Author Archives: JeffKontur

Rodeo Clowns are the Firemen of Redneck Entertainment

Posted on by

Photo provided by MoreSatisfyingPhotos

I’ve never had the all-too-common fear of clowns. In fact, I truly don’t understand it.

Most of the people I’ve talked with about it usually aren’t afraid of Ronald McDonald. And many aren’t afraid of rodeo clowns either. (Is that clown bigotry?)

So apparently some clowns are scarier than others.

A friend recently hypothesized why rodeo clowns are less scary than some other kinds of clowns: it’s because they willingly put themselves in danger to save cowboys from really large and really angry animals.

So I guess that makes rodeo clowns sort of like the firemen of redneck entertainment.

In fact I wonder if, when presented in that way, it might not persuade some small percentage of people who might otherwise be afraid of even rodeo clowns to change their views.

This may be a highly unusual take on marketing but after all, marketing is the art of persuasion.

 

Click any of the icons below to retweet these passages from the above article.

Remember, we’ll donate money to charity for every retweet. No purchase necessary. You retweet, we donate. It’s that simple.

Retweet this passage Rodeo Clowns are the Firemen of Redneck Entertainment

Retweet this passage Fear of clowns?

Retweet this passage People who are afraid of clowns usually aren’t afraid of Ronald McDonald.

Retweet this passage People who are afraid of clowns usually aren’t afraid of rodeo clowns.

Retweet this passage Isn’t that clown bigotry?

Retweet this passage Apparently some clowns are scarier than others.

Retweet this passage Rodeo clowns save cowboys from really large and really angry animals.

The Long, Sad Chain of Events

Posted on by

Imagine a nightmare scenario

You are out walking, carelessly stumble and break your ankle. You can’t afford medical care (or it simply isn’t available) so you have to live with the pain and just wait for it to heal on its own. Because the break was never set properly, it never heals properly and you spend the rest of your life hobbled with a severe limp and a weak ankle which is prone to breaking frequently.

Sounds extreme? Unlikely?

Not if you’re living in Nigeria.

Here, in one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world, minor illnesses and injuries can be a big deal.

 

Enter a Hero

Sue K. is a Registered Nurse at a teaching hospital in Wilmington, Delaware. She’s been invited to participate in a two week long medical mission to Oyo state in western Nigeria.

Once there, Sue and the other doctors and nurses in her group, will do three valuable and important things:

            1. Provide free medical care to all who need it.
            2. Train local doctors and nurses in the latest western medical practices.
            3. Donate approximately 50 cases of medical supplies and equipment to the hospitals and clinics hosting their group.

Sue Needs Your Help!

Once in Nigeria, all of her expenses are paid for by the charity sponsoring the mission. However it’s her responsibility to get there and back.

All told, Sue needs to raise about $2,300 in order to make the trip.

That may seem like a lot but she really only needs 200 or so people to kick in $10 each and she’s basically there.

And what if she falls too far short of her goal to afford to go? Or — best of all worlds — actually collects way more than she needs?

Well if she doesn’t collect enough, the people of Nigeria would miss out on the services of a dedicated and experienced nurse. (Sue’s been an RN for 13 years and has even trained dozens of other nurses, since she works at a teaching hospital.) However, she has pledged to donate all the money received and use it to buy even more supplies to give to the Nigerian hospitals and clinics.

If she collects more than she needs, any excess will be used to buy supplies to give to the hospitals and clinics.

What’s In It For You

Aside from the wonderful feeling of doing something truly good in the world, Sue is offering two bonuses for those who support her. The fact that they are small allows her to devote 100% of the donations toward helping the people of Nigeria.

  • While in Nigeria, she will take her camera and take pictures of the work that the mission does. Those photos will be posted in a private portfolio online. Only those donors who give $10 or more will be given access to view the photos.
  • For anyone generous enough to donate $100 or more, Sue will find a local Nigerian vendor and purchase a small handcrafted souvenir. Upon her return home, she will mail the souvenir to you along with a note of thanks. (Plus you’ll also get access to the online photos.)

To see a video of Sue talking about the mission in her own words and find out more, go to http://igg.me/p/219228.

