As a writer, I have a passion for words. I also enjoy networking. So, imagine for a moment that your favourite business networking organization (mine is The Business League) was run by management consultants, and that you all talked in management speak.

Instead of a business breakfast meeting you would have an “early morning enterprise-synergy bacon-and-egg scenario”. And the main advantage of having just one member per profession in each chapter or branch would be that “we marginalize our sector rivals to a point where they are almost nil as a potentially competitive market factor, which means that we can dominate, in a total way, all the marbles”.

Instead of finding ways of passing referrals and doing business with your fellow members you would “innovate front-end methodologies to empower inter-commercial deliverables and thereby maximize your mission-critical schema”.

However, if you are faced with this sort of mumbo-jumbo in your company literature, perhaps you ought to be employing an editor (like me!) to make sense of it all.

I’m sure that you’ve all got your favourite examples of management speak or business buzzwords. Perhaps you could share them with me and we could all have a good laugh! Just send me a comment listing them and I’ll collate all the ones that I receive. I look forward to reading your contributions in due course.

Recently, while looking around for subjects to write about on my blog, I came across the story of the Reverend Robert Shields, who died a few months ago.

His claim to fame is that for 25 years he kept a diary – but not any old diary! From 1972 until 1997 he would spend at least four hours a day recording every detail of his life in five-minute segments. Nothing was left out – he even recorded his visits to the toilet (and what he did there) – to ensure that the entire day, every day, was accounted for. In his small office at his his family home in Dayton, Washington State, he kept half a dozen typewriters (Do you remember those?) on his desk just in case any one of them broke down due to over-use. He had them arranged in such a way that he could reach any one of them by using his swivel chair without having to get up.

Each day he would type about 3,000–6,000 words describing in fine detail his daily activities on to single sheets of paper. Eventually, he would bind these sheets into ledgers, which were stored in huge cardboard boxes and stacked to the ceiling just outside his office. As well as detailing his trips to the bathroom, he recorded his body temperature, blood pressure and his daily medication; he described every piece of junk mail he received, every meal he ate and the cost of virtually everything he bought. He even attached a nostril hair to one page so that scientists could study his DNA. He would sleep for just two hours a day so that he could describe the dreams he had experienced. In a good year he would write three million words, but in a bad year he would manage just one million. He would type everything down spontaneously as it came into his head and didn’t correct or edit anything. He said that he didn’t read any of the entries afterwards because if he did he wouldn’t have time to do anything else.

Eventually, in 1997, he succumbed to a massive stroke that curtailed his writing activities although he did attempt for a while to dictate his journal entries to his wife but, perhaps not surprisingly, she quickly became bored with the task. In 1999, he handed over his diary to Washington State University in 91 boxes on condition that it would not be read or subjected to a word count for at least 50 years. However, one sample page has found its way on to the Internet and can be viewed here.

I wonder what Robert Shields would have made of today’s blogging technology. Would he have used it to update his diary for all of us to read and comment on or would he have shied away from it because it was just too public an arena to reveal the details of his private life and personal thoughts? At his age, would he have understood or been afraid of Web 2.0, Windows XP/Vista or Mac OS 10.4/10.5? Or would he have become the world’s ultimate blogger and acquired the same sort of following that ‘Geriatric1927‘ (Peter Oakley) has amassed on YouTube. I suppose now we shall never know!

You may have noticed that my last post was over two weeks ago and may have thought that nothing was happening on the Lockyer front. On the contrary, I have been very busy. During the first week of March I was editing articles for three different journals for Intellect and was out every evening either socializing – it was my birthday last week – business networking, attending committee meetings or dealing with entries for a local road race I’m the director of.

In addition, for some time now I have been looking for ways to increase the number of visitors to my blog. As a result of reading a very interesting article by Jack Humphrey of SocialPowerLinking.com recently I’ve been spending a lot of my spare time putting together a social marketing campaign. So, over the past week I’ve been signing up to join the various social media sites, such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Propeller and Mixx, as well as the blog communities at MyBlogLog and the BlogCatalog. The results have been almost instantaneous – within a few hours I have had half a dozen e-mails from other bloggers wanting to be friends and one very complimentary review of my blog. I had already signed up to Facebook and MySpace so my next job in this compaign is find my existing friends (in the physical world) whom are on these sites and start interacting with them in cyberspace.

Finally, I suppose I ought to start writing articles for this blog. I’ve already got a few ideas that need to be worked on – so watch this space!

