#but to be honest if a retail corporation is okay emailing this to me

[trek-tracks]

A piece of the action.

[robogreaser]

This is a Long Time Coming...

It’s been a relatively hard task to sit down and make sense of, well, a lot of things as of late. I could chalk it up to the state of the world, but it’s been troublesome for significantly longer than that.

Long Story Short Version: I’ve been in a hell of a place, mentally, physically, and otherwise.

The proper story is a hell of a lot more involved than that and I know damned right well it’s going to take me a fair bit to explain myself and my various professional and social failings over the past... while. I’m gonna try to contain this under a read more, of course, but I apologize to mobile users if tumblr fucks that up.

Okay. That took a fair more bit of effort to figure out than I remember. Which, I suppose, is a fair enough bit of a segue into one thing that’s happened to me.

Tumblr has been deteriorating.

Whether I like to admit it or not, tumblr has been my go to social media platform since... 2011. Yeah. I’ve spent the vast majority of the decade here. I’ve seen a lot. Sure, I’ve lurked elsewhere, but I really cannot stand the interface and nature of a lot of other social media, especially the likes of twitter. Unfortunately for me, this place has been in constant decline for years now at this point. It extends well beyond the porn ban, but that’s a whole separate discussion.

I’ve lost touch with a lot of people I care about, some vanishing into the ether, some ghosting me, some just drifting into other communities or onto other sites. I’ve come to terms with the majority of this. It’s been happening for a while. It’s the very nature of digital relationships. It hurt, and I do think it’s contributed to a fair bit of stress and depression that has resulted in my... withdrawal from online spaces. It’s not a major factor, but its here, it’s present, it’s a factor in all of this.

I’ll be honest in that, well, I’ve tried to make this post several times over the past several weeks and months. It’s hard. Talking about my issues, using ‘I’ and ‘me’ so much in a post... it’s a bit jarring. But I’ll try to suck it up.

It’s been ten years (god I fucking hate time) since I’ve graduated high school. Yeah. It’s a fair thing to say that, on reflection, that’s incredibly jarring. The vast majority of that time has been... relatively unstable. I spent a fair few years working on my book and my publishing journey, now all but scrubbed clean from this blog (more on that later) and... well... Trying to be an adult. I’ve applied to, gotten accepted, and had to withdrawn from my dream school twice in this time. I’ve had a fair few jobs, nothing worthy of my resume, and lost all of them in one form or another, whether being fired for retaliating to my shitty work conditions, or, well, quitting for the sake of my own health during this pandemic. There has been a lot of family troubles. I’ve been through a lot of... ‘varied’ living situations, some horrendous, some just stressful, some, like now, actually really good compared to the others. And for the past few years in particular, it’s been constantly one thing after another, nonstop.

In short, progress is slow, but it’s happening. I don’t care to delve into a lot of these sorts of personal details lest this get to a ridiculous length, but that’s the short of the stuff I’d rather gloss over.

I’ve been on a health... Let’s call it a journey. I’ve been on a health journey. Over the past few years I’ve gone through the long processes of being diagnosed with ADHD, discussing my options regarding my depression and anxiety, and finally getting myself on a medication regimen that works. And then, because the health care system is a joke, I was without insurance. I had been off my medication, an absolute lifesaver and release of burden on my garbage tier brain, for eighteen months. Until last week. I think it’s fair to say, between my revolving door of living situations, employment, and then being un-medicated in a continually more stressful environment... That this is the main reason I’ve been absent. I’ve had no focus. There were weeks where I had no drive to do anything outside of routine that others depended on. I had not only gone back to how I was before situating my mental health, but in some ways, found a worse state.

Finances have been slowly eating away at me. I had been working a part time retail job until November, which made decent enough money, but not nearly for the amount of work and responsibility I was handling. I got fired. I found work with one of the big, corporate postal services. The pay was phenomenal, but it began to actively destroy my health, mainly physically, but also mentally, especially considering I was working a graveyard shift. Eventually when I began having prolonged health issues there, and then a whole lot of the symptoms of covid-19, on top of them turning me down for an entry-level position outside of the package handling, I had to quit. This was shortly after the lockdowns, in early April, and I refuse to look back despite people like my parents insisting on me trying to get work there again. Sure, the pay was phenomenal compared to anything else I had until then, but I cant continue to sacrifice my health. As of now, I’m unemployed, and... well...

I’m working on my commission queue. It’s art. It’s stuff I’ve owed friends (luckily those who are incredibly understanding and good to me) for an embarrassing amount of time, even before moving to and from Oklahoma at the end of 2016. I’m terrified of being the person who is known for taking commissioners’ money and running.

I know, I’m not good at giving updates. I’m not good at a consistent work schedule. I’ve had numerous tech failings over the past few years that constantly slow my roll on any progress I have made. Hell, I’ve had files corrupt despite being two thirds of the way complete when transferring from one computer to another. I’ve lost my cable for my external hard drive. I’ve had my tablet go to hell and back multiple times. But I am working. I am trying. I am sitting down as often as I can between looking for work and managing family nonsense to try and get my workload tidied up.

Which... brings me to my next point. And one I’m rather... ashamed about.

I have used trello, infrequently, since taking on a large load of commissions, and despite not being faithfully updating it and checking back on it, and using it to it’s fullest potential, I had kept, at the minimum, a list of all the work I did owe people using it. Well. Dumbass me attempted to use a mobile app. In short, in an effort to try and make myself tech literate and allow me easier access to my queue, I ended up deleting it. Somehow.

I’ve gone through and slowly flagged all my paypal notices and various emails concerning my commissions. I’m putting it together again. I’m trying. Granted, I am damned sure I am going to be missing someone, somewhere, somehow. I know it. I’ve got a shit brain, and despite my need for organization and minimalism, I don’t put it past me to have missed something along the way.

If you have commissioned me, please, do not hesitate to reach out and contact me regarding your commission. I owe every last one of you a massive apology for my continued failure to produce what you have paid for.

More likely than not, I have a wip already started somewhere, and if not, I have a slew of reference and thumbnails already compiled together somewhere on my computers. I am not ignoring this work. It’s been painfully, embarrassingly slow. It’s been one obstacle after another. But I have every intention of doing this work, and, likely, upgrading the quality of the finished piece past what my commissioners have paid for simply because I do feel bad about the wait time.