The Peanut Butter Jar Theory of Perfection

Posted on by

Photo credit: Mary Thompson

If you were to open a brand new jar of peanut butter and try to get all the peanut butter out of the jar, how long would it take? You can use any tools you want so long as you bear in mind that the goal is to recover the peanut butter from the jar. So washing it down the drain does not help in accomplishing that goal.

I guess how long it would take largely depends on your definition of “all the peanut butter”.

Surely, within three or four minutes you could get basically all the peanut butter out of the jar. If you looked in the jar you would still see streaks and ribbons of peanut butter all over the inside of the jar but all of it put together wouldn’t add up to enough to make a respectable PB&J.

Photo credit: Josh (Listener42 on Flickr)

How much longer would it take to get it so that not one visible streak of peanut butter remained?

I’ve never tried it but my guess is maybe about an hour.

So let’s say you have the patience and determination to get every last bit of peanut butter out of the jar. Did you get it all? Have you done a “perfect” job of getting the peanut butter out?

Smell the jar.

It still smells like peanut butter. That’s a sign that there are still chemical traces of peanut butter left behind.

Remember, our goal was to recover the peanut butter from the jar. Not necessarily to use it for making a sandwich or anything useful, just to recover it and get it out of the jar.

Photo credit: Beau Giles

Now, if your definition of “all” the peanut butter is something like “all the peanut butter that’s useful in making sandwiches”, then you could easily do a perfect job of getting “all” the peanut butter out in three or four minutes.

If your definition is all the visible peanut butter, then you could probably do a perfect job in about an hour. Part of the point here is that you’ll start seeing diminishing returns on your effort after the first three or four minutes.

If your definition of “all” the peanut butter is every last chemical trace of the stuff, it may take considerably longer and require specialized tools or techniques. (Remember, trying to recover the peanut butter implies that we’re not contaminating it.) Again, the longer you keep at it and the closer you get to “perfect”, the more the returns on your effort diminish.

This principle can be applied to almost any area of life. When you do anything, you get about 80% or so of your results with relative ease. After that, each incremental advance you make toward 100% will increase the amount of time, effort and other resources needed to get there. And the rate of increase keeps increasing.

So the real first step toward greater productivity is to decide what perfect means to you for any given task. If you can settle for 80%-85% of “perfect”, you’ll get a lot more done.

Personally, I’d rather have 10 or 15 projects completed but only 85% perfect than to have just one project done to absolute perfection. Even if that one project is so immaculate that it makes angels weep.

 

Click any of the icons below to retweet these passages from the above article.

Remember, we’ll donate money to charity for every retweet. No purchase necessary. You retweet, we donate. It’s that simple.

Retweet this passage The Peanut Butter Jar Theory of Perfection

Retweet this passage How long would it take to get all the peanut butter out of a brand new jar?

Retweet this passage How long it takes depends largely on your definition of “all”.

Retweet this passage You’ll start seeing diminishing returns on your effort after…

Retweet this passage The closer you get to “perfect”, the more the returns on your effort diminish.

Retweet this passage When you do anything, you get about 80% of your results with relative ease. After that…

Retweet this passage The real first step toward greater productivity is to decide what perfect means to you.

Retweet this passage I’d rather have this than just one project done to perfection. Even if it made angels weep.

A Little Rain Must Fall

Posted on by

I live in Delaware, roughly midway between New York City and Washington, DC. Average rainfall in this part of the country is around 45″ (114cm).

Unless you’re a meteorologist, that probably doesn’t mean all that much to you. Heck, I live here and it doesn’t really mean much to me.

What I do know is that it’s very green here. I couldn’t even begin to guess how many different varieties of trees grow within 100 miles of me. Surely it’s in the thousands. I have ten different kinds in my back yard alone. There are at least twenty more among the other yards on my block.

I’ve read that Delaware is the 16th wettest state in the U.S. So I guess 45″ is quite a bit.

The thing is, how different do you suppose that would be if all 45″ came in a single day and we had no precipitation whatsoever for the remaining 364 days of the year?

It would be a very different place. Likely little or nothing could grow.

