LONDON — I am very pleased that this is National Novel Writing Month. It is, I think, just a ruse for a book publishing website. But for me, it’s working.

My 13-year-old daughter and I started yesterday morning. We get up early and tap away in the kitchen before the sun comes up. On day two she’s on target… churning out thousands of words a day.

Me… not so much.

But I am still at it. And I have published two books already so I am a bit smug.

“How many words have you got daddy?”

“825. You?”

“2,225.”

“Ah, yes, but mine are really *good* words.”

“Yea. Right.”

I look over her shoulder.

“In the first para, ‘bath’ is spelled with a capital B,” I offer helpfully.

“‘Never go back.’ We’re not meant to edit until the end,” she explains, and intuitively I know that I will never be allowed to look over her shoulder again.

So it takes me to thinking about why kids who text and Skype and talk utter rubbish (okay that’s my view) should still be interested in writing long form novels? And the answer is the same as texting, Skyping, Instant Messaging … or for that matter painting, dancing or playing football:

It’s a mode of self-expression, it’s something that we can pass on to others, it’s a longer commitment to communicating… and therefore something else that we people do that separates us from the occupants of the London Zoo.

Our business, Able and How, is a change management consultancy. Okay, it’s THE change management consultancy. We help people plan and communicate change. We work with words. We do it in video, online, face to face and on paper.

It’s exciting and it’s got great value. By writing, talking, planning and publishing we regularly save companies lots and lots of money.

Over time that’s not going to change. The way the words are consumed will. From Kindles to smart phones we’re just finding new and easier ways of reading more and more stuff.

How long has it been since you sat somewhere with nothing to read or do?  We’re reading now on the Tube, on the chair-lift… anywhere that you can find a few minutes.

Words are important and increasingly so.

/df

WESTFIELD — It’s a bank holiday in Britain. And I am trying to entertain my horde of children. At one point yesterday there were 9 kids in my house. I have no idea where they all came from.

Yesterday was my 10-year-old’s birthday. We went out early to play tennis. On the way back we dropped the football to kick across the pitch in the park. A big ugly dog came flying out and grabbed it. The dogs owner took 10 minutes to catch their own dog, by which time my daughter’s football was flat. The unpleasant woman handed it back to me and, unconvincingly said “sorry”. I explained that I thought it was a pretty disappointing situation, and the ball was useless now. She said “I don’t have any money,” and walked off with her dog.

My daughter cried.

Today we have tried again.

Father Christmas brought her a green iPod. On Saturday she woke up and found that the headphone cable was broken a few inches from the jack. It had cut clean through while under he pillow.

I have no idea how it happened. But we came today to a big shopping mall in London and went into the Apple store. We quietly explained the situation and said: “we don’t know how it happened, it could have been us… But do you have any existing design flaws that might explain it?”

“Just a minute the attendant said.” In less than a minute he was back with a new set. He pushed them into my daughters’ hand, and with a smile said: “Don’t tell anyone!”

There are all sorts of reasons he might have done this. I can think of lots. But there are even more reasons not to.

It was undoubtedly a business decision. And one that he was allowed to make.

For me it helped restore faith in humanity, at a time when I could do with that. For my daughter it helped balance out man’s indifference with some basic good, common sense. And a business… a capitalist enterprise… did that.

That’s why I am in the business I am in.

I believe that companies can and should be good.

Some days I am happy… very happy… to discover that I am not insane.

/df

HYDE PARK CORNER — The occasionally quite obtuse Alain de Botton is in The Independent this morning flogging his new book called The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. It’s a philosophical study of… work. And I so want to read it. But I suspect I won’t because my lips still move when I read.

Here’s a quote from the author in the interview:

I think we are still labouring under this Romantic idea of work being evil and there being no real passion in work. And that real life is love and war and murder. I am sure that there is something in the idea of having writers-in-residence in offices. Offices are always full of dramas.