Last Friday I took part in a game of ‘Call My Bluff’. For those readers who don’t know the rules, the object of the game is to guess the correct definition of an obscure word from the three or four different ones given to you by another team.

Although I work with words professionally on a daily basis, I was surprised to find that even I’d never heard of any of the words used in the game. Mind you, the English language is renowned for the richness of its vocabulary. The Oxford English Dictionary lists over 600,000 different words and their definitions, and technical or scientific terms can add millions more to the total. Altogether, there are about 200,000 English words in common use whereas an average well-read educated person can have a total vocabulary of between 15,000 to 20,000 words, and only use about 1,500 of them in a normal week. So it is not surprising that such words as ‘laroid’, ‘lagan’ or ‘xebec’ are totally unknown to most people.

What is particularly interesting is that, despite being rather complex to learn and difficult to master, English is probably the most widely spoken language in the world. Approximately 375 million people speak it as a first language and up to 1,400 million more speak it as a second language. English is the dominant international language in aviation, business, communications, diplomacy, entertainment and science and is an official language in 53 different countries. And what is even more interesting is that each of these countries has its own version of English. We all know about the differences between American (US) English and British English, but what about Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, Caribbean English and South African English – all of which merit having their own specialized dictionary being published by the Oxford University Press. And then there is Indian English (the bain of all those British people who hate being put through to certain telephone call centres!), Malaysian English and Chinese English. Professor David Crystal, who specializes in linguistics, has claimed that if you combine native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world. India is closely followed in this respect by the People’s Republic of China.

Coming closer to home, there is Scottish English, Welsh English and Irish English. Each region of England itself has its own dialect and even the Isle of Man and Guernsey have their own form of the language. So, you could say that there is no officially correct form of English – not even the ‘Queen’s English’ (after all, her family originally came from Germany and her husband is Greek!) – but this is probably the reason for its beauty, its flexibility and its attraction. Long may it continue!

I’m a member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders and I’ve been following a recent thread about books sales on their e-mail discussion forum, SfEPLine.

Apparently, a book publisher told one of our members that over half of all the books published in the United Kingdom sell less than 200 copies in their entire lifetime (or should that be shelf life?), which at first sight may seem somewhat surprising. However, with the advent of self-publishing and print-on-demand services, this sort of statistic does have a ring of truth about it because a large number of self-publishers don’t print that many copies of their book anyway and would consider themselves extremely lucky to sell even 100 copies to their friends and family.

Then another SfEP member, who specializes in editing works of fiction, told us that sales of a first novel in hardback produced by a commercial publisher are commonly very low and that total sales of just 600 copies per book was not at all unusual. Although the traditional way of publishing a book is to bring it out first as a hardback and then in paperback if potential sales warrant it, a lot of novels are published just as paperbacks. On the other hand, a lot of hardbacks are sold to public libraries – in fact some books would never have been published in the first place if it hadn’t been for the library market. Unfortunately, the bottom has fallen out of this market recently, which has caused big problems for publishing companies who produce fiction titles.

However, to a certain extent these lost library sales have been replaced by sales to a new breed of ‘collectors’ who buy autographed hardbacks as an investment. The rumour is that these collectors don’t actually read the books but keep them locked away so that they remain in mint condition so that they can be sold at a premium at a later date – perhaps when the author’s later works have broken into the best-seller lists.

Nowadays, public libraries are buying as many books as possible in paperback in order to save money but publishers prefer to sell them hardbacks instead because they have to sell far more copies of a paperback in order to break even financially. This means that novels with a smaller market (e.g. by a first-time author) are not viable to publish as a paperback. So unless publishers feel that they can sell enough hardback copies of a novel (or any other book) to make even a small profit they will reject a first-time author’s manuscript every time. And that is why there are so many hardback copies of celebrities’ autobiographies, cookbooks, etc. on the shelves in bookshops irrespective of how good they are – enough people buy them to make it worthwhile for publishers to produce them.

So, my advice to anybody who is writing their first novel is to publish it yourself! It will give you a great deal more satisfaction than receiving all those rejection slips and you will learn what it takes to produce, promote and sell a book. Give it a go and see where it takes you!

For those of you who enjoy puns, here is another story, this time from Sandy Toksvig who related it in her column ‘Seven’ in the Sunday Telegraph last summer.

Two young men so enjoyed their fishing holiday beside a excellent trout brook that they made a vow to repeat the trip in twenty years’ time.

