Karen Taylor Writes

Welcome To The Official Home Of Karen Taylor

Archives for November 2013

Will You Read My New Blog Posts — Because I Worked Hard on Them?

by // Leave a Comment

When You Are Looking for Persuasive Words, Consider Because — Because it Has the Power to Move People to Action

Because has a unique ability to move people to action.

because word on computer pc keyboard key
Because — one of the most powerful words to help persuade.

I’ve tried it myself randomly tossing it in when I want someone to do something.

Usually I get a better response than using “please.”

What is it about this word?

According to Robert Cialdini in his classic book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, “A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor, we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.”

Cialdini’s belief is backed up by a study with three tests.

Test 1 — I Have Five Pages. May I Use the Xerox Machine?

First, participants in the study asked people using a copy machine the following question: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?

Sixty percent of the people allowed the person to cut in front of them and use the machine.

Test 2 — May I Use the Xerox Machine, Because I’m in a Rush?

This time the participant said: “I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I am in a rush?”

Yes, the request was only minimally changed. And the “because” reason was barely a reason at all!

Almost 94 percent of people allowed the person to cut in line

Test 3 — May I Use the Xerox Machine Because I Have to Make Copies?

In the final part of the study, the participant asked the following question: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make copies?”

Even though “because I have to make copies” is a fairly lame reason, 93 percent of the people let the person cut in front of them.

So what’s the lesson here?

When you are focusing on writing persuasive copy, it all comes down to answering your customers’ number one question: What’s in it for me?

And apparently you don’t have to sweat too much over the answer you provide—because even giving weak reason has shown to be significantly more persuasive than giving no reason at all.

Now, please contact me to write your persuasive content, because I’m looking for new clients!

Show and Tell — “Austin Chronicle” Photographer Captures Powerful Images and Gives a Memorable Workshop

by // 2 Comments

John Anderson Shared the Power of Images to Show and Tell a Story in Photojournalism Workshop

Can You Spot the Undercover Cops at Occupy Austin? These three photos include APD undercover cops, who infiltrated the event. Photographer, John Anderson, spotted them in his photos of the event. Top photo: Reza is to the right of the protester with the duct tape over his mouth (Corey Williams). Middle photo: Reza is also in the crowd marching with the banner. In the bottom photo: Shannon "Butch" McDowell is the guy with the long black and gray beard standing behind the sign and woman with her fist up (Natalie Atwater).
Can You Spot the Undercover Cops at Occupy Austin? These three photos include APD undercover cops, who infiltrated the event. Photographer, John Anderson, spotted them in his photos. Top photo: Reza is to the right of the protester with the duct tape over his mouth (Corey Williams). Middle photo: Reza is also in the crowd marching with the banner. In the bottom photo: Shannon “Butch” McDowell is the guy with the long black and gray beard standing behind the sign and woman with her fist up (Natalie Atwater).

Occupy Wall Street was an historic event that captivated the public and spread to cities across the country—including Austin, where Occupy Austin lasted for nearly five months, with protesters camping out at City Hall.

One local photographer—John Anderson—captured the entire event and will be publishing his photos in an upcoming book entitled: In Search of a Revolution. Occupy Austin in Photographs and Text.

John described his interest in documenting Occupy Austin:

“The project began as an assignment to photograph the Occupy Austin encampment for an on-going photo gallery for The Austin Chronicle website. The movement’s energy and 24/7 aspect made it an exciting and challenging project that I continued beyond what was originally expected from the assignment.”

Visually Documenting a Unique, Historic Event

Occupy Austin PhotographsWhile other media covered bits and pieces of Occupy Austin, no one covered it visually more thoroughly visually than John.

His images tell the story of the struggle of a small band of local activists more than any words could.

I had the great good fortune to learn about capturing visual images at live events from John at a three-hour workshop held in June.

The event took place at a location I discovered in the spring, called 5604 Manor. 5604 Manor offers a wide variety of programs and events, like panel discussions with people in the natural food world and documentaries on activists’ issues, along with worker defense programs.

