The Persuasive Wizard

Order from Amazon.com, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas.  Also available in Kindle e-book.  The Persuasive Wizard is a must for anyone wanting a better job, desiring a raise in their current one, seeking investment funding, or just needing to persuade others.  College and High School students find it invaluable as they begin their careers.

I hold in my hand the famous Sphecius speciosus, the largest wasp in North America.  It has a claymore for a stinger and, unlike its cousin, the bee, can inflict numerous wounds without self-injury.

Now, any child in west Texas knows what a locust is.  (Do not google the map; that is any place west of Dallas.)  In west Texas, locusts are fat stubby creatures that fly around like B-52 bombers and land in trees.  They make a continuous buzzing sound by rubbing their wings together.  You catch them by creeping up and clamping those vibrating  propellers between your thumb and forefinger.  When you let them go they chug-chug away at a speed not in excess of five miles per hour.  You can tie a thread around their stubby little heads and make them fly about on a lease.  They give no indication that they like this.  Late in the summer one can find their ghostly skeletons attached to the woody branches of the trees.  The occupant has ridden off into the sunset waiting to return the following summer in some new form.

Now, any child in west Texas knows that a grasshopper is one of those insects with long, jointed legs that can hop a long ways, fly a short ways, and spit “tobacco juice” in your hand if you go and catch one.  Grasshoppers make great fishing bait as they wiggle on the hook and attract the surface-feeding fish.  You put the hook through their little mesothoraxes (the hard, crusty part behind their heads).  They do not like this, which very likely explains their wiggling.

Life is simple without education, whereby I learn that the grasshopper is really a locust and the locust is really a cicada.  Knowledge can be confusing.

The cicada (aka locust to uneducated west Texas children) is like the sumo wrestler of the insect world.  What could possible compare to its size?  It’s a Goliath among Davids.  Then along comes the Sphecius speciosus, otherwise known as the (Texas) Cicada Killer Wasp.  The Cicada Killer Wasp leaps onto the back of the slow-moving cicada and strikes a paralyzing blow.  The immobile cicada is dragged into the Killer’s cubbyhole underground where a little baby larva feeds upon the hapless victim.  (Oh, the world is cruel when educated.)

These enormous Cicada Killer Wasps grow to almost two inches in length, as is the one I hold ever so gently in my hand, careful not to make the slightest flinch.

With a love for science, I carefully examine the Cicada Killer.  Its body is not very hairy and it has enormous wings.  It never sheaths its weapon, always cocked and ready to fire.  In my case, I happen to have special knowledge of how to handle the Texas Cicada Killer;  learning how to suppress pheromones is not for the fainthearted.  The rusty head and yellow and black body markings make this a distinctive mammoth of a wasp, a giant among its brethren, an assassin by trade.

I’ve examined him enough.  For my students in Chemistry, I think I shall experiment to see if the sting of this wasp has any paralyzing effect upon humans. I’ll just whack his little tail with my finger and see what

Order from Amazon.com, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas.  Now available in Kindle e-book.  The Persuasive Wizard is a must for anyone wanting a better job, desiring a raise in their current one, seeking investment funding, or just needing to persuade others.  College and High School students find it invaluable as they begin their careers.

In dealing with any audience, one of the things to learn is that you must make your technical material understandable and memorable.  I use the following as an example.  How does one teach the Metals Reactivity Series?

If your first question is, “What is the metals reactivity series?” and your second is, “Who cares?” then you have come to the right place.  As an audience, you would be difficult to persuade because you have a.) limited knowledge of the subject, and b.) even less interest.

One of the most difficult problem chemists face is predicting reactions.  Will two things react and, if so, what will be the products?  Centuries ago, alchemists began searching for ways to turn lead into gold.  They were not successful, but in attempting a solution they discovered that certain metals were more reactive than others.  For example, Lithium is more reactive than iron is more reactive than copper.  Over the years, this information was put into a table.  I include my version here.

Carbon and hydrogen are not metals, of course, but I include them as reference.