I have been inexcusably unprofessional. I know this and I am working as best I can with the time and resources I have to correct it.

In a similar vein, as I mentioned before, I have slowly been cleaning up my rather unimpressive publishing attempts. I’ve gone through and cleaned this blog recently, deleting reference to my work by name and the process of trying to get myself published. I may have missed a few posts here and there, but for the most part I would like a clean slate in regards to building a social media platform surrounding my written work. And this is the part where... I am probably going to be the most upfront and honest with you reading this than I have been publicly before.

I am not ashamed of who I’ve been online these past ten years or so, but it reflects only a sliver of my personality, a sliver of who I am as a whole. I catered to a very specific subset of who I am in pursuit of finding acceptance in communities much larger than myself. I’ve learned a hell of a lot about myself in that time. I figured out what’s important to me, my health, my sexuality, my relationships and my long term goals. I’ve found a very important group of friends. I’ve found people who understand and empathize with a lot of the things I have been through, experience, and am at my core.

But the fact of the matter is, this hypersexual, sci-fi aesthetic-oriented, very open person is only a singular facet. And it is not nearly enough of a reflection of who I am, or who I want to be as a professional, public adult. Will I always be gay for robots? Yes. Will I, when time permits and creative energies are present, continue to make nsfw art? Absolutely. Will I always have a toe dipped in erotic literature and the like? Most likely.

But a lot of me, a lot of my emotion and strife and feelings regarding most things in the world, are completely separate from this. It’s separate from me liking porn on twitter or having a homestuck roleplay blog. It’s separate from who I am in real life, with my boyfriend or with my family or with my work. And I have been dwelling on this, sincerely, for a while. I need to allocate more energy into my life. The separate life offline and online too, where I am pursuing an actual professional career, because, at the end of the day, I want to be an author. I want to have a career telling stories. And, in my time online, I’ve found a lot of skeletons in authors’ closets, the kind that really put mine to shame, and the kind that will always be a footnote to their work. You know the ones.

I want my creative work to speak for itself. I want people to be able to enjoy what I do without a specter, without my time and energy having to explain to a future audience why it is I had explicit thoughts about x,y, and z. I want to be able to write a book, write many books, and have people enjoy them without a footnote about me, a person with a sexual life and a history exploring it through years of depression and isolation, clouding it. It’s not fair to my work. It’s not fair to a future reader. It’s not fair to me.

I’ve got several social media accounts made and slowly coming to life that I need to spend more time with as I try and pursue this new, second leg of a very long journey into publishing. I’m not going to link those here, now or in the future. It’s likely a few people I know and trust have access to them. But I am, effectively starting over from scratch trying to build a platform as a writer. And it’s hard. Juggling that, alongside all of the things in the world today, alongside family and my relationships, alongside my commission queue? It bears down on me and if I didn’t have experience handling more than one thing at a time, I might trip up more frequently. Hell, I forget to post and use those new accounts regularly.

But I’m trying.

I’m not moving away from my current social circles or hobbies or anything like that. I’m not abandoning any fandom or friends or communities. But I am going to be trying to balance myself more thoughtfully moving forward, past just commissions, past just writing.

I’m here. I’m moving forward, slowly but surely, and I am making an effort to improve.

[safely-crazy]

Prepping for an Interview...

So, I’m currently getting ready for an interview that I have coming up and it’s astounding how much research I’ve just been doing about the whole interview process. So! I decided to compile it all and decided to pass on the sage wisdom of the job hunting realm (lol):

BEFORE THE INTERVIEW:

Whoever contacted you about the interview, get their information (name, email, phone, etc). You don’t need to be best buds with the people but it’s good for both reference and further contacting.

Research the hell out of the company you applied to. Even if you think you know the company, look up their mission and vision statements and their values (if given) at least. This allows you to sniff out the mindset of the company and what their prime candidate looks like.

See if they pop up in the news; if they don’t then they’re either too small or know how to deal with failure. If they do, you can learn how they deal with failure/praise.

Write out a list of questions to ask your interviewer. You’ll stand out a hell of a lot more if you make it more like a two-way conversation. YOU ARE INTERVIEWING THEM AS MUCH AS THEY ARE INTERVIEWING YOU (even if you’re desperate for a job; it shows you care and are thinking ahead).

Make a resume if you haven’t already and print it off. Even though their system may have your resume, it’s always nice to have the option of a hard copy for the interviewer (especially if they ‘can’t find yours’ at the time of the interview.

If you are the type to take notes to remember things, ask your interviewer/contact ahead of time if it’s alright for you to take notes during the interview. If yes, sweet. If no, respect them and review what you’d like to go over.

DO NOT come with a notebook filled with how you plan to respond to common interview questions; this comes across as nervous and poor planning.

DURING THE INTERVIEW:

EYE CONTACT!!!!! I know it gets hella awkward and sometimes it’s just unbearable. If you’d like to attempt full eye contact, look them in the eye, note their eye color, and then look away. Otherwise, you could look at their forehead, nose, or lips to make it look like your keeping eye contact (i tend to look at people’s mouths out of habit).

Actually pay attention. I’ve been in a couple interviews where I’ve accidentally zoned out and then find myself just smiling and nodding. This is not good since most interviewers are trained to notice when someone isn’t invested in the conversation. It’s actually killed a few of my chances.

Relax your body language. Get in the seat they give you and roll your shoulders. Just act like your having a couple brewskies with the fam if you have to (but slightly more professional--legs crossed or a straighter back).

Be honest, but in a positive way. DO NOT BAD MOUTH PREVIOUS JOBS no matter how horrible it was. Phrase it in a way that’s positive and looks forward to working with the company.

Ask the questions you’ve prepared. A common one is to ask if there’s anything in your resume that concerns them. Another is to ask how the interviewer has enjoyed their time with the company. You can ask several other questions that may require some previous research on the company itself. And make sure to phrase them in a way that sounds like you if you can. If you can’t, no worries, but understand what you’re asking.

MAKE SURE YOU ASK WHAT THE NEXT STEPS ARE. Don’t just assume they’ll contact you. Unfortunately, most companies won’t tell you if they’ve decided on someone else. By asking about next steps, you’ll most likely be able to get a time frame on when you should hear back from them if hired.