Two decades later they meet to try and find the nirvana of their youth. They search the woods, but for the life of them they cannot recall exactly where they had set up their tent all those years before. At last they reach a stream and one of the men shouts: ‘This is the place!’ ‘No, it’s not,’ says the other. ‘Yes, it is,’ says the first man, ‘I recognize the clover growing on the bank.’

The second man shakes his head and says, ‘Don’t be silly, you can’t tell a brook from its clover.’

Some chess enthusiasts had booked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament successes.

After about an hour, the manager of the hotel came out of his office and asked them to leave.

‘But why?’ they asked, as they moved off.

‘Because’, the manager said, ‘I can’t stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.’

(Spotted in Link, the journal of the National Association of Writers’ Groups (NAWG), edited by Mike Wilson, who loves this kind of wordplay and who is asking his readers for more of it. He is even offering to give a prize to the person who submits the best example.)

A few months ago, on 12 November to be precise, I resolved to get up early each morning so that I could spend time keeping this blog up to date with fresh content, and follow a regular schedule in the same way that I went jogging each evening.

However, shortly afterwards, on 15 November, I developed a deep vein thrombosis in my right leg, which not only put an end to my jogging but also made sitting down to try and write material for this blog very painful. I had to keep walking (which was painful in itself) to prevent my leg seizing up completely. So, for the past three months my blog has taken a back seat while my focus has firmly been on getting my health back.

Luckily, I have now substantially recovered and I am no longer in pain, so I can concentrate once more on my plans for this blog. So much has happened just recently that I have several writing projects that need my attention and I think it is important to make sure that I don’t repeat myself in any of them.

To assist me in this respect, I’m drawing up a list (or more precisely, a series of lists) of what needs to be done for each of these projects, including this blog. A list is a great tool if you have a great deal to do but don’t know where to start. Listing all the various tasks that need to be done can help you to prioritize your workload, and there is nothing more satisfying than to cross off an item on a list once you have completed the task that it relates to. But don’t make the list too long – there is a danger that it will become a vast, indigestible and growing heap of unfulfilled wishes and you will find that for every item you cross off the list you will think of least another three items to go on it. And if your list is more than one page long, there is the added danger that you will just concentrate on those tasks on the first page (i.e. the page on top) and forget about all those other tasks that have been relegated to the second, third and, heaven forbid, subsequent pages. Therefore, your list should never be more than one page long!

And finally, but most importantly, allow room on your list for the unexpected! A wise man once said that God looks at our plans and laughs. Remember that man proposes but God disposes. So, submit to the will of God and enjoy the ride!

In July 2006 I joined the local Lowman Chapter of Business Network International (BNI). I was attracted by the attitude and enthusiasm of the members of the chapter and the local leadership team. The BNI ethos is that ‘Givers Gain’, whereby members that you’ve given business to will naturally want to reciprocate and find or give you business in return.

The idea is that members of each chapter act as a virtual sales force trying to find business for each other. I was warned at the beginning that it was not a quick fix, and that I would have to gradually build up the trust and respect of my fellow members and ‘train’ them to know what to look for in terms of potential clients over a period of perhaps two years before my investment (i.e. the money I spent on membership and meeting fees) would bring the desired returns. To quote from the BNI Training Manual, the process ‘is more about farming than it is about hunting. It is about the cultivation of rewarding relationships within a structured environment, for the mutual benefit of all’. So far so good!

However, what they don’t tell you at the beginning is that the BNI business model predicts that each chapter can expect to lose, on average, one member per month (i.e. 12 members per year). In other words, a chapter that has spent a lot of time and effort growing to 20 members can expect to lose up to 60 per cent of its ’sales force’ over a period of a year. Surely this scenario is unsustainable! How are you expected to cultivate a lasting and beneficial relationship with another BNI member if that person is likely to leave in a few months’ time?

In order to grow, businesses need stability. They need a loyal and reliable workforce who are willing to put all their effort into producing the goods for clients over a sustained and lengthy period of time. No business can afford to lose 60 per cent of its workforce each year – it is inordinately expensive to recruit and train new members of staff. It is far more efficient and effective to encourage existing members of staff to remain with the company for a period of several years. BNI claims to be the most successful business referral organization in the world. So why are people leaving it in such numbers?

Perhaps, when they joined BNI they were attracted by all the promises of extra business they would receive from their fellow members of the chapter, but they needed some concrete results in order to retain their confidence in the organization. Admittedly, some people do very well out of it – each referral on average is estimated to be worth £330, based on the figures produced by BNI in the United Kingdom, but I’m sure that if some people or firms are picking up business worth, for example, £26,000 or even £100,000, there are plenty of others who are picking up naff all! And if those others don’t pick up enough business in the first year to justify paying approximately £1,000 in membership and meeting fees, then they’ll give up BNI as a bad job and move on to something more rewarding, more lucrative or less expensive.