Now, how in the world does an audience remember this?  Without help, no one will even try.  Most will grunt in disgust.

So, you devise a clever device, in this case a mnemonic, to bring them into the technology.  I searched and found several mnemonics, but most were for a shortened form of the table.  I combined some of the ideas I found with my own and came up with a mnemonic that works.  I desire to credit all those with original material but know not the source.

You want to use these aids with your audience because you want them to remember your technical ideas.  In this particular case, the Metals Reactivity Series might be a little detailed, but it illustrates how to simplify complex material.

The difficulty with the mnemonic is, do you use the name “gold” or the atomic symbol “Au?”  Do you use the name “sodium” or the atomic symbol, “Na.”  I decided that my mnemonic would be tailored to high school students and would combine both.  Here it is:

Let Kelly Bake Cakes.  Nasty Maggie, Align Carbon Zebras INTo Lead-Hard Cages Monkey Security Guards Patrol.

This works because the two girls names, Kelly and Maggie connect.  All the students will remember “Nasty Maggie.”  Then, the Zebra and the Monkey help connect the end segment.

The point is this.  If you want to be persuasive, you must bring your audience into the technology and put the technology in a form they can readily understand.

Which brings us back to how to get an audience interested int he first place?  I defer that component to a future insert.

Order from Amazon.com, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas.  Now available in Kindle e-book.  The Persuasive Wizard is a must for anyone wanting a better job, desiring a raise in their current one, seeking investment funding, or just needing to persuade others.  College and High School students find it invaluable as they begin their careers.

In August, the high school where I teach will convert totally to iPads – each student possessing one and each student using one in class.

I mentioned this innovation to several unrelated individuals.  Their reactions were apropos of the following:

“The teachers will have a hard time with that.”

“Oh that’s great.  Now the students will be texting while you’re trying to teach.”

“How do you keep them from ‘Googling’ on a test?”

“That certainly makes it easier for them to cheat and copy.”

“The schools are trying to substitute technology for teaching.”

What is common in these responses?  Of course, they all are negative.  Not one person started with anything like the following:

“Using the iPads will eliminate a lot of wasted paper and make grading faster.”

“The students will learn to use technology in a constructive way.”

“This will let teachers set up ‘groups’ so the parents who want to get involved can.”

“The use of iBooks (Interactive Books) will be hugely successful.  Plus, iBooks are about 10% the cost of hardback books and definitely are the wave of the future.”

“This will move education into the 21st century.”

What lessons in persuasion can we learn from this?

First, if you want to implement “change,” know that your audience will react negatively.  It is rare for individuals to readily accept change.  The vast majority are skeptical, defensive, maybe even antagonistic.  Most will look for holes in your argument, flaws in your logic.   This is human nature.   “Change,” even for the better, is difficult to impress.

… makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of … And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprise of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action. [Hamlet]

Understand that when it comes to change, an audience will naturally and first of all look for and emphasize the negatives – whether real, perceived, or contrived.

Let us try the iPad example as a lesson in persuasion.  Suppose you want to implement the iPads or some similar change in your school, your job, or elsewhere.  Do not start by telling the audience what you want to implement.  Hold an iPad in your hands.  Start by telling the audience the advantages of the iPad, how the iPad (or similar) technology is prevalent, how it provides information at their fingertips.  Again, do not even hint about what you want the audience to do about it.  Right now, you are educating.

Then, find an argument to get the audience on your side.  if I were talking to a group of parents at school, for example, I would posit that the more gifted and better student would be able to take advantage of the iPad, using the iPad in school and at home.  Such knowledge would prepare the more  gifted students for the better colleges, help them get the best jobs, and provide them with more income.  Technology innovations have challenges, true, but the more gifted students and their parents can help us work through the issues.

Of course, at this point most of the parents are thinking, “Sure, Johnny Smartypants and Susie Knowitall will get the iPads.  They always get the attention.  Why is my child constantly ignored and the emphasis placed on the 3-4% who are the most gifted or of special needs?  My child ought to be given this opportunity, also.  My child would show them because she’s great with computers, he’s a whiz at the internet.”

