When it comes to fundamentalist preachers, there is nothing quite like the way they choose to express themselves from the pulpit. What they say, in and of itself, can be quite amazing. Such as the recent flap with Mrs. Benny Hinn, tryng her darndest to give a ranting good sermon for the masses and making a complete fool out of herself. In the typical breathless rant of evangelical showmanship, she told the audience what they needed was “a Holy Ghost enema, right up their butts.” Honest, that was what she said and she repeated it. She then went on to tell the audience not to be “butt kissers.” Having realized that she probably had crossed a few too many lines, she tried to recover by saying that people like her just have that kind of humor but was too late and the tape spread around the world, and not in a good way. She then went into a pacing frenzy back and forth until she broke her shoe and told the audience they didn’t need shoes anyway, they needed to put on combat boots for Jesus. I guess this got her out of the shoe breakage embarrassment. The end came merciful when she fell flat on her face, on stage, and everyone started clapping as if this was of God and the perfect ending to a perfect sermon. It was pathetic and the scary part is that not one person in the audience got up and said “I’m out of here.” They loved it.

The fact is that nothing she said in the “sermon” was helpful. Nothing she said was correct and practically nothing she said was anythng but an attempt to appear inspiring and ending up being absolutely foolish. Poor Mr. Hinn was so angry that the video was playing around the world, he threatened those who showed it, from what I understand. I don’t blame him. What a time at the ‘ol breakfast table next day that must have been!

What is it about fundamentalist preachers that some seemingly have to loose their minds and common sense in an avalanche of “techniques” that leave most educated people laughing themselves sick? Do they not realize they are being laughed at?

When a preacher tells the audience that the reason Bathsheba was called Bathesheba was due to the fact that as King David oggled her from the roof top, she was taking a BATH!

I’m not kidding, I heard it with my own ears and wrote the man suggesting that had she been taking a shower, we would have known her as SHOWER-Sheba. The man was simply ignorant and I almost drove off the road laughing. On the other hand, it was pathetic and I often wonder if any in his congregation called him out on that little piece of ignorance. Sometimes I wonder at the audience more than the preacher.

What can be said from the pulpit can be amazingly silly or incredibly harmful. Pat Robertson tells us that hurricanes are from God punishing New Orleans or that Ariel Sharon’s stroke is from God for giving up part of the West Bank to people who also need a real place to live. His coments are wrong, ignorant, foolish and dangerous in these prounouncements. He suddenly saw the light (most will do that when you challenge a particular piece of ignorance and never do when never challenged) when the State of Israel cancelled his affiliation with them and one of his pet projects in Israel, but it was too late. Good for them to put a price on speaking foolishness from the pulpit. I guess the State of Israel was able to uninspire Pat’s inspired comments. God, I suppose, was forced to recind His inspiration and give into the current dilemma.

Time would fail to account for all the ignorance that comes from the pulpits of men and women not trained, not educated, not informed and not accountable for their presentations. Sanctified ignorance is still ignorance as far as we can tell.

There were dinosaurs on the ark…wrong

Earth is just 6000 years old…wrong

Our church is the only true church on earth…wrong

Evolution is a doctrine of Satan…wrong

Dancin is a doctrine of Satan…wrong

Whatever you ask in Jesus name, you will have…wrong

“I am God’s true representative on earth and I am compelled to say these things…” wrong

If you tithe, God will bless you and pour out the windows of heaven to you…wrong

God is doing this…wrong

God is doing that…wrong

Jesus thinks this of that…wrong

Jesus thinks that of this…wrong

“I know I am going very long on this sermon..but you need to hear this…” wrong

“You need to put the Church and bible study and being here first in your life…” wrong

…and on and on and on such that it would behove most preachers of this way of being to join On and On Anonymous!

Perhaps most irritating and pathetic of all is the WAY that many Evangelical, TV and Fundamentalist preachers present themselves. What’s with the cadance from hell in the presentation? What’s with the “eh” “eh” “eh” at the end of every sentence. I realize physiologically it helps them breath or they would pass out, and while it may be “tradition” it is past useful for educated parishioners. Maybe that’s the problem too.