Workshop Covers Photographing a Controversial Activist Event

Occupy Austin PhotographsFor the first hour of the photojournalism workshop, John ran through an overview of photography tips such as exposure, lighting, and composition.

Then for the next two hours, he clicked through a slide show with many of the photos he took during Occupy Austin.

For each image, he discussed why he took the photo, what he was thinking at the time, what was going on around him, and visual highlights of the images.

This personal component made it hands-down the best photography lesson I’ve ever experienced.

One of my favorite behind-the-scenes commentaries was the revelation that there were a few undercover cops pretending to be protesters participating in Occupy Austin.

John and an associate were able to spot the undercover cops when they reviewed the images.

View Occupy Austin Images Online or in Upcoming New Books

In Search of a Revolution Cover-4Regarding his upcoming new multi-book project, John said:

“The book project documents a group in Austin, Texas, who participated in the international movement created by Occupy Wall Street. On October 6, 2011, they set up an encampment by taking advantage of a no-curfew policy at Austin City Hall and called themselves Occupy Austin. The project consists of three photo books all presented chronologically.”

The images will be available in several formats:

  • The first book, In Search of a Revolution: Occupy Austin in Photographs and Text, contains 196 photos with 188 pages and includes an appendix with thumbnail photos to identify the undercover officers in the book, officers’ text messages, and links to more information. The book will be available for $59.99.
  • The second book, Occupy Austin: The Encampment Months, is a subset of the first. It contains 49 photos with 50 pages just from the physical encampment period. It will be available for $29.99.
  • The third book is an ebook version of In Search of a Revolution: Occupy Austin in Photographs and Text (for iPad only at this point). It will contain links spread throughout the book to The Austin Chronicle photo gallery, court documents obtained under subpoena regarding the APD under covers, a link to Wikileaks’ copy of the Stratfor email indicating DPS had at least one under cover officer with the group, and Chronicle articles about the infiltrations. The ebook will also have audio files of chanting. It will be available for $19.99.
  • Finally, PDF files of the two books will be available for $7.99 each.

Occupy Austin: The Encampment Months will be for sale at Monkeywrench bookstore in Austin. The rest will be sold online to start.

While waiting for his book, you can view John’s Occupy Austin images on The Austin Chronicle website, where he has created an archive.

John’s workshop lessons in photographing important events will stay with me forever—as much as his powerful images will.

A few months after the workshop, I saw John in action at a local protest march. It was interesting to watch him as he did things like stand in the middle of the march facing the marchers as they walked around him.

I could tell John was capturing the best images of the day.

reddit Founder, Alexis Ohanian, Speaks to 200 UT Students — and Me!

by // Leave a Comment

How I Became an Accidental University of Texas Student for a Night — And What I Learned About Entrepreneurism from reddit’s Co-founder

Alexis Ohanian - Without Their Permission (c) Tanya KechichianI’m always hunting for interesting learning opportunities—and Austin offers up a never-ending smorgasbord. (It’s one of the reasons I love this city.)

Last month, I found a post on Eventbrite entitled: Alexis Ohanian’s Epic Without Their Permission Book Tour.

It sounded great to me—because I love book readings and author events.

I’d just come off the annual two-day bender called the Texas Book Festival. But I felt this was a rare opportunity to hear the co-found of the uber-popular reddit.com.

The event was being held in a building on the University of Texas campus. I arrived on the evening of October 28th with a vague idea of the building’s location.

But as I wound through the 40-acre UT maze in the dark, I realized my iPhone map was no help.

However, thankfully, several UT students were. Along the way, I ended up asking four students, “Do you know where Burdine Hall is?”

One young man even walked me part way there!

I finally found the building. I was 10 minutes late, but the session hadn’t started yet.

I glanced around at the auditorium-style, well-worn classroom and saw only college-age kids. There were no people my age. (Don’t ask.)

I’m sure I stood out in the crowd. I thought I felt many eyes looking at me.

