Thread by @brianlaungaoaeh

#Bookfie | For a special project @lisahellebo and I are working on this summer.

A holiday is a terrible thing to waste.

#TWSCF | The past ran on supply chains. The present runs on supply chains. The future will run on supply chains. The world is a supply chain.®

Feelings are crucial, much more important than facts.
- Trish Hall

Those who read constantly tend to write coherently.
- Trish Hall

I’d add: Those who write constantly tend to think coherently.

It has to be a surprising idea or a surprising person writing. If you don’t have either, it’s not worth running.
- Trish Hall

If you write something painfully obvious and you’re not famous, your work will never make it out of the pile of unsolicited manuscripts.
- Trish Hall

It’s your writing, not your contacts, that will make you successful.
- Trish Hall

I have believed this since I was a child: The ability to communicate complex ideas with clarity and simplicity is invaluable.

You must always have a clear reason to be telling the story you are telling, along with some expertise in that matter.
- Trish Hall

If you want to persuade people to listen to you, you need to listen to them first.
- Trish Hall

I couldn’t agree more.

People are almost always dying to talk, if only people will listen.
- Trish Hall

You have to start by understanding that smart, rational people might disagree with you, and they have good reason to do so. If you disdain the opposition, you will never persuade them of anything.
- Trish Hall

A lesson I learned as a competitive debater in secondary school.

In any kind of persuasion, whether it’s done in writing or in person, it is essential to establish similarities and shared values. We are persuaded by people we like—not by people we don’t.
- Trish Hall

If you want to be persuasive, you have to connect to your audience emotionally.
- Trish Hall

If you can arouse feelings in a reader or viewer, then you can have influence.
- Trish Hall

In your persuasive writing, remember that scaring people and being negative does not generally agree with our fundamental natures. We are hardwired for optimism, so we generally respond better to positive messages than negative ones.
- Trish Hall

In your writing or talking, if you can put people in an optimistic mood, they are more likely to hear you. Fear is strong, but so is hope.
- Trish Hall

Once you accept that people on the other side are real people, you also have to accept that you might be wrong and they might be right.
- Trish Hall

Most of the time, if you argue, you will annoy people and make them feel battered and defensive (or worse, bore them).
- Trish Hall

Argumentation is not the same as persuasion: The former focuses on displaying knowledge. The latter focuses on changing minds and opinions.

Never fight with your audience. Anger needs to be a bonding mechanism, not something that creates a wall. Leaders and writers who use anger are speaking to their followers, not attempting to bring others to their side.
- Trish Hall

Nonfiction persuasive pieces can do the same thing. They can offer characters, suspense, and some kind of satisfying conclusion.
- Trish Hall

Our brains don’t like information that contradicts what we believe to be true. We also tend to remember information that matches the biases we already have.
- Trish Hall

How can confirmation bias be harnessed for persuasion?

Quod volumus, facile credimus.

We readily believe what we want to believe.

Corollary:

Nos libenter rejiciunt non vultis credere.

We readily reject what we do not want to believe.

If you do not know what the most commonly accepted version of reality is, you can’t dispute it. If you don’t take into account the other side, and what is known, your ideas will be dismissed much more easily.
- Trish Hall

If you’re trying to get something published, in all likelihood the editor wants one of three things: to be surprised by something; to be given a new perspective on an old problem; or to be delighted and impressed by the writing.
- Trish Hall

In any kind of opinion writing, have a clear logical argument and conclusion. If you fail to do that, editors will take the easy way out and move on to something else, because there are always other possibilities and other choices.
- Trish Hall

Editors aren’t heartless, but they often have to reject people. It is better to do so quickly without getting attached. It’s also best to avoid explanation. If someone asked me why a piece was rejected, I never answered. It was a matter of sanity and triage.
- Trish Hall

If you make every effort to please the reader, you will inevitably find an editor who wants to publish your work.
- Trish Hall

Always say what you believe, directly.
- Trish Hall

I have faith in the power of persuasion, mainly because I have seen so much positive change over my life. Engaging with the world, whether through writing or in person, is what the world is, what life is.
- Trish Hall

Trish has written a great book. She reiterates lessons I learned in my Narrative Non-fiction class with Professor Blanche Boyd at Connecticut College. That was years ago. I always need all the reminders.

As I put it at Innovation Footprints: I am learning. Therefore, I write.

Here's an interview @WBUR: Former New York Times Editor On Writing To Get Someone's Attention — And Maybe Changing Their Mind wbur.fm/2xnEnRn via @hereandnow

@WBUR @hereandnow Here's Trish on email: How to Get Every Email Returned nyti.ms/2M5Jz6t via @nytimes