It is at this point, that you conjecture, “Of course, if parents were willing, we could make this technology available to every student so that all could advantage of it.”  The audience of parents will think this is a good idea.  They all move over to your side of the argument.

If, at this point, you need to go into a session about the challenges of the technology, the audience will be on your side and even help solve some of the problems and sway those parents who might yet be reluctant.

End the presentation as soon as you get acceptance.  Once the fat lady sings, exit stage left.  Work all problems offline.  Engage recalcitrant individuals one-on-one afterwards and to one side.

Have we deceived anyone?  No.  Have we made false representation? No, not by any means.  We simply have presented the concept in a manner that lets the audience see our side of the argument, first.  Is it a good idea?  Absolutely.  Will it truly benefit all the students?  Assuredly.  What we have done is get the audience to look at the positive first instead of the negative.  That is all.  The facts are the same.  Nothing has changed.  We simply have not permitted them to take a negative position before they learned all the facts.

Persuasion is looking at your audience, understanding your audience, recognizing human nature, and putting your best foot forward, not in your mouth.

Order from Amazon.com, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas.  Now available in Kindle e-book.  The Persuasive Wizard is a must for anyone wanting a better job, desiring a raise in their current one, seeking investment funding, or just needing to persuade others.  College and High School students find it invaluable as they begin their careers.

My eldest son and I drive to our “land.” It is in the hill country of Texas.  My wife discourages a more sophisticated moniker, explaining that a “ranch” must have cattle and a “farm” must have fields.  Ours has only a gravel road snaking through a juniper forest that, itself, climbs ever so steeply up the rocky hill and down to a pond that is only about as wide as it is deep.  Locals call the overhanging basalt a “cave,” but it is only an eroded undercut of limestone so that appellation is not permitted, either.  On our “land,” and in our “undercut of limestone,” nothing is plowed and nothing is domesticated.  Coyotes, birds, deer, turkey, and rabbits settle their own claims.

As we enter the gate, we stop to turn the valve that permits water to flow from the underground wells to our humble abode.  There, within the buried meter housing we stumble upon thousands of interlopers, swarming and homesteading our meter with their little sticky hexagons.

Honey bees!

“What to do?” I thought.  I cannot let them remain there.  After much consideration, I thought it best to transfer them from their precarious home before the elements destroyed it, which was inevitable given all the circumstances.  They had not made a good choice.

WARNING: Apiculturists: read no further.

I returned home, searched online for help, learned what a worker, a queen and a drone looked like, marked pictures in a book, and exchanged emails with the president of a local beekeeping club.

“Are they Africanized?” the president emailed back.

“How would I know?”  I typed.

“Have you been around them?

“Yes, I played with them all morning, letting them land on my arms and watching them work.”

“Are you emailing this from your home or the hospital?”

“From my home.”

“They’re not Africanized.”

I discovered that Dadant Company provided all the supplies I needed.  So, I forked over two big ones and soon was the proud owner of 150 pieces of various and sundry sticks of pinewood.  I spent Saturday morning with hammer, nails, and glue, painted the outside and soon had a very nice home for my new little settlers.

Off to the “land” we go.  I suit up in my hat and gloves and light the smoker, all of which was provided in the kit from Dadant.  I do, indeed, look the part.  My son decides he will use his longest telephoto for the pictures.  He will document the very first bee colony to settle on our “land.”

I open the meter, give the working class a blast or two of smoke, stand on my head to peer inside, and there they are.  But, where is the queen?  As near as I can tell, all those girls look alike.  Rotating upright, I decide to check the book, again.  I must now read through the netting and also through a dense cloud of bees that are gathering to assist.  Okay, the book shows the queen to be much larger than the rest of the gang.   Standing on my head, I look again, this time with one of those high-intensity flashlights.

Rotate back.  Another check of the book.  Maybe they are Africanized after all and I have stumbled upon a tribe of pygmies.

