it, you will probably realize how mature or not your story is. Great presentations don't need slide. A 5 mn pitch in front of someone is certainly a good way to see how ready you are. Secondly, you will get feedback, something that no other tool can give you. It'll be like knowing the results of a race before it takes place. You'll be able to see what's working and what's not and you will have time to make the necessary adjustments before you do the real thing.

So next time you have a presentation to do, set aside some time and think things through. After all, you would not write an essay without preparing right ? Oh, you would ? OK, we'll talk about that later then.

It's the content stupid !

Why do some people on Twitter and other social media platforms spend their time talking about the platform itself and justifying why they decided to go social ?

Don't get me wrong, it's not the majority, but I still find it a somewhat widespread trend. As if looking in the mirror and describing the mirror could help you understand what you're seeing in it in the first place.

It's the content stupid! No matter what platform you're on, what's going to make you interesting or not (if that's what you're looking for on these things) is what you have to say. Your ideas. Your message. Not how you say it or which platforms you've chosen and why.

Look, I know it can be tempting to spend a fair amount of your posts being introspective and all that, but at the end of the day, readers don't really care about that. They probably have their own introspection sessions, and they certainly haven't chosen you to discuss all day long about why Twitter.

Unless of course you don't care about you're readers, which beg the question why did you choose social networking to express yourself?

When you write e-mails (yeah, I know, so web 1.0), it would never occurred to you to discuss why you choose e-mail to communicate with your correspondent. Well, it's the same for social networks. Especially since social networks allow you to reach a much broader audience than e-mail would ever allow to (except if you're in the spam business).

So whatever you do on social networks, keep one thing in mind: it's the content stupid! If you want to blog or tweet, put some thoughts into what you want to say to the world, not how you're going to say it.

Do you have a message ?

A simple desultory Philippic

I been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored.
I been John O'Hara'd, McNamara'd.
I been Rolling Stoned and Beatled till I'm blind.
I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed.
That's the hand I use, well, never mind!

I been Phil Spectored, resurrected.
I been Lou Adlered, Barry Sadlered.
Well, I paid all the dues I want to pay.
And I learned the truth from Lenny Bruce,
And all my wealth won't buy me health,
So I smoke a pint of tea a day.

I knew a man, his brain so small,
He couldn't think of nothin' at all.
He's not the same as you and me.
He doesn't dig poetry.
He's so unhip that When you say Dylan,
he thinks you're talkin' about Dylan Thomas,
Whoever he was.
The man ain't got no culture,
But its alright, ma,
Everybody must get stoned.

I been Mick Jaggered, been silver daggered.
Andy Warhol, won't you please come home?
I been mothered, fathered, aunt and uncled,
Been Roy Halee'd and Art Garfunkel'd.
I just discovered somebody's tapped my phone.

Folk Rock
I just lost my harmonica Albert

Thank you Mr Simon

Braised Lamb Shank - Jarrets d'agneau braisés

Recipe from the blog of Eric Gonzales.

English Version (French follows)

For 6 persons

6 lamb shank (350 g each)
2 big onions
3 carrots
1 1/2 garlic head
6 large ripe tomatoes
1/2 l. white wine
2 laurel leaves
3 thyme branches
3 oranges skins
2 cinammon sticks
3 star anise
2 cloves gillyflower
2 teaspoons powder cumin
1 1/2 l. of reduced lamb stock (veal stock is OK too)

Optional: dried prunes, dried grapes, fresh figs

Use a large stewpan that can go in the oven, put it on a stove and color each face of the shanks with olive oil, salt and pepper. Remove the shanks and put the onion, carrot, garlic and tomatoes (cut all in semi-large pieces) for 5 minutes. Pour the white wine and let reduce to a half. Put the shanks back in the pan and pour the lamb stock. Add laurel, thyme, orange skin and the spices.

Cover the pan and put in the oven at 400 F during 2h30. At the end, the knife should go through the skin without effort. Serve with couscous, boulgour, or any other vegetable (I used sweet potato pan-fried with curry).

Version Française

6 jarrets d'agneau du Québec d'environ 350 gr chaque
2 gros oignons
3 carottes
1 1/2 tête d'ail
6 grosses tomates bien mûres
1/2 litre de vin blanc
2 feuilles de laurier
3 branches de thym
3 écorces d'orange
2 bâtons de cannelle, 3 anis étoilé, 2 clous de girofle et 2 cuillères à thé de cumin en poudre
1 1//2 litre de fond d'agneau réduit (du fond de veau fera l'affaire)

Optionnel : pruneaux, raisins de Corinthe, figues fraiches

Faire colorer sur toutes les faces, à l'huile d'olive et dans une cocotte qui va au four, les jarrets d'agneau assaisonnés de sel et poivre. Les retirer puis faire revenir pendant 5 minutes l'oignon, la carotte, l'ail et les tomates, le tout coupé en morceaux. Verser le vin blanc puis faire réduire de moitié, replacer les jarrets dans la cocotte et y verser le fond d'agneau. Ajouter le laurier, thym, écorces d'oranges ainsi que les épices.

Mettez un couvercle et enfourner à 400 pendant environ 2 h 30. En fin de cuisson la pointe d'un couteau doit traverser facilement la chair. Sortir délicatement les jarrets, passer le liquide de cuisson de façon à récupérer uniquement la sauce, la remettre dans la cocotte et faire réduire de moitié afin d'obtenir une sauce un peu plus épaisse puis assaisonner de sel et poivre au goût.

Dresser les jarrets dans un plat puis les arroser de sauce.

Vous pouvez servir ce plat avec par exemple avec du couscous, boulgour, orge perlé ou toutes sortes de légumes selon votre imagination.

The bullet war

I thought I'd kick-start this new blog by talking about one of my favorite topic: presentations.

Powerpoint is everywhere. Everyone uses it. And let's face it, most Powerpoint suck. A lot. Don't get me wrong, it has nothing to do with the guys in Redmond. We are the one screwing up here. We are the one writing those horrible slideshows which are nothing else but a collection of loosely related and poorly summarized ideas that we put on bullets slides. And the more bullets, the happier we are. More bullets mean we're putting plenty of content. More bullets mean we're doing a good job. More bullets mean our presentations are going to be all the more rich and relevant.

Well, reality check for everyone, those very bullets we so dearly love only achieve 2 things: shooting ourselves in the foot and killing our audiences. Bullet points are the worst invention in the history of mankind (well, at least the one that writes presentations) because they encourage intellectual lazyness and provide an easy way out of the hard, but essential goal of any presentation: getting an idea across.

So if you are working on a presentation now, do me (and your audience) a favor: get rid of bullets. Create one slide per idea that you want to express and keep the non-essential stuff out of your presentation (now you know why you have these "notes" in Powerpoint). It's going to be 10 times better for you to have a few powerful slides on which you'll have a lot of things to say, rather than plenty of bullet-filled slides where all you'll do is read the content of the slide (something that surprinsingly any decent audience is capable of doing by themselves).

And if you want to read someone else rant about how bad presentations are, read this post from Seth Godin.