What’s with the yelling? Always yelling and always giving the appearance that they are angry. Preachers are angry a lot as they think they can’t be a Preacher without their righteous indignation showing for every last thing on the planet they decide is evil and needs the iron rod of Jesus to smack down.

I listened to a preacher this morning coming in to work just to see if he would pass out and go absolutely speechless trying to yell, speak and breathe at the same time. I don’t think he missed one human foible in his presentation that he was not bashing his congregation over the head with. Sometimes I sense “me thinks thou protesteth too much.” I have learned that far more often than one thinks, just monitor what topics the preacher rails upon repeatedly and you might have a good hint at what troubles his own ignorant soul. Every minister in my personal experience who was known to rail against this or that “sex problem” was wrestling with it himself. Projection is something that most congregants of fundamentalist preachers don’t understand.

No one can slaughter the English language like a preacher gone berserk behind the pulpit. Imagine a meeting at IBM or the Oval Office (well there I can ;), conducted in that tone and style and you will find someone being escorted off the premisis looking for a new job.

Sermons are full of nonsensical phrases and pronounciations. If you were to write down what was said and read it back, it would sound ridiculous. From “Jaaa..eeeeeezus says,” to “days (there is) a time a commin…” an intelligent and meaningful presentation is lost in a flurry of emotion and slobber. HOW you say something for many preachers far outweighs whether what one says is even true. Remember, in fact, science by nature of being science has to be accurate and admit mistakes. At this moment, we have some very embarrassed and angry South Korean scientists who have found out and admitted that their recent cloaning projects were bogus. Sorry about that, but good for them.

Preachers not only rarely admit to mistakes, but seem to have a need to perpetuate the error. Since God is never wrong, they never are not wrong either, since they think they both speak and are inspired by this outside force called “God.” Simply ask yourself how many times you have ever heard a preacher or church say it was wrong when it said this or that and you will understand what I mean. Because of this, many fundamentalist sermons are delivered in angry, emotional, threatening and self righteous tones. I can only imagine what some of the kids are thinking as they watch the show. Often they will tell you years later how nuts the church the grew up in was.

Every scientific fact that the church has ever made fun of as being contradicted by the Bible, they have eventually had to admit to being correct. Of course, many do not, and never will, Praise Jesus for my ignorance because “the wisdom of man is foolishness with God,” and “my ways are not YOUR ways..saith the Lord.” Preachers hid a lot of ignorance behind those two quotes.

It just took the Pope 350 years to apologize for almost burning Galileo at the stake for thinking earth was not the center of the solar system and the sun circled it. He didn’t apologize for actually doing it to nameless others. Science has yet to acknowledge one Biblical allegory as being literally true in their actual findings. Eventually, the “facts” the church promotes in areas where they don’t know what they are talking about, falls to the real facts. More so now in these days of easy access to the internet for information not formerly available to the average person.

And so sometimes we have to ask ourselves, “what is our chillins learning in Church from such preachers?”

For starters, they are learning:

Yelling trumps teaching.

Good grammar doesn’t count in church.

God is a consuming fire if you question the preacher.

Emotions trump good information.

One can be ill-programmed for life and not realize it.

Brains and YOUR intelligence and common sense indeed can be checked at the door when you go to your church.

Preachers are never wrong.

YOU are seldom right.

“Jaaaaaaheeeezus” loves the sinner but hates the sin, but it sure sounds like he hates the sinner too.

Mom or Dad never seem to think what I think the preacher says and does is stupid..something must be wrong with me.

God and Jesus must be raving lunatics if this man or woman is his personal representative on earth to me.

Narcissism must be a spiritual gift.

Take some time and just listen to the words of those that fit these ways of speaking for God. Watch the antics they feel they have to use to convince. If your head says “it must be so” while your tummy says “no no no”, go with the tummy. It will tell you the truth of what you are feeling more accurately and you won’t feel like something is wrong with you for observing that, while sincere, this man is really not qualified to teach me who and what God is and what he is or isn’t doing on good ‘ol planet earth. You’ll also be able to more genuinely answer the question your kids are asking themselves, whether you know it or not. “Dad, why is the preacher yelling, and why does he talk so funny?”