Down I bend again, upside down, peering in with a load of sweat dripping out of the webbing and onto the swarm.  No queen.  Well, what to do?  I gently brush a few aside and try to find her.  Suspecting rape, all those noble Amazons draw their swords.  They buzz their trumpets.  They release their canisters of pheromone.  Reinforcements are coming through the forest like Jedi knights.  War has been declared.

What to do?  I must take action.

I break loose all the combs and lift combs and swarm (as best I can) into the hive I spent 200 bucks and hours constructing, a wonderful home that should have looked like a palace compared to their grubby little water meter.  No one agrees.  I put all the bees into the hive and all the bees came back out of the hive and back into their crummy little water meter that now has only stubs for combs.

I wonder, “Does God have feelings?”

Not a single bee understands that my home will protect them from the wasps, the ants, the torrid dry summer in a dutch oven, and the winter to come.  Their choice will mean disaster for the entire swarm.  My choice will mean success and prosperity for years to come.  They don’t get it.

“What we have here is a “fay-i-yore to communicate.”

Alternatives are dwindling.  I make a desperate move.  I chase them all out of the meter box and close up their entrance port.  Now, they must either to go into my hive or abandon the site altogether.  Which will it be?

They are undoubtedly too worked up to think rationally.

I can sense a plan not coming together.

I pass the peace pipe around again, take off my headgear and gloves and sit down in the midst of the cloud, like Job among his “friends.”  It is a risky move not given to logic.  I explain to them what I am trying to do.  (Being God’s creatures, they must understand God’s language, commonly known as the Texas vernacular.)  There is a lot of fast talking on my part but not much listening on theirs.

I leave them to consider whether on this battlefield any bee so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

Soon, I shall report their decision.

……………………………………

Oh, by the way, this blog is about technology and persuasion.  In today’s very true episode there are six lessons in persuasion, lessons discussed in my book.  Can you find them?

Order from Amazon.com, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas.  Now available in Kindle e-book.  The Persuasive Wizard is a must for anyone wanting a better job, desiring a raise in their current one, seeking investment funding, or just needing to persuade others.  College and High School students find it invaluable as they begin their careers.

Last week, the governor of Texas made the following press release:

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry has appointed Lynwood Givens of Plano and reappointed Sharon Carr of Katy to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission for terms to expire Sept. 28, 2017. The commission provides informational, library, archival and records management services to government agencies and individuals.

Givens is a retired chief technology officer from the Raytheon Company, a consultant and investment analyst, and a published author. He is a member of the American Physical Society, Gideons International, and the Midwestern State University Board of Regents, and is a past member of the University of Texas at Dallas Research Advisory Board. Givens received a bachelor’s degree from Midwestern State University, and a master’s degree and Doctorate of Physics from the University of Texas.

I am pleased to be a part of this prestigious organization.  The Texas State Library and Archives Commission is charged with assisting the state’s library programs, meeting the reading needs of the disabled, and preserving and providing access to Texas documents such as state records and genealogy.  The letter that Colonel Travis wrote from the Alamo is one of the treasures maintained by the commission.

On February 24, 1836, during Santa Anna’s siege of the Alamo, Travis wrote a letter addressed “To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World“:

Fellow citizens and compatriots;

I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have sustained a continual Bombardment and cannonade for 24 hours and have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country. Victory or Death.

William Barret Travis

Lt. Col. Comdt.

P.S. The Lord is on our side. When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn. We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves.

Travis

Order from Amazon.com, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas.  Now available in Kindle e-book.  The Persuasive Wizard is a must for anyone wanting a better job, desiring a raise in their current one, seeking investment funding, or just needing to persuade others.  College and High School students find it invaluable as they begin their careers.

Students graduate from college with the expectation that they will quickly land a high-paying job.

Graduates of 2012 face challenges.

