Photo of “The Woz” used under a Flickr Creative Commons license. I’m sure the gentleman holding the mic is an excellent interviewer.

My mind goes to a butchered interview with Deepak Chopra, a flubbed talk with Mark Messier and a missed opportunity with Michael Stipe. I’m sure you have your own examples.

There’s one constant with all these conversational catastrophes: The interviewer isn’t listening. He or she is just reading from a list of questions and checking off items — regardless of how the respondent answers.

Whether it’s a television interview or a copywriting client, the discussion should have a natural evolution. You have to be willing to really listen and go where the interview is taking you. That’s how you find the “good stuff.”

I briefly mentioned this in my newsletter post, but what does it mean to “really listen” and allow an interview to evolve organically?

Photo used with permission from stock.xchng

I come from a decade-long career as a professional newspaper, magazine and dot-com journalist. I’ve also taken workshops and training courses on advanced interview techniques. In essence, the methodology is pretty simple: Be totally present with the “explorer” (interview subject). Track with their expressed thoughts, behaviors and visible emotions (rather than being inside your own head or referencing your own ego). Never interrupt and never offer “your take.” Just ask the best possible question from where they leave off based on an “order of operations,” of sorts, for what’s most important to question.

It’s really just the Socratic Method on steroids, but it profoundly influences the quality of the answers I receive (both as a copywriter and in everyday conversations).

Let’s connect this back to the copywriting work I do every day:

A few months back I interviewed an entire staff for in-depth company profiles. Many of these employees had similar job descriptions, so I really had to dig deeper to uncover what made each of them exceptional.

That’s where listening and asking great questions becomes so essential.

I simply entered those interviews from a place of nonjudgment, caring, acceptance and trusting each employee to be his or her “own best expert.” That is to say, I was totally “nondirective” in my approach. When you come without assumptions or an agenda, you’re then in a position to be truly excited and curious about what the person might say and ask the very best possible next question based upon where the interview subject leaves off.

At the personal growth and training center where I took my classes, they call it “being in the attitude.”

Near the conclusion of one of the company profile interviews, I asked, for a bit of extra color, what the employee liked to do away from work. She said she liked to knit.

I could have dismissed that as a “boring” answer and moved on. But I didn’t have a predetermined path. If she wanted to talk about knitting, then why not see where it might go? So, I simply asked, “What do you like to knit?”

She responded by saying that when she encounters people out in the world who are going through difficult times or illness, she knits them a shawl and prays for them as she’s knitting. She then brings it to the person hoping it will be a source of cheer and warmth.

That poignant answer allowed me to really convey the depth of this employee who was so much more than a company title — someone who in her free time enjoyed literally wrapping needy recipients in heartfelt prayers for well-being.

The same principles apply whether I’m listening during the process of ghostwriting, developing Web copy or business blog copywriting. It’s that ability to “go deeper” during interviews that ultimately makes clients shine.

I didn’t get to hear what Deepak would have said about the nature of reality … or how “The Captain” willed his way to so many Cups … or what Stipe was thinking when he wrote that song. But at least I know I that when interviewing my clients or talking to those I love, I won’t miss “the good stuff.”

Are you sensing a theme yet?

Let’s take them one-by one:

The ECO-SAFE Foundation & ECO-SAFE ‘Merit Badge’

As a copywriter, I print documents. I try to read on the screen until printing becomes unavoidable, and if those documents stay in-house (and aren’t sensitive in nature), you bet I’ll flip ‘em over and put them through the printer again. Ultimately, it all gets recycled — either as-is or shredded — depending on the situation. Still, whether it’s pen-and-ink or push-to-print, I have to admit that I’m going through some paper.

Inspired printing alternatives

That’s why I was immediately so smitten with the ECO-SAFE “Merit Badge.” This little bug easily goes beneath page content or in your blog sidebar. (Look down and to the right.) And if you’re working with me on an “effortless” business blog, there’s a WordPress widget that adds flexibility and happily takes code manipulation out of the equation.

This “printing alternatives” button is so simplistic and minimal that it’s easy to overlook the implications. What if every time a potential client or employer needed to print my resume, that person instead downloaded a surprisingly gorgeous PDF of the page or “self e-mailed” a clean, “green” version? It adds up … and it’s efficient as can be. It helps in the larger sense, and it adds functionality that helps you, too. And I haven’t figured out yet exactly what it means, but there’s a box on their site that says, “Receive free music from Apple iTunes by telling us where you placed the merit Badge.” I’m all for win-win-wins, so a bravo goes to the folks over at ECO-SAFE.

East Bay Green Tours & the Sustainable Business Alliance

I’m only just becoming involved with these two fine organizations, so I’ll mostly wait to write dedicated posts from a more informed perspective. Let’s just say that I love living in the East Bay because it’s so rich with conscious, forward-thinking people, communities and companies. I’m sincerely curious about the depth and scope of the East Bay’s green economy, and a tour around its sustainable businesses (with a chance to meet and ask questions of owners) is a splendid opportunity. The same can certainly be said for the Sustainable Business Alliance, where I can support through my copywriting and editing skills and network with a lot of open, like-minded individuals and business owners.