Listen up – if you have got problems talking or carrying the conversation with women, then you will never be good with them – period. If you want to score with the woman of your dreams, then you have got to make sure that she is excited to talk to you. Read on to discover the surefire tactics to create the excitement in the conversation, and in the process make her fall in love with you…

Tactic #1: “The Art of the Tease”. Women absolutely love to be teased (even though they may act that they do not like it!). Teasing is a good way to build sexual tension – especially done in a playful way.

Now there are things that are out of bounds when it comes to teasing. Don’t tease her of her religious or political views. Also, if she sports a 42 inch waist then you have got to steer clear of any topic associated with her weight.

Tactic #2: “Value Elicitation”. Note that you really do not have to talk that much – let HER do the talking and she will then feel that she is emotionally connected to you (for some reason). All you need to do is to ASK her the right questions – what she wants in life, for example.

NEVER ask her about her perfect man – chances are that you will fall short.

Tactic #3: “Hypnosis / Fractionation”. Other people may never tell you this, but the fact is that virtually all masters of seduction uses some sort of hypnosis in order to make women fall for them easily.

One such technique, called Fractionation, involves making the woman (or the ‘target’) experience an emotional rollercoaster through a conversation, so that she feels both positive and negative states. The seducer then associates her ‘happy’ states to him – and as a result makes her emotionally dependent on him. Very effective indeed, but highly controversial at the same time.

You and your guest can call into your show up to 15 minutes prior to air time for any last minute issue discussion and to make sure you can hear your guest and they can hear you. When you set up your call you can and should set it up to open with everyone muted. Obviously you want to un-mute your guest as soon as they are seen on your control panel to have entered the call. Anyone that joins the call will join muted. You can un-mute them and re-mute them as their questions come up in the question cue when you start taking questions after you interview your guest.

Don’t start recording the show until just before you start your show introduction.

Here is a basic format for a talk show where you would be interviewing a guest and later opening the call for questions from your caller/participants:

o Do you introduction to your show introducing yourself . . .

Welcome your listeners and chat participants to . . .

(State the name of your show and what it is about) example:

This is (Your Name) and I want to welcome our callers and chatters to the (Name of your talk show) where we discuss all things (The subject of your show). We will be interviewing (Name of your guest/expert), of (Their company or website) regarding (what your guest is an expert on). The interview will last approximately XX minutes and then we will take questions.

o Next do a formal introduction of your interviewee – a sentence or two about their background, accomplishments and their business (Or whatever you and your guest have decided).

o Welcome your guest formally – Example: Hello (Guest name), I am so glad to have you on (Name of your show).

o Start out your interview by asking things like how your guest got involved with their area of expertise, how long they have been working in their area of expertise etc. Be sure to mention any books or training courses the guest has authored.

o Move on to your interview segment by asking the questions you worked out with your guest during your pre-interview call. Your interview of your guest/expert shouldn’t run over 30 minutes but if it does, don’t worry about it.

o Make sure before you end your personal interview of your guest that you plug their product or website or what ever it is they are promoting. If you are an affiliate, you want to have set up a re-direct page on your domain that goes to your affiliate page on your guest’s product site.

o You will have your Teleprompter open on the left side of you computer screen and the TalkShoe Control Panel open on the right side of your screen. You can look in the question cue and say the user name with the first question you want to ask your guest.

If it is a chat only participant, you ask their question. If the caller is on the phone, un-mute the caller and say “Hi their (Username) we like to keep things on a first name basis here, so who are we speaking with? They will say their name – then you say, “From the producers board it appears you have a question about (Use an abbreviated version of the question or its primary subject), “Would you like to clarify that for us or maybe expand on your question?”

o Then you hand the question over to your guest. Let your guest have enough time to answer the question but if you do have a lot of questions in the cue, diplomatically cut them short if the answer runs over 3 or 4 minutes, saying “That’s great (Guests name), we have some more questions we need to fit into the time we have left today. (Use your own judgment on this tactic). Then mute the last caller, (Don’t stop talking – move right into the next question in the cue), saying “And out next question is from (Un-mute the next caller with a question and do the same into for that caller and their question.

o After the questions have been answered or you have taken all the questions you have time for, remind your listeners of the product your guest is promoting and any website you are promoting.

o Remind everyone on the call what the name of your show is, when your next show will be aired and who your upcoming guest is and what the topic of discussion will be.

o Do your sign off by saying something like – Well that’s it for the (Name of your show) – I want to thank our guest (Guest’s name) and all of our participants on the show – till next time this is (Your name), saying (What ever your catchy by line is).

o Stop the recording. Normally your recording will be available to download or listen to via flash media within 24 hours.

o You may want to download your show and upload it again for pod cast listeners. (See resources for free editing software.)