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO GET THE INTERVIEWER’S CONTACT INFO**** THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR FOLLOW-UP

AFTER THE INTERVIEW

Preferably the day of or after, send the interviewer a thank you. There are a couple templates online (that i can’t find at the moment) that show how to word it. Basically, thank them for taking their time to see you and how great an opportunity was to do so. Follow that up with an enthusiastic “Can’t wait to hear from you” in pro-talk before thanking them again. This keeps you in the interviewer’s mind.

Go over what you went over with the interviewer and decide if the company is a good fit for you. An interview does not automatically guarantee the company that you will accept a hiring if they chose you. Again, this is just as much as you interviewing the company as the company is interviewing you. If you think it’ll be overly stressful, or the environment will be awful, it’s okay to kindly thank them but deny the offer. And you don’t have to explain yourself. A good cop out answer, if you decide to reject, is to say you found an opportunity elsewhere.

Continue to apply elsewhere. Even if you think you nailed the interview, it’s never good to bank on getting that singular job. Because, unfortunately, getting a job is difficult even if you did everything right. 

It’s okay to ask the interviewer where they’re at within their hiring process. Don’t overload them with emails asking everyday, because that can have the opposite effect. I usually wait about 5-7 days before inquiring how far along the process they are. You aren’t guaranteed an answer, but if they do, it’ll generally mean you’re still in the running (unless they inform you otherwise).

Treat yourself a little bit in order to help you relax after. Nothing good comes from prolonged stress. Let yourself ease out of interview mode (i normally get some of my favorite food to help relax me...or a nap)

OVERALL

Regardless of what company the interview is for, try to dress to impress. What impresses a company is different for each one. Hotels and corporate companies usually prefer business formal for an interview (to show you’re serious) while others like retail, tattoo shops, and locally owned would probably be alright with dress-up casual (like jeans and a nice shirt or something along those lines). Never show up in sweats, pajamas, or mismatched clothes unless you know for a fact that the business wouldn’t mind it. Even if you aren’t overly fashionable (like me), try to find a researched outfit that will put you in the interviewer’s favor since people’s first impressions start with an outfit.

This is, by no means, an extensive list of what to do. It never hurts to look it up for yourself either (especially when it comes to writing thank yous and follow ups). However, I do hope this will be able to help some of you. ^_^

[crissle]

transcript of the speech i gave at Vassar’s black baccalaureate service

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, and the Vassar class of 2017. Just saying that aloud made me feel old. Class of 2017? Most of y'all were born after dark-skinned Aunt Viv left the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. That’s wild.

I want to first thank you for allowing me to be a part of such a special moment in your lives. I am honored, privileged, and a bit in disbelief that you asked me of all people to give this address. I try not to have feelings, and I’m going to do my best not to cry today, but no promises.

I’m here to stand in the gap between you and your parents and guardians and any other elders in your lives that you stopped listening to because you thought they were wack and out of touch. I remember being in your shoes not TOO long ago, and it is my fervent prayer that something that I say here today will help you avoid some of the mess I went through. To be honest I’m a little nervous, but I figured there was no way could this be worse than when Betsy DeVos went down to Bethune-Cookman, so let’s get started. As you transition to life after Vassar the changes will be both inevitable and swift, so I’d like to begin by giving you some well-intentioned advice and warning you about the continued process of becoming an adult.

It means I frequently feel simultaneously overwhelmed and very bored. It means forcing myself to go to work even when I’m depressed or my anxiety is through the roof because I’m the grown up now, and the bills don’t get paid unless I do it.

It means sometimes sitting in my room alone and feeling like I’ve done nothing significant with myself.

It means going through bouts of just being unhappy and not having any option but deal with it.

So no, adulthood is not the “I can do what I want” paradise that it may have appeared to be when we were young, and I’m sure you can all see that clearly now, but there is even more growth ahead. Sorry if you thought the hard parts were over.

Many of you have likely never worked a full time job or completely supported yourselves before, so as you prepare to enter the professional workforce please understand that as a young person of color your biggest asset will likely not be your intelligence, work ethic, or creativity. It will be your ability to make the white people around you feel at ease. You’ve probably already been honing this skill during your time at Vassar. No shade. Lord knows my years in college in Oklahoma prepared me in the same way to deal with my bosses and coworkers. You will be tested the first time a colleague complains to your supervisor about your “unfriendliness”, when really you were just trying to meet a deadline and didn’t care to hear about Susan’s cat and its vomit. Or the time you collaborate with a group and when the work is presented to your boss, your contributions have been conveniently erased or “mistakenly” attributed to someone else.

There have been many times that I had to sit back at work and bite my tongue while a white male coworker skated by with few responsibilities and even fewer repercussions. This is what it’s like for most of us playing the corporate game. Keep the white people at work comfortable in your presence, and things are magically easier. Force them to see the blackness in your humanity, and watch the complaints to HR pile up.

If you feel like you are being unfairly targeted or punished at work, put those in feelings in writing and back it up with some proof before emailing it to the people who need to know. That’s right - I’m telling you to go full White Woman in the workplace. Learn now to trust your gut. Know that if something FEELS off, it probably IS off.

When things were getting rough at a previous job of mine and I suspected something shady was going on, I started carrying my iPhone all over the office and using the Voice Memo app to record what was being said when I wasn’t in the room.

I kept my own meticulous records of what was going on and those files ended up saving me in a major way. I’m thankful every day that I didn’t ignore my intuition about that job. Sometimes we get those sneaky feelings and think we’re being paranoid when it’s really God (or the universe, or your personal higher power, whatever you believe in) trying to warn us about the dangers ahead. There have also been plenty of times that I didn’t listen to that intuition at all and paid the price dearly. Please learn from my mistakes.

I dated a girl back in 2008 or 2009 (the years all start to run together after a certain point) that we’ll call Ashley. Ashley was fine, played basketball, had a nice car, great job, and most importantly - was taller than me. But there were lots of things about her that didn’t add up. Like how she claimed to be an engineer for Apple, but we lived in Oklahoma City which had only just gotten an Apple retail store at all the year before. Or how she claimed to be my age, but her driver’s license said she was born three years before I was. (She claimed it was a mistake at the DMV that she never got fixed). Or how she constantly gave away fancy things like Louis Vuitton purses and Gucci and bought an SUV back when gas was like $5.32/gallon and not even rich white people were buying SUVs. The list goes on and on.