I felt out of place and decided to bolt out of there. But then one of the three guys on the stage started speaking. I decided to listen for a few minutes, then leave.

However, I forgot all about leaving once Alexis started talking.

Author Leads a Pep Rally in Entrepreneurism to College Kids

Ohanian Without Their Permission_cover
Yes, this is the book’s quirky book cover.

As soon as Alexis began speaking, it became clear to me that this was not your typical book reading or author event. (There weren’t even any copies of Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed to purchase.)

It was basically a pep rally designed to encourage college kids to become entrepreneurs.

Later I found this description on his website:

“The essential message throughout the book is that you don’t need anybody’s permission to do things on the Internet. This is a critical message for everyone to hear over and over again. Because it is so different from anything that has come before which always involved gatekeepers. Alexis does a mighty great job using the impressive things he has done to illustrate this message and make it tangible, all the while remaining understated.”

On his website, Alexis said that three things inspire him: Perseverance, luck, and the Internet.

And, indeed, those were the topics he spoke to during his hour-long talk—delivered with passion, intelligence, and a lot of humor.

Here’s a recap.

The Internet — “They Merely Adopted the Internet. We Were Born into it.”

He started out by telling the students: “They merely adopted the Internet. We were born into it.” (Ouch!)

“Thanks to the Internet, we are more liberated than we’ve ever been before to do new things.”

He added, “Do the thing you want to do without waiting for permission.

“Find what you are passionate about, and if you can find an audience, who says you can’t do it?”

He stressed the advantage of being able to code. “Coding is the next form of literacy. If you have that talent, use it to start coding your own products.”

He talked about how he and his partner, Steve Huffman, started reddit, which is a top 100 website with over 70 million users.

“We were just two college kids in an apartment,” he said. “But the Internet, if not the world, is flat. Anyone can get on and create whatever they want.”

Perseverance — “Entrepreneur is French for ‘Has Ideas, Does Them.’”

Ideas are worthless; execution is everything, according to Alexis.

He joked that “entrepreneur is French for ‘has ideas, does them.’”

“People can find excuses not to do anything.

“There will be failures along the way. In fact, all start-ups are in a perpetual state of falling apart. No one has it all figured out. If they say they do they are lying, delusional, or crazy.”

He added that we spend our whole life fearing failure, struggling to check the right boxes. But “life is full of fails,” so embrace them because they provide the opportunity to learn.

“The first version of anything is never what the product becomes. If you wait for perfection, you’ll never launch.

“Be dedicated to your craft, focus obsessively, and develop a unique voice.”

Alexis also had this tip: During your college years, “keep your side hustle going.”

In other words, “take advantage of your school’s system. Hack everything. Use your graphic design class to create your logo. Use your computer class to write your own code. The college campus of today is the Silicon Valley of yesterday.”

Luck — “We Had no Idea How to do it, but We Jumped in Anyway”

One spring, instead of heading off to Spring Break with the rest of their friends, Alexis and his partner attended a startup boot camp, Y Combinator, to pitch their product idea.

The pair approached the bootcamp’s co-founder, Paul Graham, with their idea for a mobile app called MyMobileMenu, which would allow people to order takeout food before arriving at restaurants.

“Its acronym was MMM, as in mmmmm good. We thought it was genius,” said Alexis.

Perhaps it was, but it was also only 2004, and Paul told them the phone technology wasn’t ready yet.

Then he suggested they start a “front page on the Internet.”

“We had no idea how to do it, but we jumped in anyway. It was pure luck.”

As most believe, luck happens when you are focused on your goals. As Louis Pasteur famously said: “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

Alexis is all about helping prepare the minds of college-age kids across the country for Internet entrepreneurship.

His five-month book tour and entrepreneur pep rally is landing in a dizzying number of locations.

My recap cannot possibly capture the intensity of Alexis in person—or the power of his message.

If you’re lucky enough to be near one of the stops on his five-month book tour-pep rally, I highly advise you to hear him in person—even if you are the oldest person in the room.