You can format your show any way you want. The above format example is just that; an example.

Public speaking can best be described as knowing the difference between speech and talk. The first will be respected and revered, the second scorned and ridiculed. The man who can speak is a leader, the man who can talk a fool. A speech will be recalled and recited for a lifetime, talk will be forgotten five minutes after it is finished.

When acquiring skills in public speaking it is vitally important to distinguish between speech and talk. An infant can talk, presenting slow, stuttering ideas that require the skilled listener to comprehend. A relative coming to visit from out of town would likely require a translator to be able to understand what it was that the child wanted when it spoke. Unless the listener knew what they were listening for, the toddler’s talk would be little more than insensible babble.

To talk requires no great amount of intelligence or cognitive skill. One can talk all day without ideas, opinions, information or expression and efficiently waste the time of anyone unfortunate enough to be trapped into listening. Talk accomplishes nothing, changes nothing, and in general does little other than pass the time and boost the ego of the speaker. Talk is trivial, and on the whole best avoided unless one happens to be attending a convention for fools or attempting to distract an overzealous mother in law intent on interrogation.

It was Shakespeare who perhaps best expressed the foolishness of talking with the following description of Gratiano, a character taken from the pages of his comedy The Merchant of Venice.

“Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ‘ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.”

If talking is the speaking of nothing, then speech is the speaking of something. Speech, in its purest form, requires no translator, nor does the listener have to seek to find the reason behind it. It clearly conveys an idea with sufficient conviction and argument to give it strength. The man (or woman) who has an idea and can express it clearly, organize his thoughts and create a plan, is destined to become a leader among men. Why? Not because he has any particular leadership skills, or any qualification that cannot be found in a multitude of his peers. Rarely does this individual possess any particular trait or characteristic that sets him apart from the crowd.

What he does have is the ability to think for himself, focus his thoughts and ideas and present them in a way that will bring others about to his point of view. This is the man who can lead a country into battle based on the strength of his conviction. He has the skill in public speaking that will spur men into action, carrying them along on his own enthusiasm, and the ability to think on his feet and adjust his thoughts, his actions and his speech to any situation. This man will walk into a room full of tired, disillusioned veterans and inspire them to pick up their guns and fight another day.

Public speaking requires an intimate understanding of the properties of speech as well as the ability to present it properly. If a speaker cannot distinguish between speech and talk he is unlikely to be a speaker very long.

I have a propensity for rocks and stones much like a lot of people. They are fascinating. And, if you think about it, the fascination is strange. There are so many rocks and stones and most look very similar, yet we can find a “special” rock in a pile of identical ones. Do rocks and stones communicate with us? Some of us will say, “Yes, of course” and others will say “No, it’s impossible”. The following is what I found to be a basis for my belief.

If you have been exposed to the modern Lakota language you are aware the term for Creator is Wakan Tanka meaning “Great Mystery”. But originally the term was Tunkasila (very ancient rock).

When the Christian missionaries arrived among the people, they were appalled by our use of “very ancient rock” as a term for God. They thought this was idol worship. They didn’t understand that we weren’t praying to rocks as God, we were using an analogy. A lot of dissension was caused by the use of this word. So, the people decided to change to Wakan Tanka (Great Mystery), a term the Christians could be more comfortable with.

We changed our language to keep peace. It’s really sad that this happened. Ancient rock is such a wonderful analogy for the Creator. As it was explained to me, the rocks are the oldest living things on earth. They were here first and have much wisdom and knowledge because of this.

So, when we find that special rock in the midst of a pile of similar ones, is it talking to us? I think so.

P.S. There is a museum in South Dakota where large round rocks move by themselves. The curators placed them in sand so we could see the trail of their movement. As far as I know, there is no scientific explanation for this.