For the past several years, most colleges have seen costs rise, donations decline, and assistance from state and federal governments shrink.  Few courses are removed from the catalog and even fewer professors terminated.  Attrition and flat salaries have been insufficient to stem the tide.  The burden is loaded onto the students.  Coming full circle, colleges work ever so hard to facilitate student-loans for the students to pay those higher costs.

Over 66% of the graduates will leave the platform with college-induced debt.  The government student-loan debt, alone, will average more than $25,000 per student.[1] The average student will make $44,000 in the first year on the job, about $20.50 per hour.  In terms of inflation-adjusted dollars, this will be only slightly more than similar graduates earned in 1989, almost a quarter century earlier.[2] After taxes, the average graduate will take home around $37,000.  If the newly-hired graduate dedicates a full 10% of the take-home pay each month to repay the student loan (an unrealistic figure after housing, food, etc.), the loan repayment will require at least twice as long as did the education, itself.  Realistically, loan repayments often extend into decades.

For 2012, the top five majors in order of largest to smallest number projected to be hired are:  Engineering, Business, Accounting, Computer Science, and Economics.

The bottom five majors in the same order are Social Services, Humanities, Agriculture, Health Services, and Education.[3]

Only 49% of the graduates will have landed a job by this time next year.  As a recent comparison, for the years 2005-2008, that average would have been 73%.³

Why is the college job market so bleak?  There are many reasons and they all contribute.  I try to list a very few in order of effect.

1.)   Government policies, misguided incentives, and pointless restrictions have discouraged the growth of all businesses except the government, itself, and those businesses like health-care that are hugely government-funded.

2.)   Fewer and fewer US citizens are graduating with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) degrees.  As shown above, this is the brightest spot in the job market.

3.)   The job market is worse than reported.  For example, in February, two million people gave notice of leaving their jobs, the highest figure since 2008.[4] This gives the false impression that the job market is improving because those jobs are statistically counted as being available for hire; many of these jobs will not be replaced, however, and many of those persons who left their jobs will be competing for other jobs.

4.)   The competition for jobs is increasing because of the backlog of available graduates from prior years who did not find a job.

The list could go on but I would fear partisan interpretation rather than factual consideration.  Make your own list of reasons.  The fact remains that this year’s graduate will face formidable challenges in the job market.

In the next blog, I post my own remedies.

Order from Amazon.com, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas.  Now available in Kindle e-book.  The Persuasive Wizard is a must for anyone wanting a better job, desiring a raise in their current one, seeking investment funding, or just needing to persuade others.  College and High School students find it invaluable as they begin their careers

This week was a busy one with a visit to the Dalquest Research Site maintained by Midwestern State University (MSU).  The site is adjacent to the Big Bend National Park that borders the Rio Grande’s southern boundary of Texas.

I flew to Marfa, Texas with my friend, Charles Engelman, whose single-prop Beechcraft was a delight of sightseeing across western Texas.  One thing that astounded me was the number and extent of the turbine windmills.  From my count, there were a nominal 12 turbines per section as we crossed section after section of windy plains.  (A section is an area of land, one mile on each side, 640 acres).  The turbines are enormous, some 90-feet or so across.

Marfa has fashioned itself into a tourist resort after the model of Santa Fe.  I intend to return when I have more time to visit.

Charles Engelman is a success story of no small degree.  His engineering knowledge and experience in the petroleum industry made the trip ever so enjoyable and intellectually stimulating.  He is such a fine person.

At Marfa, we were picked up by Dr. Norman Horner of the university.  He had driven a 4-wheel drive, 350 Chevrolet double cab from Wichita Falls, about nine hours.  Dr. Horner, a Professor Emeritus of Biology, a former dean, and now director of the Dalquest Research Site had recently discovered, with his students, a new genus and species of underground spider at the Site.  With his knowledge of biology and Charles’s knowledge of engineering, and their combined knowledge of geology, it was like having two park rangers and wonderful friends as escorts.