I like that a lot. If I squint I can almost understand it. And I can also turn it to something that we at Able and How believe in a rather sad and vehement way: that companies have their own cultures, sub-cultures, traditions and histories. We think this narrative is at least as exciting as what is happening down at the bus station, in the Groucho Club or backstage at a Girls Aloud concert.

We, as employees and businesses, are just not very good at writing about it, recognising it, or making it work for us.

And that’s a shame. Because there’s so much good stuff there.

What’s your favourite work book?

The article claims there aren’t many. I’d have to say mine would be Great Expectations or another Dickens. And that’s for the reasons above… they opened the door on work in their day and painted a well-rounded picture of what it was like.

Tell me what you think.

/df

Last Thursday's LIVE book launch

OUR OFFICES — It’s Wednesday night. It’s been a busy week. But tomorrow (Thursday 04 December 2008) I will be holding two virtual book launches.

1) Launch for parts east: 8am to 9am GMT

2) Launch for parts west: 5pm to 6pm GMT

I will be working a few Internet sites at once. I hope. The idea being that you can visit and learn stuff at each, or drop in on one. The pay-off will be a copy of the first 15 pages of the book… the Introduction.

At the same time there will be videos of a ‘book reading’ that you can look at. An audio interview you can listen to. Some places where you can chat live. Many places you can leave comments. And a few ways to request copies.

I hope we’ll see you there. You never know, it may be interesting. At least you can tell you’re mum you did something different this week.

Here’s where it’s happening:

FACEBOOK: At the group “A duty of care”. Go into groups and search for it. We’ll have some pictures here and a chance to chat. We’ll be watching and answering.

YOUTUBE: At my page there. Type in Ferrabee or go to /user/ferrabee We will upload video ‘book readings’ and also and interview I did today with EJ. They’re a bit rough, but have a listen.

TWITTER: Search for “Adutyofcare”, or go to /adutyofcare This will run live. I’ll update you on what’s going on in the hour as it happens.

SECOND LIFE: It’s crashing on me tonight. Hopefully tomorrow it will be better. I am the only short, over-weight, bald man in Second Life. You should be able to find me if you go to IBM 6. Search for that in the search box. We can chat live there. (NB I don’t have voice chat, just typing.)

Also you can check in here. Put a comment below. Or send us your email address at info@ableandhow.com and we’ll send you the book excerpt. If we receive your email in the times listed above!

You can buy the book by clicking here. That would be ideal too!

Thanks for your support.

/df

N.B. Please note. Parts of this will definitely go horribly wrong. Be warned.

You can order it now. See link below.

LONDON — Later in the month we will be launching A duty of care, my new book on leadership, management and organisational communications. It’s a slimmer volume than the last. Only about 150 pages. And considerably cheaper at on £6.99. But you’ll like it. You can order it here.

The premise is that we can all be better leaders, but few businesses offer us any training at all for the job. There’s lots of content with a heavy academic background. The latest thinking and detailed psychological studies… But you might not notice.

It’s intentionally written to be easy to read, interesting, and… even funny.

I get nervous about saying things are funny. Particularly when they are written by me. I remember a client telling me years ago: “At ABC Co. we don’t do funny.” And I am loathe to argue with that.

But I do suspect that individuals at ABC Co quite like funny and occasionally even laugh. So they can maybe read my book under the covers at night with a flashlight (aka a torch).

There’s a serious message behind the book though. And you won’t have to struggle to find it.

Our organisations are under-performing because they are not taking full advantage of their people. Not knowing how to manage people undermines their ability and your results. Not knowing how to communicate with them — even how to give people basic business information — is a threat to your success.

The good news is that leadership is not the hardest job in the world. It’s just the most frequently screwed up.

But I would say that. I have a book I want you to read.

We are launching the book in London on 27 November and ‘virtually’ on 4th of December. We’ll need your name on the launch party list… and you’ll need the details… so if you would like to come, please get in touch.