There was a lot about Ashley that should have been a red flag, but I didn’t care. She was fine! She took me out all the time and seemed head over heels for me and opened doors and held my umbrella so I looked past the sketchy job thing and the fact that she was blatantly lying about her age and everything else. The universe gave me so many chances to walk away from that situation, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. If I am honest with you now, it’s because I never thought someone who looked that good could be attracted to me. If I lost her, I’d never get anybody that fine again. When she got a new job as an “engineer” at a bank, she asked me to come there one day and open an account so she could deposit a check into it. Now don’t get me wrong, I was definitely a fool back then, but that just felt like it should be a no. And so for the first time in our relationship, I told her no.

She let it drop, and I pretended that nothing was wrong and kept dating Ashley despite the millions of warnings the universe was tossing in my direction until I couldn’t ignore them anymore.

A few weeks later, I was home asleep when she pulled up at my house at 3 AM (problem number one) and told me she’d been arrested for embezzlement and her dad had just bailed her out. She claimed that it was all a big misunderstanding, but when I put two and two together I realized that she’d asked me to come to the bank that day so that she could pull off her little stunt and blame me if she ever got caught. To say that I was hurt by that betrayal would be a massive understatement. I couldn’t believe someone I loved and trusted so much could have treated me that way. Had I been even just 2% dumber I’d probably have a record right now because of that girl. I let the idea of loneliness and solitude keep me in a situation that I should have left months earlier, and it almost ruined me in a permanent way.

I tell you that story because my friend Kid Fury and I give out a lot of advice on our podcast, The Read. Most of it is about relationships and I get a lot of feedback from younger women who say things like “Wow, I wish I was as reasonable as you are about relationships” or “I wish I was okay with being single like you guys seem to be”. But I didn’t always make smart decisions when it came to love. I wasn’t always okay with being by myself and I didn’t get to this place overnight.

What I DID do was learn from all the ways that I messed up and spent time alone after every relationship to work on myself. From Ashley in particular I learned to always trust my instincts, and these days I spend a lot more time vetting people before I decide to date them. That’s not foolproof either, because love is always a gamble. You never know how things will turn out. The difference now is that I listen to the warnings the first time I hear them.

Since we’re already on the subject of relationships, I want you to know that sometimes you will have to un-break your own heart. Sometimes what you thought was the perfect relationship ends and you don’t get any real answers or resolution or closure. Sometimes you will have to sit alone in your heartbreak and just feel every bit of that misery. Sometimes you will have to know when it’s over and be brave enough to end things before they can get worse.

I want you to know that because if you decide to not feel those feelings… if you decide to throw yourself into sex or dating or selling laxatives on Instagram instead of processing the entirety of what you are going through… all you are doing is delaying the inevitable. Your future relationships will crumble under the weight of your unresolved emotions. You are not doing yourself a favor by pretending that you aren’t bleeding. It is fine and good to develop hobbies to distract yourself from the pain and loneliness of a relationship ending, but make sure you take the time to really get through your breakup.

Remember that never getting married isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you, but marrying the wrong person could be.

For young women in particular, I want you to learn to put yourselves first. Learn to prioritize your needs. There is so much to be accomplished in your personal life when you are happy with yourself alone. As a wise woman once said, there is an essential part of who you are that only becomes alive in the place where romance ends. Women are so conditioned in this society to take care of others that choosing yourself can feel unnatural. It can be isolating, because believe it or not lots of people don’t think women have the right to see themselves as truly equal to men. Weak partners will not know how to handle a woman who puts her happiness above anyone else’s but choose yourself anyway, and never compromise just for the sake of not being single.

When I was around your age, LiveJournal was a big deal on the internet. If you aren’t familiar, LiveJournal was a site for keeping personal blogs and participating in communities with like-minded people and I loved it. I blogged on LJ for years and made internet friends that I still keep up with on Twitter today, and when I take the time to go back and read what I was going through in my mid-twenties I am always blown away.

An excerpt from September 6, 2004: “I figure, why break up with him for being a liar (and probably a cheater) when everyone I’ve EVER dated has been a liar/cheater. Obviously I am destined to be either alone or with a liar/cheater. No sense in breaking up with this one when all I’ll be doing is waiting for the next one to come around.”

YIKES! I read that now and see a person whose self-esteem was so low that she should’ve been single and in therapy. It’s hard for me to reconcile that girl with who I am today, but I got here. The things that felt fresh and dangerous and new back then are old roads to me now. You will get there too. But you gotta keep going.

Another quote from my journal, this one dated November 5, 2008: “I don’t even try, anymore, even though I want things to be better. I want to do and be better. But I don’t put forth the effort that I know is required of me and I don’t know why. I just let things get worse and worse and worse and one of two things happen: It’ll get so bad that I’m forced to do something to change it or it’ll blow up completely in my face. If I do eventually change, I never manage to keep it up so either way it goes my life is a constant cycle of fail. I wish I knew why I couldn’t be one of those people who learns to make it right.

P.S. What is up with Rihanna having all these good songs lately?”

I remember feeling that way A LOT - sometimes for days and weeks at time. But it’s funny to me now that I remember those feelings but not the daily work it took to get out of it. I just know that I kept moving. I talked to my friends about what was going on and faithfully asked the church to pray for me every Sunday and Wednesday. When that didn’t fix it alone, I broke down and found a psychiatrist. (Which I highly recommend, by the way. Mine have saved my life twice. #NoShame.) If you’ve never been in therapy before, it might surprise you how helpful a stranger can be when you feel stuck dealing with life.  And of course, I kept my journal. I kept writing. When my depression drove me to the point of feeling suicidal, I wrote my way out. But my journal wasn’t all tears and desperation and sadness. I laugh a lot too when I look back at who I used to be and what the world was like then.

Like this post from September 3, 2005: “Kanye West just got on TV and said ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’. Kanye West is officially my baby daddy.”

Or this one, from August of that same year: “I bought two fish, one male and one female. I named them Brad and Angelina. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that they hump constantly.”

I encourage you to keep a journal and write in it as much as possible. I read a story on Humans of New York last year about a woman who has kept a journal every day since she started it as a class assignment in elementary school. Y’all, I would spend Beyoncé ticket money to be able to go back to 1996 and read my thoughts on being in 7th grade and what the Oklahoma City bombing was like for us living 90 miles away. I would spend VIP Beyoncé ticket money to be able to go back to high school and read the daily thoughts of a girl who was struggling with bisexuality and living with a very religious family in the middle of the Bible belt. So yes, please keep a written record of your life. One day it will be invaluable to you.

