The $6 Million Letter

Posted on April 26, 2013 by John G. Self

Our society is losing an important method of communication and as it turns out, a potentially profitable one in select circumstances.

It’s the art and practice of writing letters.

“Imagine…you have stumbled on the secret of life, aka the double helix structure of DNA. Thrilled, you pen a letter to your young son outlining the discovery and concluding with, ‘Lots of love, Daddy’,” wrote Gillian Tett, an award winning assistant editor for the Financial Times based in the U.S.

Francis Crick Signature

What would a letter, if it actually existed, be worth? This is not an academic question, Ms. Tett wrote in her editorial page column last Saturday. British scientist Francis Crick actually wrote such a letter to his son 60 years ago. It begins, according to Ms. Tett, “Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery,” and goes on to describe the discovery as “something beautiful…by which life comes to life.”

The heirs of Professor Crick recently sold the letter at auction. Christie’s estimated before the sale that the document would be worth about $800,000, Ms. Tett reported.

It sold for $6 million to a mystery bidder.

Doctor Crick’s research partner, American scientist James Watson, PhD, now 85 and a resident of New York City, was undoubtedly thrilled. The sale set a very high monetary bar if, or when, his heirs decide to sell his papers, which include an early manuscript of the pioneering book The Double Helix, replete with his editing marks in the margins.

Focusing on Prof. Crick’s $6 million letter, Ms. Tett wondered what the seven-page document would have been worth if it were a mere email. “If historians look back at 2013 in 60 years time, they will see an age when the volume of communication surged in scale, but they will see a period when communication was so fleeting and ubiquitous, it lost its value. Nobody is likely to pay $6 million for a tweet.”

This wasn’t the only big price paid for a letter of historical significance, Ms. Tett reported. A letter Abraham Lincoln wrote to some school children sold for $3.4 million in 2008. A letter Albert Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt warning of the threat of nuclear weapons sold for the equivalent of $3.4 million.

“Something precious is being lost amid this tsunami of computer code,” says Ms. Tett. With all its advantages, the digital revolution is threatening the art and practice of writing letters.

I doubt the $6 million price tag for the Crick letter will reverse the trend, but I can always hope. I am of the school of thought that letter writing helps define who we are as people.

Note: Last week I wrote in this space that texting was replacing thank you notes, many filled with strange acronyms that require a dictionary to decipher unless, of course, you are under the age of 30.

For the young among us who would like to experience what actual letter writing is like, I strongly recommend George H.W. Bush’s wonderful book, All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings.

Thank You Notes – An AFZ

Posted on April 10, 2013 by John G. Self

In our increasingly cryptic world of digital communication – an email filled with shorthand here, a text or tweet here, there and everywhere – I am wondering if this is just a temporary fad, driven by connected hordes of Gen Xers and the Millennials who use tweets and SSM as a primary communication tool, or if it will give way to more complete forms of communication as these two generations mature and move up the corporate ladder?

Or, are we seeing the end to proper letter writing and actual thank you notes, replaced by: GAS. AEAP need team to do OOTB. Current P2C2E. (Translation for Baby Boomers: Got a second? As early as possible, I need your team to do some out of the box thinking. The current process we are dealing with is too complicated to explain.)

For those who argue that this shorthand is all perfectly understandable, my response is: RUMCYMHMD. (Are you on medication because you may have missed a dose?)

Sending letters and thank you notes – in an AFZ (acronym free zone) format – is perhaps one way to slow down this increasing reliance on text shorthand.

For those who regularly follow my blog, you know that I am underwhelmed with LinkedIn’s endorsement feature. I think it misses the “adding value” goal by a million miles since it allows users, for those so inclined, to endorse people in their network whether they know them or not. Perhaps one way to make it somewhat helpful – if you are the endorsee – is to send an actual thank you note with no shorthand. You get that Dan or Sue may be trying to suck up but now you have a legitimate reason to reach out to them and sell yourself.

As an executive recruiter who is retained to work on senior level assignments I am always trying to bolster my network of candidates or networking contacts that can help me identify the top candidates. Being endorsed almost always triggers a response to the endorser, whether I know them or not:

Dan, thank you for endorsing me.

Don’t hesitate to contact me if you:

Would like to connect with someone in my network. If it’s someone I know personally I would be happy to make an introduction
Would like me to speak at an event
Are in need of career advice. I often mentor others who are just starting their career or are looking to make a career change
Know someone who would be an ideal candidate for one of our open positions
Would like to submit your resume for consideration. Our firm is focused on executive level healthcare positions so if that is where your experiences lie please send your resume to us at resumes@JohnGSelf.com
Want to guest blog with us at www.JohnGSelf.com/Self-Perspective? We are always looking for a fresh perspective

Thank you again for endorsing me.
John G. Self
JohnGSelf Associates, Inc.
www.JohnGSelf.com
info@JohnGSelf.com

This helps me build my brand, and is so much more effective than:
10X, also known as thank you.

Intimacy In 140 Characters…Or Less

Posted on April 3, 2013 by John G. Self

Relationships are different today. Technology and connectivity have combined to change the way couples, friends, groups and even strangers interact with one another.

This digital connectivity, which is enthusiastically embraced by millions of Millennials and Generation Xers, is gaining support even among some Baby Boomers. It gives us virtually unlimited convenience of access, speed, and the immediate gratification of a quick, if not cryptic, response. What could be so bad about increased communication?

The digital generation seems content to text or tweet rather than engage in meaningful, face-to-face conversations. A middle school teen in California routinely tweets and texts more than 15,000 messages per month. Not to be outdone, another West Coast father bragged – yes, he bragged – that his daughter had more than 30,000 texts in a month, a number that sounds too far-fetched to believe. Frankly, that performance, if true, is out of my league. My thumbs do not work that fast. What else does this teenager have time for…friends, school, family?

For those who track these massive sociological shifts, there is growing concern that seems to be based on the inevitability of that pesky dictum, the Law of Unintended Consequences. Social observers are beginning to fret about how our digital connections will impact our long-term personal relationships; they see this trend as one with potentially serious ramifications for stability of this important societal pillar. They also question the implications for interactions at work and how important alliances and teamwork – not to mention an organization’s culture – over time, could be affected.

Some believe this technological onslaught contributes to the growing practice, especially among the Millennials and their immediate seniors, Generation X, of socializing in groups rather than investing in the arduous, some say painful process that can be fraught with disappointments and rejection, of finding someone with whom to engage in a one-on-one relationship as was the historical norm. After college, increasing numbers of young people entering the workforce and living independently for the first time, struggle to make those important one-on-one relationships necessary to find a committed companion, husband or wife.

It turns out that regardless of the convenience, speed and gratification of digital communication, it is next to impossible to find intimacy in 140 or less characters of a tweet, a text message, on Facebook or any other number of personal social media sites.

Relationships are important on every level – with our families, those we work with, and our friends.

The key question is not whether, but how, our increasing reliance on abbreviated digital exchanges will negatively impact those relationships.