Video: Dealing with Objections

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You finish your pitch and the customer says: “Your product is too expensive!”.  You arrive home, you’re a few minutes late: your partner says “You are always late!”.  At a dirty plate left on the table: “you never wash the dishes!” What do you say in this moment? How do you handle objections?  It is possible to take … Read more

The Speech Act Theory of JL Austin

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The Words, the Meaning, the Effect As we communicate, there are 3 separate processes at play: what we say, what we mean when we say it, and what we accomplish by saying it A rhetorician would call these 3 separate processes: 1) locution, 2) illocution, and 3) perlocution.  In my courses we use the shorthand “Point X” to … Read more

50,000 views of Video “Improve Your Speaking”

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The big news at YouTube: Whilst Psy’s Gangnam style is rapidly approaching 1 billion views, one of my uploaded videos achieved 50,000 views today. 50,000 video views today Celebrating 50,000 views of my YouTube vid: 1 way, only 1, to achieve Excellence as a Speaker. http://t.co/3h4uH2Qh — Conor Neill (@conorneill) December 5, 2012 The top … Read more

The 8 Universal Human Laws

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Mythology and The Human Experience As part of the Greek and Roman Mythology course that I have been following for the last 10 weeks, our teacher Dr. Peter Struck has been drawing out a number of “universal human laws” from the myths. We read of Odysseus, of Aeneas, of gods, of monsters.  We read material … Read more

The Future of Education. Review: Coursera “Greek and Roman Mythology”

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I finished my first expedition into the world of MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses – this week. I have completed a 10 week course on Coursera run by a team led by Dr. Struck of Penn State University.  The course was titled Greek and Roman Mythology. How was the experience? In four words: Hard … Read more

Amazon Staff Meetings: “No Powerpoint”

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“We have study hall at the beginning of our meetings.” says Jeff Bezos. Staff meetings at Amazon begin with 30 minutes of silent reading. Powerpoint is easy for presenter, hard for audience “The traditional kind of corporate meeting starts with a presentation. Somebody gets up in front of the room and presents with a powerpoint … Read more

New Element Isolated: The Chemistry of Governmentium:

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My father sent me an email that made me laugh today. The original source is unknown, but the meaning is universal…

The Chemistry of Governmentium

The new element is Governmentium (Gv). It has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of Teflon-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons or protons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction normally taking less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons. All of the money is consumed in the exchange, and no other by-products are produced.

 

Have you experimented with Governmentium lately?  How did the reaction go?

Dealing with Conflict: the Problem is the Problem

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This is a guest post by Tobias Rodriguez. Tobias runs seminars on Conflict Management and is a leading member of Toastmasters in Barcelona. Follow him on twitter [twitter-follow screen_name=’conflictmentor’] or check out his blog. An ancient Greek storyteller, called Aesop, said: An Eagle was soaring through the air when suddenly it heard the whizz of an … Read more