Take a lot of pictures of yourself and of everything around you, even when you think you look terrible. I don’t mean that you have to post them on Instagram or Tumblr every day, but no one ever grew older and thought “Damn, there’s too many photos of me lying around from when I was young.” The moments you are experiencing now will layer themselves into the person you grow to be. It’s a lot of fun to look back on trips that my best friends and I took in our mid-twenties and cackle together over the memories. When I was your age, camera phones were only just starting to become mainstream and it was a bit of a pain to hold onto lots of photos. So take advantage of the times we are in now. Save all those snaps to your camera roll. Record videos when you and your friends are just hanging out being goofy. Take those selfies, even if you think they’re ugly, and know that one day you’ll look back and touch the pixels of your 23 year old face and wonder where the time went.

One day, if it hasn’t come already, it will really hit you that you’re not one of the kids anymore. One day you will look around at your family and you will now be in the position that was always previously occupied by your parents, aunts, and uncles. Those kids that your siblings and cousins have? They get old fast! It is a cruel trick of life that childhood seems to drag on forever while adulthood flies past. Nothing prepares you for the realization that your parents are whole, complete people who had entire lives that existed before you were ever considered.

You will know in a way that young people are not capable of knowing that time continues to move and the world keeps turning no matter what. Children cannot quite understand that the games and technology and places and people they build their memories out of will all change one day. When I was your age, MySpace and BlackPlanet were more popular than Facebook and George W. Bush was the dumbest president America ever had. So yeah, the world will change in ways you cannot begin to imagine. You will realize that if you are fortunate you will be old one day, but also that growing older means learning different ways to say goodbye. One day it will be you turning up the brightness on your phone and increasing the font size on your MacBook and looking confused at whatever new app or machine the children of the future have invented.

Everyone won’t leave Vassar this weekend with a great job lined up in the career they’ve always dreamed of and go on to live happily ever after. If you’re like most of us, you will spend a significant amount of time being overworked, undervalued, underpaid, stressed, and tired. I want to encourage you today to hold on through the times when life will frustrate you the most. Understand that you WILL mess up, and the way you respond to making mistakes shows your true maturity. Hold on to the friendships you’ve had for years. Take the time to figure out who you are and how that person is different from who you want to be. Learn when to cut people off and how to genuinely apologize.

Ages 22 to 32 were by far the hardest I’ve gone through in my life. Imma just be real with y’all about that. I had a lot of terrible relationships. I had knockdown drag-out fights with roommates and best friends. I had terrible jobs and even worse bosses. My health wasn’t always great and I stopped trying to take care of myself. Depression and anxiety seemed to rule my days more often than not.

But if I hadn’t held on, I never would have worked up the nerve to move from Oklahoma to Harlem. I never would have started doing The Read with Kid Fury, which changed my life completely. I never would have been able to travel the world doing the work I love. I never would have found the real happiness and true peace that come with both loving and liking yourself.

Understand that your next steps into adulthood begin now, and that you cannot get to the rewards life has in store for you without walking the journey. (Unless you were born a cis-straight white man, and then the world is your oyster.) When I look back over the past decade of my life, I see a lot of struggle and heartache and days that I had to collect coins from the bottom of my glove compartment to scrape up enough money to find dinner. And now that I’m on the other side of that mountain I see how every last one of those days I spent hurting and miserable led me to being right here. I had to learn to trust the process laid out for me. I had to learn to let my dreams shift into my destiny. Like Oprah says, I learned to lean in with the universe instead of fighting it. So as you prepare to tackle the changes heading your way, do your best to hold your head high and remain true to yourself. Remember to hold onto your values, your ethics, and your purpose. It is these qualities that will successfully guide you through life.

I’ll leave you with one last excerpt from my journal, dated January 20, 2007: “My ex-boyfriend just moved to Harlem and he gets on my nerves talking about how great the east coast is. I really don’t give a damn about the east coast. I would never move to NYC, but maybe that’s just me.”10 years later, I can tell you that 24 year old me couldn’t have been more wrong about what she would or would not do and how her life was going to turn out. So have your dreams and goals, but don’t be so attached to them that you miss out on your purpose.

Congratulations to you, the Vassar class of 2017, and to the parents, family and friends who have helped you arrive. Good luck to you and thank you for listening.

[ageloire]

6 Ways Marketing Content Can Support a Customer Service Team

"Hold on, let me just confirm the solution for you," the service rep responds as she scrambles to look up the answer to a customer's question.

It's the corporate equivalent of a retail employee wandering aimlessly down each aisle when you ask where a certain product is, like you couldn't have done that yourself.

Customers will eventually stump customer service (a department sometimes known as customer success, if it's more focused on proactive goal-setting than reactive troubleshooting) with a question they ask over the phone or in a live chat window. And that's okay; it's hard to always have all the answers at the ready.

What's not okay is when this becomes a pattern -- customer success employees seeming puzzled by the same problems or questions every time their clients bring them up.

Does this sound like the situation at your company? Consider tapping your marketing department to fill those knowledge gaps.

You may have heard the term "smarketing," which describes the ideal alignment of Marketing and Sales through shared goals and direct communication. What if I told you the same alignment could benefit Marketing and Customer Success, too?

There's a critical opportunity for both Marketing and Customer Success to help each other better serve their common audience. Here are six ways Marketing can help customer success managers (CSMs) and service reps transform the client experience, and the benefit Marketing can receive in return.

6 Ways Marketing Content Can Support a Customer Service Team

1. Distilling Marketing Content Into Monthly Digests

Customer Success might already receive their company blog's newsletter, but their conversations with clients can benefit from more tailored recommendations.

A dedicated roundup email just for these employees -- offering a digest of the most product- or customer-focused material from the previous month or quarter -- can ensure the team is always tuned into the issues Marketing knows their audience is most interested in.

A good place to start? Identify the latest ebooks, how-to articles, and data sheets your website is offering for download, and highlight the key points across each piece in this recurring email. Also known as "middle-of-the-funnel" content, this type of content can be hugely helpful to a customer success team because it reinforces product and value proposition comprehension.