Other people may find it difficult to attend the regular BNI breakfast meetings every week because they have clients or other work commitments that they need to meet in order to earn their living. BNI is very strict when it comes to attending meetings – members are are allowed just three absences in six months. If you miss even just one meeting without sending a substitute in your place you can expect a phone call from a member of the chapter’s membership committee asking why you were absent. Any further absences on your part trigger the sending of a formal letter – and it really is a case of ‘three strikes and you’re out!’ That’s right! A fair number of the members who leave BNI are in fact expelled for ‘poor’ attendance! You can also be expelled for not bringing enough referrals or enough visitors to meetings. In other words, you are expected to grow the BNI business or else you are asked to leave.

Speaking for myself, I don’t mind bringing visitors to a meeting if I think that it will be of benefit to them, or give referrals to people if I think that person can do a good job for someone who needs that service, but I would far rather be spending my time growing my own business than trying to grow the BNI business. ‘Givers Gain’ is all very well if we lived in an ideal world but in practice I’ve found it a bit like ‘pie in the sky’. I think to myself, do I really want to depend on other people to promote my business when they are all probably very busy running their own businesses? Are they simply passing ‘referrals’ to other members of the BNI chapter to ‘play the game’ and avoid being shown the door for not ‘contributing’ to the chapter? Everyone in the chapter is in the same position – they almost certainly know their own business better than they know mine, so I’m probably the best person to find clients for my own business.

Eventually, I left BNI because I was being asked to invite guests to our meetings as part of a recruitment campaign but I felt that I could not, in all honesty, recommend it to some one else as a viable business proposition. At the time, during the middle of October, the Lowman Chapter had fewer than ten members on its books, from a high point of over twenty, and during the past month at least five other members have left.

But no matter! I have now joined the Business League, which is growing rapidly in the South West of England, and which seems determined to do everything possible to retain members rather than drive them away (and seems to be full of ex-BNI members!). But that will be the subject of another post!

It’s great to see that Omid Djalili has eventually been given his own TV show at prime time on BBC 1. What is even better is that the producers of The X Factor have moved the time of their results show so that I can watch both on Saturday night without missing any part of either show.

I’m particularly pleased to see Omid do so well because, like me, he is a Bahá’í and was born and brought up in Britain. Of course, Omid has been plying his trade as an actor and comedian ever since he graduated from the University of Ulster in 1988 – he was rejected by 16 different drama schools – when he began to win parts in London’s “fringe” theatre circuit because of his ability to portray a wide range of ethnic characters.

I first saw him perform his one-man shows The Short, Fat Kebab Shop Owner’s Son and A Strange Bit of History at the Riverside Studios in West London during the mid-1990s and I thought he was hilarious. In 2001, I finally got to meet and talk to him in person at the Bahá’í Academy for the Arts, where I was taking a graphic design course and he was performing for us, free of charge, several times during the programme. And I must say, he really is a nice person to get to know.

I had already met his wife, Annabel Knight, who writes a lot of his material, at the Bahá’í Summer School held at Ackworth in 1991, when she was living in Gillingham and I was living just up the road (and railway line) in Bexley. I remember inviting her to the Bexley community’s Nineteen Day Feast, but I think she had other plans in mind.

Annabel and Omid got married in 1992 and moved to the Czech Republic where they started working together in a number of experimental productions; became involved with the Brno-based Centre for Experimental Theatre, where some of Vaclac Havel’s first plays were produced; and toured the country, giving performances and holding drama workshops.

The next time I saw Annabel was in 1996 when she introduced Omid to British television viewers on ITV’s The Big, Big Talent Show, hosted by Jonathan Ross. Omid reached the final of this TV show and won its “Best Comic” award.

Of course, since then, Omid has been seen numerous times on television in Britain and the United States, and in several Hollywood movies – and not just in comedy roles! What I find amazing is that it is now more than ten years since he first appeared on our TV screens, but I am so glad that he has finally reached the top of his profession – after all, the BBC doesn’t invite just anybody to host Have I Got News For You! I understand from Omid’s website that he has even been invited to take part in Celebrity Big Brother in 2008 and, you never know, he might even perform at the Comedy Hall here in Tiverton!

For further information about Omid Djalili, visit his entry on Wikipedia or read the article about him and his wife on the Bahá’í World web site.