Is it cool to be cool?

Around 1990, Daniel Goleman first described the concept of Emotional Intelligence. In other words, in addition to the already recognized types of intelligence in the Gardner model such as spatial intelligence and musical intelligence, there is intelligence related to understanding and regulating emotions. This site gives a quick overview of that concept.

But none of that is the reason why I wanted to add a blog post on the subject. There's a great article in today's New York Times that discusses President Elect Obama's calm demeanor and suggests that perhaps his temperament is partly to credit for his electoral success. Who better to lead a country in troubled times than someone who can remain calm in the face of such turmoil? The article goes on to talk about how to regulate your own emotions and lists specific techniques. What would you use when someone backs into your car in a parking lot? I would imagine repression of anger might work, and it's way too late for situation avoidance by that point.

Are you unintentionally rude?

Oprah Winfrey does interviews with celebrities for her magazine and television show. She asked Jerry Seinfeld what his pet peeve was, and he said it was a lack of civility. So she did a show with a discussion of rude behaviors that irritate people in customer contact jobs. I bet you can name a few of the behaviors that came up. Hint: a number of them have to do with cell phones and/or driving. Etiquette has been called the lubrication that keeps our interactions harmonious. So there are two good reasons to be polite - first, it helps keep peace and harmony, and second, it can make a business more successful.

The snippet matters too!

By now, most writers know that an email subject line should have some content in it. Emails with subjects like "Hello" are not as likely to be opened as ones titled "Monday Meeting Agenda," or something else that will indicate what content is in the email itself. However, how much energy do you spend crafting a good first line? This short article points out that as more and more people read email on portable devices like Blackberries and iPhones, that first line becomes more important, since it's visible before the email is opened, and may determine whether it's opened or deleted. As is often true, it comes back to knowing who your audience is before you write. If you know your reader is likely to read the message on a portable device, then be sure to write with that in mind.

What does marketing email look like?

I don't know about you, but I cannot wait for this election to be over. I can finally reclaim my radio station which has been hijacked by often repeated political ads, my phone which I don't answer unless I recognize the number, and my email in box which should have fewer impassioned pleas for funds for this or that candidate or cause. No doubt the results will be followed by the post-mortems discussing what this or that candidate did right or wrong. Regardless of who you support, this post describing stylistic differences between the presidential candidates' emails is pretty interesting. The writer makes the point well that you need to understand your medium and your audience. Email isn't just an electronic version of a printed letter. Good email is short and easy to scan, with text broken into small blocks, and possibly with a few eye catching graphics.