We drove two hours to the site, mostly over dirt roads.  The last 30-minutes was passable only by a 4-wheel drive vehicle as we lumbered down and across the arroyos.  At the site, though, the view is breathtaking, probably the most spectacular canyon in the entire Big Bend area.    My photographs do it an injustice.  Walter W. Nelson photographed the site and has available prints and a book, Ribbons of Time. Dr. Horner’s description of the site includes many great photographs.  We arrived before sunset and spent the next day hiking it.  Two nights were spent with our wonderful host at the (Old Alazan) Stratchen Ranch.  (There is no underestimating the value of a shower and the excellent cooking of Dr. Horner).

Dr. Walter W. Dalquest and his wife, Rose, donated the land to MSU in 1996.  The total site is now about 3,000 acres.  Its mission is to promote research and education about the Chihuahuan Desert for undergraduates and graduate students.  It is visited by numerous universities and is seeking additional funds for improvement.  Direct any queries to Dr. Norman Horner at Norman.Horner@mwsu.edu

Order from Amazon.com, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas.  Now available in Kindle e-book.  The Persuasive Wizard is a must for anyone wanting a better job, desiring a raise in their current one, seeking investment funding, or just needing to persuade others.  College and High School students find it invaluable as they begin their careers.

When Marcus Tullius Cicero ran for the highest office in the Roman Republic in 64 BC, his younger brother, Quintus, sent him a 43-page letter outlining a campaign strategy.  The strategy must have worked because Marcus Cicero won the election and became the greatest orator that ancient Rome ever produced.  The letter is published this year as a Princeton University Press bilingual (Latin/English) book.

The Wall Street Journal published a review of this book and subsequently compared the politics of the Roman Republic to the shady side of US politics.  Now, everyone knows that Roman politics were satiated with intrigue and conspiracy, but there is only peripheral stock of that in Quintus’ letter.  The Journal’s business is to sell newspapers, not information.  I actually read the book.

It is amazing how the advice given 2,000 years ago is so modern.

The words of Quintus are in italics.

“Always remember what city this is, what office it is you seek, and who you are.” I teach the same thing in my seminars.  Remember where you are, who you are, where you came from, and the people that got you here.

“ … approach every speaking engagement as if your entire future depended on that single event.” Never shortchange.  Whether the janitor or the CEO, give it the best you have.

Referring to an opposing candidate Quintus says: “He is so unpredictable that men are more afraid of him when he is doing nothing than they are when he is making trouble.” Do not act in a way that people would say that of you.  Leaders are consistent.

“Make it clear to each one under obligation to you exactly what you expect.” No one likes surprises.  Make your instructions and expectations crystal clear.

“Recognizing the difference between the useful and useless [people] in any organization will save you from investing your time and resources with people who will be of little help to you.” Get rid of the dead weight – now.  Bad attitude and bad performance are contagious.  The mistake is not in removing people, but rather in taking too long to do it.

“But with any class of people, it isn’t enough that you merely call them by name and develop a friendship,  You must actually be their friend.”

“Open your face and expression, for these are the window to the soul.  If you look closed and distracted when people talk with you, it won’t matter that your front gates are never locked.” Most managers spend their time thinking of what they will say back instead of listening to what is being said.  Leaders listen.

I like this book.

Order from Amazon.com, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas.  Now available in Kindle e-book.  The Persuasive Wizard is a must for anyone wanting a better job, desiring a raise in their current one, seeking investment funding, or just needing to persuade others.  College and High School students find it invaluable as they begin their careers.

Since before the Renaissance, the Scientific Method has been the basis for science investigation.  When I queried high school students recently about the process, they unanimously responded that the scientific method started with the formation of an hypothesis.  Then, they said, test that hypothesis against data.  I disagreed.  It is a mistake of first magnitude to form an hypothesis in a vacuum or even with just some preliminary observations or thoughts.  Preconceived ideas and opinions can be misleading, distracting, and disastrous.