Putting this material in client-facing hands ensures their remarks to customers are consistent with what people are reading on your blog or website.

2. Creating a Content Library on the Intranet

An internal wiki or intranet for sharing resources with coworkers is the perfect space for a content library. According to CMO Council, 40% of salespeople's time is spent looking for content that Marketing has created. Because Customer success talks to customers just as often as Sales does, it stands to reason they do the same thing.

Rather than letting your CSMs Google everything Marketing has published -- and potentially sending a dreaded "unusual traffic" signal to Google if they search too much -- repost this content as links on an intranet page created just for Sales and/or Customer Success.

Sort the relevant articles and offers by common customer queries: An article on good email subject lines, for example, might be appropriate bucketed under the topic "how customers can stay out of their own clients' spam folders."

3. Reporting on Social Media Interaction

What do social media and community managers have in common with customer success managers? They see lots of customer complaints -- but in a Twitter post or Facebook comment, rather than over the phone or in a live chat window.

And yet customer service experts at Sparkcentral suggest only 8% of marketing and customer service employees work together on social media. This is a missed opportunity.

If the internet has taught us anything, it's that people are more willing to be honest about their feelings and experiences from behind a computer screen than they are in person or over the phone. That means Marketing could be sitting on a goldmine of feedback from social media followers that the folks in customer success hasn't seen.

Want to help them serve your customers better? Open a line of communication with Customer Success to report on the latest interactions with followers of the brand's social media accounts on a regular cadence. This should include both public comments and private messages, allowing CSMs to see how Marketing talks to users and diagnoses problems their clients may not be revealing directly.

4. Joining Kickoff or Implementation Meetings

Customer success departments that also onboard new customers are sometimes thrown broad questions about the industry during initial calls.

For example, in the marketing industry, a customer might ask, "what content should I publish?" versus or in addition to, "how do I integrate my content management system (CMS) with your product?" The first question may go beyond the product issues that service reps are trained to handle.

Luckily, industry best practices are marketers' bread and butter, making them excellent wingmen during these kickoff meetings. Including just one marketing employee in this process can help keep the customer thoroughly educated in the early stages of a business relationship.

These kickoffs can take place frequently, though, and it's important to be respectful of the marketing department's time. If your marketing employees are separated by industry specialization, consider rotating them into kickoffs for clients that fit their area of expertise.

If their workload simply doesn't allow for it, having marketing's leadership staff (such as the CMO or VP of Marketing) take this responsibility may be in the best interest of the rest of the team.

5. Reporting on Chatbot Conversations

Chatbots and similar chat tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) aren't yet ubiquitous in marketing, but for companies that have deployed AI-powered chatbots, these transcripts are invaluable to your customer service team.

(Skeptical about the AI hype? Research shows you may already be using AI and not realize it!)

Chatbot technology allows companies to talk to customers via messaging apps -- or natively as a feature of their website -- with an automated "bot" programmed to answer common questions about their services.

If your company hosts a chatbot on, say, HubSpot Conversations (get it for free here), it was likely set up to handle quick-answer queries so client-facing staff can spend time solving more complex problems for the customer. A smart move, no doubt about it.

However, this might also mean a log of some very interesting dialogue between a prospect visiting your website and a robot who speaks on the company's behalf is going unseen by employees who can learn from it.

This chatbot might be designed to lighten the load of questions normally posed to a human service rep, but don't let the automated conversations go to waste. Go a step further and examine how people are interacting with the chatbot.

People tend to lean on chatbots for open-ended, educational needs rather than technical issues, so examine your transcripts for trends in what users need the most information on when perusing your business' website.

For example, you might baffle Customer Success with how many people ask the chatbot about a third-party integration your product offers relative to how little detail your website or CSMs provide on the subject themselves. Time to create some informational middle-of-the-funnel content ...

6. Using Their Insights to Make Your Marketing Content Better

Like in Smarketing, the role of Marketing to Customer Success is a two-way street. Customer Success can offer valuable client insights right back to Marketing, which allows marketers to improve their content so it's addressing the questions Customer Success typically needs help answering for clients.

Just as marketing teams have the opportunity to distill their content into an internal email specifically for service reps (per section 1 above), Customer Success likely keeps transcripts or recordings of their conversations with clients. Consider working with your Customer Success peers on a simple report that highlights call FAQs. Who knows? The company blog or website may be neglecting your customers' most burning questions.

In addition, brainstorming sessions shouldn't always be exclusive to the Marketing team. Everyone at the business can bring valuable content suggestions to the table, and Customer Success in particular has a breadth of on-the-job experience with clients that could make for a great how-to article or video.

Don't hesitate to invite them to your next idea meeting.

Companies with the best customer experience share information across every department, and Customer Success is no exception. By keeping this department informed on what Marketing does all day, you equip them with the answers they're expected to have and offer a more stable buyer's journey to everyone the company works with.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/marketing-content-support-customer-service

[bint-k-blog]

Is AliExpress safe? Ways to make purchases on the recognised internet page

We regularly propose AliExpress on this internet site to find electronics products coming from China. Different domestics have been emailing to me straight to request me: is AliExpress safe? (the reply on ChinaSafeImport). It's a long history, however the answer's yes, so let’s provide a few details, of course, like any other sale internet site that you use online, there are many factors to keep in mind.

So, is AliExpress legit?

AliExpress certainly is the retail component of Alibaba Corporation, a firm that has a solid recognition in China, and it's gradually obtaining appreciation in other regions of the world. It truly is, from all facets, a good website, and it's otherwise known as the “Chinese Amazon”. AliExpress.com is often compared to the eBay.com, or Amazon.com, where different people decide to buy things from 3-party companies rather than Amazon marketplace itself. Thus, is AliExpress trustworthy? Okay, without doubt, it truly is the trustworthy internet-site.

I've individually decided to buy the electronics from the AliExpress.com net site sometimes before, and also have received an item that doesn’t compatible with the explanation or is malfunctioning. Bear in mind it, especially with cool gadgets that you're shopping and with stuff from no well known brands, at a small cost. You should never expect a comparable level of client support as you would from Apple.

The products which we review on this blog have been bought from AliExpress.com (if they're not offered at a acceptable price on Amazon online).

So, must you be watchful whilst order from AliExpress.com? Yes, you must really be vigilant of the exact same as you'd do in the event you shop for from a 3rd party seller on Amazon marketplace or eBay.com.