Bonne lecture.

/df

P.S. If anyone has any really string views about what a ‘virtual book launch’ is, please get in touch. Thanks!

TCR — I have been looking around at some of my favourite blogs today. And it’s an interesting to see my colleague Lee Hopkins running a Social Media workshop in Australia today and tomorrow. I have run these in the past in the UK and I loved doing it. But it was more than a year ago.

I have kind of moved on. Which is not in any way meant to be dismissive. I think many of us are now using social media as an extension of the way we used to use the Internet… which is itself an extension of the way we used to use the postal services and the library.

I have blogs for example that I read a lot. Just as I read newspapers cover to cover each day. But I suspect there are people who don’t. And I use thinks like LinkedIn and Facebook regularly as well.

I have abandoned Twitter. But I know many people who still love it — and I can still see myself recommending it to clients. I have also not been on Second Life in a long time. But I am desperate to return for another try at an book launch in Second Life. (I’ll do one later in November.)

Here are a few of the blogs on our business that I read.

Internal communications in India
http://intraskope.wordpress.com/
Awesome. Lively. Fresh, interesting and clever.

Lee Smith
http://talkingic.typepad.com/
Lots of good stuff on the ‘industry’. Lee’s a good guy. A consultant-about-town.

Lee Hopkins in Australia
http://leehopkins.net/
Undying and frankly inspirational energy and enthusiasm. Lee is into everything and knows a lot about it all.

Sue Dewhurst
http://www.blackbeltdojo.co.uk/black_belt_dojo/
Along with her esrtwhile colleague Liam, Sue has trained a whole generation of internal communicators in the UK. You can hear then rattling around in here. It’s often fun and whimsical reading.

Neville Hobson
http://www.nevillehobson.com/
Neville knows everything about blogging and technology that anyone could ever need to know. If there’s something interesting going on in communication AND technology Neville will write about it first.

Kevin Keohane
http://kevinkeohane.wordpress.com/
He calls this ‘Death to Internal Marketing’ and you can’t argue with him. I like Kevin’s writing style.

Marc Wright
http://simply-blogging.typepad.com/publishers_blog/
Despite his boyish looks, Marc has been in this business since Moses was in shorts. He’s always interesting and up to something new.

If you are a fan of Delicious then here are some links here that you might find interesting. I used this in my social media courses in the past. I haven’t really updated it a lot recently. But there’s still some fun stuff here.

I have a group on Internal Communications and Change in Facebook. It keeps growing, but, frankly, there’s not much in terms of discussion going on there. And LinkedIn is growing in new and different ways all the time. Both are often more trustworthy to me than using my contacts list to find my friends and colleagues and see what people are up to.

What do you think is going on in social media that is exciting?

/df

NORTHERN LINE — Today at the close of business, I launched my second book: A duty of care. It’s subtitled ‘Leaders aren’t born, they’re made’ and it’s available now for only 699 pence. I’m not sure what that is in dollars or Euro. You can also download it for £4.50. Which is a good deal. I think.

Here’s the link: http://www.lulu.com/content/3878657

This book is about leaders in business. It’s about what anyone needs to know to take up a leadership role in business. I think there’s a lot in it. But it’s also pretty easy to read. Some of my extended family and colleagues have read it in one sitting.

(Although they clearly sit better than I do.)

Let me know what you think.

I will be holding a book launch event in a few weeks. If you’d like to come, please let me know.

Here’ the table of contents:

Introduction – A nine iron thank you, Jesus
1) What is leadership and how can I learn it?
2) What makes a company great?
3) Leaders who tell the company story
4) How can I get along with that other guy?
5) What am I meant to be doing anyway?
6) A duty of care

My friend EJ says it’s like a Eats Shoots and Leaves for managers in business. Which is lovely, if only I got a fraction of that readership.

I hope you enjoy it.

/df This is Borra