Consciously or unconsciously no one would really like to know that they do have enemies. Is it in any way healthy to knowingly avoid certain people? I believe that anything that doesn’t give you peace isn’t good for you.

What about talking to strangers? And who then is really a stranger? Can you know if you are resenting an angel when you refuse to respond to someone’s greeting? It is written in the Holy Bible, “Do not be forgetful to entertain strangers, for in so doing you might be entertaining angels unaware.” Will you then continue to avoid people you don’t know?

The people who are your friends today, were they always your friends, or did you have to build a relationship? And how did that start? Did you say hi or hello, or did the person say it to you and you responded? Or is it because you found the surroundings to be safe? Or you thought that the environment was not threatening? Those people might be your friends and acquaintances because either you reached out to them, or they reached out to you.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t be careful with people, what I am saying is to keep your heart in the best condition possible, both mentally and psychologically. You want to know that what comes out of your spirit is warm, gentle, caring, full of love and mercy. I did say to people at times, that if there were no houses, cars, money, etc, in the world, and there were only people, one thing is sure, there would be communication, we would need to speak with each other.

I have found that materialism many times causes one to distinguish themselves from others. Because I may not have what they possess, they tend to treat you as if you were of a different species. But even with all that, looking beyond the smoke screen, one whose heart is in the right place will still try to make contact so to foster a relationship.

I have found that when there are no restrictions in communicating with all men, no matter what color, creed, or race they may be, you find yourself happier, more friendly, and in essence, more helpful. So my question, ” should you talk to strangers?’ the answer is “yes,” but be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.

Your partner has stopped talking to you after the break up. But you wish you could make your ex start talking to you again. It won’t be a good idea to simply approach your partner as he/she must be angry with you. What to do?

The best idea would be to wait for sometime. Let the anger subside, and once it happens your ex will start missing you. So it is important that you don’t go to him/her just yet. You let your partner wait and realize your importance. It does not take much effort on your part, but just some patience. You just lead your normal life, spend time with your family, hang out with friends, go for a movie. Just try to keep yourself engaged so that you won’t feel bad.

Talk positive things about your ex to your common friends. Just don’t keep on complaining about him/her. This will make you feel worse. Share with your friends how your ex’s presence used to make you happy and how much you used to share with and understand each other. It is sad that you guys had to end that way.

Your friends will certainly report this to your ex and this will melt away whatever anger you ax has for you. After all, your ex does love you. He/she will start feeling for you again and want to be near you. Let your ex know that you are not feeling that bad after break up. You are fine and get on with your normal life. This will make you ex a little jealous, which is alright.

Soon your common friends will start reporting back to you about your ex, how he/she feels about you and how he/she repents the break up.

When you know that the feeling for reconciliation is mutual and that your ex also wants to be with you again, it is time for you to act. Contact your ex, ask him/her to meet you for something. When you both meet, express subtly your desire to make up. You will make your ex start talking to you in no time. He/she will instantly be ready to be with you again.

Those of you who have read my articles know that I am always talking about the importance of good communication, urging better communication, and giving skills for being better understood. Communication is one of the most important aspects of relationships; positive and negative. However, talk is not necessarily communication; and there are lots of non-verbal ways to communicate.

Most of my clients waste a lot of time and energy, and develop resentment by making big announcements about things “If you don’t start picking up your clothes, I’m going to send them to Good Will” “If you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself” “If I ever catch you cheating, I’ll leave” or the classic, “We need to go to counseling.”

I am all for good communication, but if you’ve tried to communicate, and it’s not working, it’s time to adopt the Nike slogan and “Just Do It.”

My beloved Richard loves to tell this story of his parents: His mom said to his Dad “Wouldn’t it be nice to remove this wall and make the livingroom bigger?” His Dad just sort of grunted assent. When he came back to the house from working on the farm the next day, she had taken a sledgehammer and smashed a big hole in the wall, which meant they had to finish the job.

Richard likes to laugh about that, because it shows what a dynamo his mother was, and that she’d get done whatever needed doing. He also says he’s careful what he says “yes” to, because he knows I’m going to follow up on it.

