Riffs, Tiffs and What Ifs

We've moved to a new site - WritingRiffs.com Appreciate you checking this article out at WritingRiffs.com . We'll be deleting all the content on this site over the next few weeks. Thanks! Steve

We've moved to a new site - WritingRiffs.com - Appreciate you checking this article out at WritingRiffs.com . We'll be deleting all the content on this site over the next few weeks. Thanks! Steve ______________________________________________ Pitch: A quick, concise communication meant to persuade someone to do something - buy a product, service, idea, etc. A pitch is a story told with the goal of getting someone to buy in to your idea; your request for action. You want them to do something. You appeal to their reason and emotions. They want you to do something too. Don't be stupid, waste their time or insult their intelligence with lame words drained of meaning. Good-to-Great There are good-to-great pitches. They're informative, interesting and on occasion, wonderfully inspiring. They connect with you emotionally and ride the road of reason and common sense over to their intended destination―the "decision." And, more often than not, the decision is good ...

We've moved to a new site - WritingRiffs.com. Appreciate you checking this article out at WritingRiffs.com . We'll be deleting all the content on this site over the next few weeks. Thanks! Steve DaDonkey Disasterpieces Corporate boilerplates are boring. A waste of words. Horribly obtuse. Garbled, befuddled, perplexing, muddled obfuscatory nightmares. If they were paintings, they'd be called "DaDonkey Disasterpieces." They're written to give you an idea, a snapshot, of who the company is, what they do and basic contact info . They're typically found at the end of company news releases. The "About the Company" section. Have You Read Any? Have you read any corporate boilerplates lately? Ever? If you can, don't. If you don't, smile. You're blessed. Why? Because they're real snooze-fests. Full of taradiddle twittle-twattle. Written in a language decipherable by only two types of people. The "writer" - and aliens (sometimes o...

We've moved to a new site - WritingRiffs.com Appreciate you checking this article out at WritingRiffs.com . We'll be deleting all the content on this site over the next few weeks. Thanks! Steve This was originally going to be an interview with the internationally best-selling author Steven Pressfield about his new historical thriller, Killing Rommel . Steven is a master storyteller. His works, such as The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great, and The Afghan Campaign, and many others are legendary among military aficionados. His book, Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae, is required reading at West Point. While talking with Steven about Killing Rommel, we wandered off the beaten path a bit to discuss the power of story - in business and life - to move people to higher grounds. The kind of power that can inspire people to perform great feats of selflessness and humanity. But, we didn’t stop there - we derailed onto troublesome questions of moral...