Is AliExpress safe if I am not vigilant?

The rapid reply is: really no. In the case if you don't want to be swindled, you will need to follow the instructions under.

1. Make sure if the articles that you purchase are what precisely you need

It isn't difficult, particularly with electronic products, to finally end up buying the absolutely wrong thing. You may end up getting a clone, or a product with lesser memory space, and many more. Test the technological conditions of your electronic device and make certain that you're buying the proper article.

2. Purchase from merchants with an awesome reputation

AliExpress.com will give you several ways to check out if a dealer is honest or not. Check out their feedback, the total number of ratings they already have garnered, and so on. Lots of distributors possess a “Top level Rated Trader” symbol that's extra confirmation they may be trustworthy.

3. Think again about things with a super low rate

Is AliExpress legit in the case if you want to buy really cheap items? As everywhere else, in the event if too low-priced to be true, consider carefully.

There are a few excerpts to this law, while. It isn't uncommon for 3rd party stores on Amazon to charge twice as much as AliExpress would, for the same device. Many of these brokers on Amazon marketplace do what is called dropshipping, and they usually charge you more because you don't know about AliExpress. It's particularly true for electronic devices. Android minicomputers from China could cost double on Amazon in comparison with AliExpress.com marketplace, just because retailers on the Amazon marketplace would like to make a much higher profits.

4. Don’t start a dispute before collecting the article!

The AliExpress marketplace lets you to question a contract in the event if you are definitely not satisfied with your obtained wares or if you don’t obtain it during the planned shipment date. You get one chance of arguing an order, and you will not waste it in the event if your vendor didn't provide products at that time. This is the easiest way used by a large number ofbusinesses to hold them secure from conflicts coming later.

5. Utilize the goods before the confirming a deal

Wares may look nice but not work in the correct manner. You should make sure you utizile the item for a few days before the confirming that you've received it to check whether it is working properly. In the case if your item isn't fulfill your own expectations, open up a controversy.

At this time you should have reply to the question 'Is AliExpress safe?'. Very well, as anyplace, there could possibly be a some bad apples, for that reason be watchful in your buying choices, that you would on the eBay.com site.

[shadowysandwichrunaway-blog]

The Dwelling Depot Coupons & Cash Back

A powerful housing market has buoyed the efficiency of each Home Depot and Lowe's this year. Spending $8 billion to purchase overpriced HD inventory doesn't sit effectively with me. The dividend has been rising, however at 1.9% it would not entice revenue investors. So the issue is HD stock worth. TTM web revenue for House Depot inventory is about $eight.6 billion. Such buybacks typically carry stock costs, since they lead to the same earnings being divided by a smaller number of shares. In House Depot's case, that can be excellent news for shareholders that include high administration, a academics pension plan and mutual funds run by Capital Group, Vanguard and BlackRock. One of many first The Dwelling Depot stores within the Atlanta space in 1979. House Depot's effort is a lot better. It has emotion and smartly links a number of completely different merchandise — not just decorations — to the vacation season. The sustainability of Home Depot's success has been called into query, causing this stock dip in the face of the corporate's strongest quarter ever. That is the power of the Amazon impact and the fallibility of linear retail growth - it can all be despatched toppling. Home Depot is extremely sensitive to shifts within the housing market, and any stall in its restoration would seemingly put an end to the corporate's spectacular gross sales growth streak For now, not less than, management sees room for perhaps years of additional positive aspects as a consequence of favorable metrics reminiscent of beneath-common household formation rates, rising dwelling costs, and the elevated age of housing inventory. A pullback in consumer spending might simply flip these forecasts around, although. On June 5, 2017, I positioned an on-line order for a Genie storage door opener and set up. Within a few minutes I acquired an electronic mail with the confirming particulars and a Dwelling Depot service contract. The email acknowledged I would be contacted within three business days by the installation contractor. The contract hooked up to the email acknowledged that the contractor would name within two business days. Residence Depot cited development among its professional prospects, but it's additionally calling out brilliant spots with younger shoppers who prefer DIY. To make sure, successful millennials over the competition might be key to Residence Depot's future, since these shoppers characterize a bigger proportion of the U.S. population. It helps me find stuff in any House Depot retailer, but generally, the situation could be very imprecise, equivalent to when merchandise are on an endcap (which endcap?). Could use some improvement. Our objective is that can assist you get a home of your own, just the way you dreamed it. Making your new home meet and exceed your goals happens while you put your personal touches, taste and elegance into it. That's why we created StyleSmart. It's a complete suite of design companies that helps you make your new house uniquely yours. The professionals in our Design Middle might help you convey your vision of residence to life.

HOUSE fulfills its mission is to ensure equal entry to housing for all people by addressing the nonetheless obvious particular person instances of housing discrimination. Additionally, RESIDENCE works to tackle systemically divisive housing practices on a larger scale by fair housing enforcement and research, advocacy and statewide coverage work. HOUSE additionally takes direct motion to assist first-time homebuyers and households with homes under the threat of foreclosure. At a time when unequal access to housing and credit score contributes most to the United States' rising wealth hole, HOME's multi-faceted strategy is a robust catalyst towards furthering honest housing.

Beazer Properties and its Affiliates, as outlined below, gather private information for permissible enterprise functions to assist in meeting our customers' needs. We do not require anyone to divulge any personally identifiable info to use the Web site. Certain varieties of info obtainable to you on the Website (for example, pricing info) might solely be accessible after you provide us with requested personally identifiable info. Beazer Homes won't gather private information about you through the Web site except the data is offered voluntarily by you. If you first start working for The house-depot all the things is great. After the primary couple of weeks issues set in and you will begin to appreciate how they really function. If you want to advance in your job then you need to reach goals that just about unattainable as an element time affiliate. As a component timer you might be seemed down upon and are not any where close to an equal to your full time counterparts. The credit for something done might be taken by your division head who normally will disguise within the break room most of the day when you and the other gross sales associates really run and maintain the shop.tajqzwq7_6i Home Depot went for the guts whereas Lowe's went for humor. Both capture an undeniable core a part of Christmas. I feel Residence Depot did a greater job of staying loyal to their prospects and reaching new ones — they captured so much more of the holiday! Lowe's added discount on the end which also seemed unnecessary. House Depot trades at a premium throughout the board relative to other residence improvement and common client retail stocks. What's most notable is the considerable premium to Lowe's, yet a similar earnings and growth profile. I'll discuss this extra under. I do not know precisely why, because I do not know what was within the minds of those homebuyers. All I know is that I bought the identical feeling I've generally had with online relationship — you post your profile within the morning, and earlier than lunch some man has swept you off your ft, and then after two months the smoke clears and he proclaims he's going again to his wife. That's what this deal felt like to me. I came to study — OKAY, by Zillow-stalking — that these consumers resided 4 blocks away in a giant, lovely Victorian they'd owned for only two years. To at the present time they have not put their house available on the market. It felt like they held my home hostage with an inflated provide, then walked over trumped-up issues through the legal professional-inspection phase, and there wasn't anything I could do to get them back.