Same amount of rain… vastly different results.

The Tie-in

This actually does have something to do with marketing. At least in the roundabout way that I frequently approach things.

Or more precisely, it has to do with grant writing.

If you didn’t know, most non-profit organizations subsist on small individual donations and on large grants given by wealthy donors, philanthropic foundations and government agencies.

Grants aren’t exactly easy to get. You have to apply, go through a rigorous screening process and then even if you get grant money, it often comes with restrictions on how or when it can be used.

Still, the amounts make grants necessary for the survival of most non-profit organizations.

The application process is complex enough that there are professional grant writers to help guide organizations in applying for grant money and increasing their odds of actually getting approved for funding.

The tie-in is that few organizations get more than one or two grants per year. That’s a bit like a tree getting rain only one or two days of the year.

It becomes incumbent on those non-profits to manage their finances in such a way as to make those few infusions of funds last throughout the year. (Hence the reason so many ask for individual donations, which come with fewer strings and can be spread more evenly throughout the year.)

A Cottage Industry

Professional Grant Writing is a small, cottage industry. I suppose it should come as a surprise to no one that I offer grant writing as part of my menu of services offered.

In my mind, it just makes sense. As a professional writer trained in the art of persuasive writing, and as an avowed do-gooder hell-bent on saving the world, helping non-profit organizations get the funds they need to survive is just a natural fit.

Do you belong to or know of a non-profit organization that needs funds? Help me on my mission to save the world by putting us in contact with each other!

(You didn’t really think this article was going to be about rainfall, did you?)

 

Click any of the icons below to retweet these passages from the above article.

Remember, we’ll donate money to charity for every retweet. No purchase necessary. You retweet, we donate. It’s that simple.

Retweet this passage Same amount of rain… vastly different results.

Retweet this passage Most non-profit organizations subsist on small individual donations and on…

Retweet this passage That’s a bit like a tree getting rain only one or two days of the year.

Retweet this passage An avowed do-gooder hell-bent on saving the world…

Retweet this passage Do you belong to or know of a non-profit organization that needs funds? Put us in touch with each other!

The Dark Side of Ownership

Posted on by

Like most people, when I was young I didn’t own much. Everything I owned could easily be packed up in a pickup truck if I needed to move from Point A to Point B. Now, everything I own can’t even fit into one building.

You might be tempted to envy me or to think that’s a good thing. But lately I’ve been changing my thinking about why we own things.

Almost everything you own is because you needed that thing at one time or anticipated a high likelihood that you would need it in the future. (In this context, pure enjoyment counts as “need”.) Whether it’s a lawnmower, a chainsaw, a microwave oven, a glass knick-knack or even a ball-point pen, you bought that thing so that you would have unfettered use of it when the need arose.

Image courtesy of MoreSatisfyingPhotos.com

Let’s just say that you own a sailboat (we all should be so lucky), but now you live nowhere near the water. Or perhaps it has some mechanical problem that makes it unseaworthy. You still own it but without the benefit of being able to use it.

As it turns out, what we’re really after most of the time is the use of things and not so much the outright ownership of them.

Granted, there are times when frequency of use makes ownership more practical than alternatives like borrowing or renting. Other factors may also be at play. For instance, the “ick-factor” ensures that you would rather own your toothbrush than simply have use of some random toothbrush when you need it.

On the other hand, time-shares continue to be popular because it’s a much cheaper alternative than owning a vacation home. (Or a whole network of them in various places you might like to visit.) On-demand car rental companies like Zipcars have become popular for much the same reason. For that matter, streaming media such as on-demand movies further leverage the use-is-better-than-ownership philosophy.

Where am I going with this?

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. This is a bit of an exploration of the concept.

I’m interested in learning what thoughts others have on the topic. Please feel free to comment below. Perhaps it will help my own thoughts become more coherent and well-formed.

[contact-form] [contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /] [contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /] [contact-field label=”Comment Type” type=”radio” required=”true” options=”Praise/Applause,Criticism,Add to conversation,Question,Idea/Suggestion” /] [contact-field label=”Comment” type=”textarea” required=”true” /] [/contact-form]