Paul Luvera Journal

As a retired trial lawyer who spent the majority of his adult life studying communication skills, I was curious to view the response by Representative Kennedy to the president's state of the union address. He has been viewed as as new rising political star. His family background involves some of the most dynamic and charismatic political leaders of our time. As a dedicated democrat, I was interested in his speaking skills given the need for great, young candidates in our…

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I was reading an article about a man in show business who is a master pickpocket among other talents. It described a woman accusing him of having stolen missing rings during a performance and how he dealt with it. The article said "he was using an old sales technique called 'feel, felt, found' in responding" I had a vague recollection of reading about this technique before, but couldn't remember what it meant so I looked it up.  What I learned…

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In an article entitled "Why Consumers Aren't Good at Telling You What They Want" http://www.instituteofdecisionmaking.com/?p=619 The writer, Matthew Wilcox, says that when Steve jobs was asked if Apple had used consumer research to help design and launch the I-Pad,  he replied "no." And when asked why not, he said,"it's not the consumers Job to know what they want." What neuroscience marketing research has shown, is that the consumer is not very good at telling us what they want. We know…

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No, not me. I'm not voluntarily going anywhere. Farewell is the title of a book edited by Cyrus M. Copeland. The full tile is Farewell, The Greatest Eulogies of Our times. Here are some random passages that I thought of interest. Adlai Stevenson on Eleanor Roosevelt We who are assembled here are of various religious and political faiths and perhaps different conceptions of man's destiny in the universe…And now one can almost hear Mrs. Roosevelt saying the speaker has already talked…

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PONCHO is an acronym for "Patrons of Northwest Civic, Cultural and Charitable Organizations." This was the name given to the first ever charitable auction put on by a group of Seattle business, philanthropic and arts patrons in 1963. My wife Lita has been active in PONCHO for many years as a board member and supporter. At their last annual auction we purchased a Film School program. The Film School is located in   Seattle. The school was created in 2004…

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I’ve reported about the similarity of the teachings of Joseph Goebbels as Hitler’s propaganda minister and Karl Rove’s role in the Bush White House.(See post of 11/3/06) Joe A. Palermo has an excellent post in the Huffington Blog of 5/2/07 regarding the anniversary of the infamous Bush landing on the aircraft carrier to proclaim "mission accomplished." He notes the Karl Rove statement that Rove ran campaigns as if the people watching TV had the sound turned off. That is, the…

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