Sustainable Web sites

Again, this is a new discovery for me, so I’ll wait to say much more. But “100 percent carbon neutral Web hosting” with a “100 percent offset of energy usage with Certified Wind Power” and “green” hosting plans sounds like another step in the right direction.

Feel free to call me at the office (510-647-8529) or send an e-mail if you’d like to discuss these topics more.

It’s not uncommon for me to have a conversation with a friend or colleague only to have that person stop two-thirds of the way through and say, “I’ve been talking this whole time. I’m so sorry!” I just let that person know that I don’t mind in the least bit. I already know what I plan to say. What’s new is hearing a different take from someone I care about and respect.

You’ll notice newsletter subscription functionality has been added to the sidebar. I have plenty of ideas about what I’ll write in those installments, but again, I already know what I plan to say. What would be wonderful would be to get the thoughts and feedback of readers, clients, friends, (maybe even webcrawlers) about what would make an absorbing newsletter. If you have a spare moment, please first sign up, then give me your input.

I know this newsletter will include strategies, interviews and stories on how to be wildly creative, exceedingly productive and thoroughly inspired.

Now let’s see if I can live up to that billing!

I’ll never forget those first notes of utter ridiculousness upon hearing The Real Tuesday Weld’s “Bathtime in Clerkenwell” or The Flaming Lips’ “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.” If it weren’t for Nic Harcourt, Air might not have become my all-time most-played source of background music while writing. And Frou Frou and Franz Ferdinand might not have become staples of those morning walks where so many pages of text came together in my mind.

I didn’t know Mr. Harcourt had moved on to his next adventure until I launched the latest streaming show and heard an unfamiliar DJ’s voice whispering back at me. I wish Jason Bentley all the best filling a giant’s shoes (more for my sake than his; this is the only “radio” show to which I ever listen.) I’m sure the show will never be the same, but it probably shouldn’t try to be.

Thinking about writing in the post-Harcourt era (at least on Eclectic), led to more thoughts about how music influences, inspires and drives. I think every copywriter has a different system when it comes to crafting content, especially on-deadline. Coming from a family of musicians, music has always been essential to my creative (and creation) process. Usually I can’t listen to songs with English lyrics while writing; the words create a war for my attention and affect my sentence construction. What seems to work best is ambient music, Latin music and classical.

Here’s a list of my current favorites, should you want to try to write or paint or proof math equations to something different:

Ambient/New Age:
Air – Pocket Symphony
Deuter – Earth Blue
Present Dreams – Present Dreams
Boat Club – Caught The Breeze
Magic Sound Fabric – Freedom Star
Mouse On Mars – Rost Pocks: The EP Collection

Latin/World:
Any and all Bebel Gilberto (also a Harcourt favorite)
Cesaria Evora – “Petit Pays” (Chateauflight Remix)

Classical:
Yo-Yo Ma, Ennio Morricone, Roma Sinfonietta – Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone
Yo-Yo Ma – The Cello Suites – Inspired By Bach

I guess the time has finally come to lean more on Pandora. Wish me luck …

One of the best examples was my introduction to Lee Rodrigues, co-founder of The Technology Dojo. Unbeknown to Lee, I was privately researching how to best convert my clunky, “overly masculine” (to quote my wife) Web site into being a lighter, more versatile communication tool. I ultimately decided on migrating my content into a WordPress-powered format. The next morning I visited a business networking group in Oakland, met Lee and discovered he does that (among other things) for a living. At TechDojo, Lee does technology coaching and strategy sessions on how to make bloated, do-nothing sites more flexible, more search-engine optimized and easier to monetize. We hit it off, and I’m thrilled to now be a copywriter and proofreader in TechDojo’s stable of resources.

I was also amazed at how much more quickly and efficiently my SEO techniques took effect in the WordPress format. Within just a few days my site moved near the top of the Google rankings in categories crucial for me. For instance, I’m the first two listings for the Google search “proofreader berkeley.” I’m also the first two listings for “berkeley copywriter,” and so on. My old site and Google didn’t get along nearly that well, despite my best SEO efforts.

Additionally, WordPress has hundreds of thousands of users contributing new plug-ins and themes, and it feels like all those people are working as my Web team in some small way. Many of those user-generated plug-ins are now essential to my workflow. WordPress (combined with MacJournal) also makes writing this business blog a heck of a lot simpler.

Now that my professional Web site is humming along, I’m utilizing The Technology Dojo to take things to that proverbial “next level.” And my wife is going to be taking advantage of a special very-reduced strategy session rate they’re offering right now to move her blogspot blog over to her own domain as her audience and reach expands. (She writes a blog that explores sea vegetables a a sustainable food source. It’s fascinating stuff, and she somehow makes seaweed fun, too.)

One of my goals with this blog is to highlight great local and online resources. WordPress and The Technology Dojo both fit that description, and it just so happens that they go hand-in-hand.

If you want to chat with Lee about your site’s growth opportunities, you can reach him toll-free at 1-866-556-4269 or through their contact form.