When I teach the scientific method, I quote Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective created by Sir Arthur Conon Doyle.  In The Scandal in Bohemia, Holmes turns to his associate, the venerable, but naive Dr. Watson, and says,

“Watson … it is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts…”

You must first have some basis for hypothesizing, some substantiation for formulating.  You must start with data and facts, not random suppostions.  Do not form opinions based on scant observations and vague notions.  Let the data speak.

Then, once the data are collected and a valid hypothesis formulated, that hypothesis can be tested against additional experiments.  The hypothesis might be verified, contradicted, or modified.  One experiment can disprove an hypothesis, but no amount of data can prove an hypothesis.  The experiment and hypothesis usually iterate until some overarching theory is formed.  The theory should explain the behavior of nature in some way.  A theory, in physics, is virtually useless it can make predictions.  Predictions are made and the new data are compared to the predictions.

In technology and in life, do not form opinions or develop hypotheses until you have accurate, validated data in hand.  Start with the data and then form your opinions.

As Adrian Monk says, “You’ll thank me later.”

Order from Amazon.com, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas.  Now available in Kindle e-book.  The Persuasive Wizard is a must for anyone wanting a better job, desiring a raise in their current one, seeking investment funding, or just needing to persuade others.  College and High School students find it invaluable as they begin their careers.

In the summer of 64 BC, the 42 year old Marcus Tullius Cicero ran for the highest office in the Roman Republic. Marcus had a brother, Quintus, four years younger.  Both were born in Arpinum,  small town south of Rome.  Their father was a successful businessman, but not upper crust.  He sent his sons to Greece to receive the finest education money could buy.

Thus, the candidate Marcus Cicero was an outsider to the city of Rome and not a member of the ruling elite.  Roman politics were complex and intricate.  (The idea of “one man, one vote” was Greek, not Roman.)  You had to be physically in Rome on election day to cast your secret ballot, a name scribed on a wax-covered wooden tablet. This was a mere two decades before the assignation of Julius Caesar; the Republic was weakening and elections were won by tribal influence and class distinction.  The idea of electing an outsider from a nothing town to rule millions was high stakes.

There were two other men running for office that year, Antonius Hybrida and Cataline, both with strong Roman influence.

The younger sibling had great admiration for his older brother, Marcus.  Quintus wrote Marcus a long letter outlining a strategy for How to Win an Election. With the upcoming US presidential election in the forefront, Princeton University Press published one of their Latin/English versions of this 43-page letter.  It is amazing that the advice he gave 2,075 years ago can be apropos to your ability today, not just to win an election, but to persuade others.

Thus, I read from the letter of Quintus to his brother Marcus.  “You can clearly see that even those from the loftiest background are not equal to you because …?”

Now, what do you think was the reason Quintus gave?  What did Marcus possess that his opponents did not?  Quintus says it is something that will absolutely ensure a win.  Guarantee success.  What is it?

Is it, “You have more money?”

Is it something along the lines of “You have friends in high places? You have a network of influence?  It’s ‘who you know’ not ‘what you know?’”

Does Quintus write,  “You’re smarter than your opponents.  You have more education.  You are better on your feet,  You are a genius, Bro?”

Quintus reveals the secret to winning.  What is it that Marcus possesses already, that will absolutely guarantee a win?  What does Quintus reveal?

.. quod sine nervis sunt, tibi paris non esse.

… they are not equal to you because they lack the drive.

Ha. Ha.  That is right.  It is what I tell everyone in my classes and seminars on persuasion.  Effort, drive, and hard work will make you a success.  The geniuses will not beat you because they will procrastinate and think they have plenty of time – after all, they are geniuses.  (The tortoise and the hare.)  Those dependent upon someone else’s influence will not beat you because somewhere along the line, influence always short-circuits.  People who must depend upon their network spend a lot of their time baggage-handling.

You do not have to be the brightest candle in box, but you do have to burn the longest.  You must work hard.  You must have drive.

Marcus Tullius Cicero was the greatest orator that ancient Rome ever produced.

If you want to be the persuasive wizard, then start putting in the work.  Ask any sports hero or business magnate.  Hard work is the currency of success.