Whining, complaining, nagging and making snide comments are not the same as asking for what you want. Yelling, pouting, temper tantrums and hissy fits are also not effective communication. If you think your partner won’t or can’t work with you, these techniques are useless, and usually make the problem worse. Fighting about something over and over is an excellent indication that you’re not effectively communicating.

There’s an effective technique/skill that will work in these situations: Ask directly for what you want; then, if you’re not getting any cooperation, you can bypass all the struggle, hassle and arguing: Stop talking about it and just solve the problem.

This is probably the most powerful encouragement for your partner to join in and agree to negotiate, because he or she does not get to be part of the solution, and loses the power to stop or stall you. This is not done in a spirit of “OK, you won’t negotiate, so I’ll show you,” but in a spirit of “I understand that you don’t want discuss this, so I’ll have to solve it for myself, as best I can. When you are ready to cooperate and negotiate, I’ll be available.” I have written about this before, as a technique called “solve it for yourself.” The emphasis here is on don’t keep talking about it; just solve it for yourself.

There are several benefits to this approach:

• It is liberating to assert yourself on your own behalf and to realize you don’t have to have your partner’s participation to be satisfied, yet you also don’t have to shut him or her out, or be unkind.

• You no longer have the problem you were concerned about.

• You can still have a good, loving, relationship, because you have shut your partner out (the option to negotiate is always open) and you aren’t feeling frustrated, angry and deprived.

• It takes the pressure off your partner, and increases the likelihood that he or she will relax and be less defensive and more interested.

• It prevents you from being helpless and frustrated, so you are more able to welcome your partner’s cooperation when he or she offers it.

The key to solving the problem instead of repeatedly talking about it is a belief that there is a satisfactory solution. Caring about your partner’s wants and needs (as well as your own) is central to cooperation, but you cannot effectively meet your partner’s needs without his or her help. When your partner refuses to help solve the problem, you have no choice but to focus on doing it alone until you get cooperation. As long as you offer every opportunity to cooperate and you extend an invitation to your partner to join you whenever he or she wishes, you are free to focus your attention on solving the problem for yourself. If you try to please your partner at your own expense, there is no chance for both of you to be satisfied. Once you’ve tried to cooperate without getting support, the best solution is a course of action that puts you in control of your well-being and separates you from the effect of your partner’s resistance.

The following steps ensure you can be sure you’ve given your partner ample opportunity to cooperate, and you’re not overreacting.

Guidelines For Solving It Yourself

1. Be sure you’ve made a thorough attempt to negotiate. Don’t go to Solving it for Yourself until you’ve made an honest effort to engage your partner in negotiation-not just fighting.

2. Tell your partner what you are doing. State clearly that you have attempted to negotiate the problem, that your assessment is that your partner doesn’t want to work on it, that you would prefer to work on it together, but that you’ve decided what you are going to do about it on your own. You might want to say you’re sad to have to do this, and you’re protecting what’s good about the relationship. It’s very important to be able to do this calmly and definitely.

3. Invite your partner to negotiate at any time. Say that you are going to follow your own solution, but that you are open to discussing it at any time. This is your open invitation to negotiate, which keeps it from becoming become a power play.

4. Communicate your good will. Let your partner know that you value him or her and the partnership, and you don’t like having to make unilateral decisions, but you feel you have no choice, because your partner won’t work on it with you.

5. Be sure your solution solves the problem for you, even if you think your partner may not like it. If the solution works for both of you, the problem is solved, and needs no further discussion. if your partner is not satisfied with your solution, he or she has already been invited to negotiate, and being left out is a powerful incentive. To get a different perspective, imagine what you would do about the problem if your partner weren’t part of it. What would you do if your best friend were involved? Considering a relationship problem from the vantage point of a single person often points out places where you’re being needlessly dependent.

Hopefully, you will seldom need to solve a problem without your partner’s cooperation, but knowing you can solve the problem for yourself and still leave the door open to your partner’s participation means you can remain calm and gentle in the face of a partner’s reluctance to cooperate. You don’t have to wait for a reluctant partner to do it with you, as long as you let your partner know what you’re doing in advance.

This will certainly be better for your relationship than feeling frustrated, angry and taken advantage of. These skills create an atmosphere of cooperation between people, and lead to negotiation that satisfies everyone involved.

All this money and effort is to nudge the target consumer to pick up their product from the retail shelf. But this shelf has more than just your product. So the question is, how can you make your product call out to the discerning customer and engage with them?

Remember when the savvy folks at Nestle rebranded KitKat as ‘YouTube Break’ or when Mars rolled out new designs for Snickers, rebranding them as hunger bars.

And most recently, Coala decided to give an Indian twist to their ‘Share a Coke’ campaign.Another example of creative design is from Saint Clair Winery in New Zealand for their organic wine. “The Alternative” name was chosen as it reflected a new way of looking at organic packaging and as the alternative to the norm of non-organic wine production. The concept simply shows a vine from the leaves, to the bark to the wine. The design agency “The Creative Method” ensured that the packaging was as organic and environmentally friendly as possible, including the balsa wood with its laser etched detailing, the string and wax seal used to affix the label, the outer paper wrap stock and even the inks used to print the image.Innovative packaging and label design has the potential to convey what your brand stands for and engage with your consumer in a powerful way

The concept of using QR codes to ‘talk’ to customers has been around for some time now. The same codes are now used by the SmartLabel initiative ( www.smartlabel.org ) to share Nutrition and Allergy information to customers.

Does all this innovative packaging concepts and custom labeling increase your design and printing costs?

Yes, but only if you insist on not going digital. There are on-demand digital printing options that are just in time, with shorter print runs and less wastage in redundant stock. It is also scalable if your design and/or product composition is going to vary a lot. Variable Imaging in digital printing allows elements of design to be interchangeable.

OK, so now you are thinking of adapting digital. While it makes you more agile and has a better ROI across the supply chain compared to traditional methods, innovation also comes with a few new problems to solve. When a packaging design and the label content is enhanced through use of new design elements such as a hidden QR for example, the proofing and approval of artwork becomes increasingly complicated. Manual comparisons might not be enough going forward.

It would make sense if all aspects of design, review, approval, print proofing and rollout can be seamlessly and digitally integrated. While there are multiple applications that artwork designers can choose from for their creative work, there should also be a platform that automates managing these artworks.

Digital collaboration between internal stakeholders and external vendors through an intelligent online platform is almost a given. Its capabilities would go a long way in managing the artworks generated in this new wave of innovative packaging design.

With the wide variety of talk shows on the air, it would be nice to have questions outside the box. Here are some possible questions that fit this category:

1. When was the last time you were at a party, and decided to really pig out on the dip?

2. If you could choose a super power, would you choose the ability to read minds, or pour water really fast without spilling a drop?

3. What is the record amount of time you have gone without a shower?

4. What type of phone solicitation messages are you likely to listen to completely?

5. What kind of free gifts do you most crave?

6. What are some of the favorite names you call fellow drivers in a traffic jam?

7. What is your most memorable experience with cheese?

8. If you had a dime for every time someone called you a wart hog, would you be poor or rich?

9. Can you describe the smell of a really hot barn?

10. If you accidentally dropped the lid of the aspirin bottle into the toilet, would you fish it out or flush it down?

11. Are you satisfied with the shape of your tongue?

12. What is the purpose of the battery in a blade razor?

13. What is your favorite type of dried meat?

14. When you take photographs, do you make your subjects look at the camera?

15. Have you ever learned how to whittle?

16. Do you look for abandoned change in vending machines and pay phones?

17. What is the biggest gum wad you have ever chewed?

18. Where were you the last time you ripped your pants?

19. How many tissues can you fit in your mouth?

20. What kind of lessons are you willing to pay for?

21. How much would you bid for a Rembrandt painting?

22. Can you describe your most frustrating experience with plastic wrap?

23. What are your favorite types of hardware items?

24. Do you have a lucky shirt, and why is it lucky?

25. Where do you put your spare change?

26. How many times per week do you find yourself trying to identify certain odors?

27. What is the strangest thing you have ever done with a spoon?

28. How long would wicker furniture last in your house?

29. What are your favorite things to do with your fingers?

30. Have you ever written any graffiti, and if so, what was your favorite?

31. If you smell body odor, do you check to see if it is you?

There are a lot more, but I guess that is enough for now.