[ds4design]

How to Negotiate Your Own Licensing Agreement

For the past few months, I've been describing what is needed to license simple ideas for new products. Designers pride themselves on their execution. But the licensing model requires you to be willing to relinquish some control. There are enormous benefits — and self-employment is freeing.

To briefly summarize, if after you've studied a market and done a prior art search; determined your product idea is indeed novel; made a list of potential licensees; filed a provisional patent application; and begun reaching out to said companies over LinkedIn or by calling their corporate office… one day soon, you'll get a response! Which may surprise you.

Know that smaller, more aggressive companies will get back to you quickly. Predictably, large companies move more slowly. They may need to bring a larger group of people together before replying, which could take between five and 10 days. My best experiences have been with midsized companies.

You'll say to yourself, "Shit, this actually works!" Now you're in the game. I try to get my students in the game as quickly as possible so they know this is for real, and I advise you to do the same. Polishing your design may be satisfying, but it won't help you secure a licensing agreement.

Don't overthink it.

The licensing process is actually pretty straightforward. It's always made sense to me on a very practical level in that way. If your marketing materials are good, companies will be able to quickly decide if they want to discuss your idea with you further. Yes or no.

The challenge really lies in finding the right partner — the perfect match for your concept. The closer you get, the sooner you'll hear back.

Remember, companies today are stretched thin as it is. Getting them to do something new is damn near impossible. You need to show them something that is just different enough. Of course, some companies do take chances on products that fall outside their typical purview. But those who do are most often small companies, which by definition have access to fewer resources.

Soon enough, you'll land one. (If not, you may be approaching the wrong companies.) And just like that — the time to dance has begun.

Keep in mind… this is a slow dance. Finalizing a deal will take longer than you expect. No matter. Your attitude is everything. Be explicit, and continue to tell the company that if they're interested, you can get a deal done. Make it very clear that you're happy to be working with them — that you're optimistic, excited, appreciative, and looking toward the future. Setting the right tone is extremely important; I cannot stress this enough. Look at every interaction you have as an opportunity to keep setting the right tone. When things move more slowly than you want, don't let your emotions get the best of you.

You don't want to step on anyone's toes and you don't want to unnecessarily throw up any red flags. Be patient.

Early on, most of your conversations will be through email. That creates a paper trail, which is great. But after a few exchanges, get on the phone. You need more information, and having a phone conversation will provide some in more ways than one. Everything from what is said to how much time on the phone your contact spends with you will shed light on their level of interest. I previously wrote about the value of sending each company on your list a unique link to your video. This allows you to track when and how often they click that link. Have they been watching? If they're playing it cool, but they've watched your video 12 times… draw your own conclusions. The party with the most information usually wins.

After you get some initial interest, continue reaching out to other potential licensees. Don't assume it's a done deal! Deals falls out all the time.

Keep the momentum you've got going. Time is money! Having multiple companies interested in your product is never a problem. (Not because I think you can leverage one against the others, per se. That's unrealistic, although it does happen.) The bigger picture is, continuing to reach out to other potential licensees is a form of protection. If you've filed a provisional patent application, your patent pending status is a ticking 12-month time bomb. So make haste!

Because if you disclose your idea publicly and don't move quickly enough, you may end up having to make an expensive decision when those 12 months are up — meaning file a non-provisional application. Filing a non-provisional patent application on your own, with no interest? That's more risk than I want to take on. I prefer to get my licensees to pay for a patent to be written in my name, of course, and so do other licensing experts like Gene Luoma, best known for inventing the drain-clearing tool Zip-It. "The hardest part is keeping it simple," Luoma likes to say. I agree.

The original prototype of the Zip-It drain clearing tool, invented by Gene Luoma, which has sold over 32 million units.

Look at it like this. The minute a marketing manager (or whoever else it is you reached out to) gets back in touch with you, the negotiation process has begun. 

Expect to receive a response along the following lines. "Thank you for submitting your idea to us. Do you have time for a few questions?"

This is the ideal opportunity to gather as much information as you can about the company. You're both checking each other out! So prepare to ask questions. Is this company the right fit for you?

You'll be asked what you're looking for. My answer: "I am not looking to manufacture; I'm looking to license my product. I'm looking for a royalty on each unit sold."

At that point the first thing out of their mouth will be, "What royalty rate are you looking for?" To which I respond, "If I understood your business a little bit more, I could come up with an appropriate royalty rate that works for both of us." Pulling a number out of thin air without knowing the potential revenue opportunity? That's not smart. At this point, the tables will have turned a bit. Now, they're selling you.

Ask them how many stores they have product in. Some people will readily share this information with you, but it's more likely they'll be vague. That's okay. You can find out more on your own. If they tell you they're in Walmart or Kmart, you can always Google how many retail outlets there are.

Assume each retail store sells one unit a week. (If not… your product is going to be kicked to the curb.) Now apply different royalty rates. How much will you make at a five percent royalty? Seven? Three?

Almost always, they will ask you for an exclusive. When you give someone an exclusive, you lose the ability to sell your technology to anyone else, meaning your royalty stream is finite. If your projected revenue is too low, you should walk away. If you've been granted a patent or have proven sales, you can negotiate a higher royalty rate, like between seven and 10 percent.

To be clear though, royalty rates are less important than how many stores they're in and the minimum guarantees they're willing to commit to. Remember, at this point, you're still dating! You don't want to ask any hard questions, which include minimum guarantees, yet.

Don't be caught off guard when they ask you about your intellectual property fairly quickly as well. If you've filed a provisional patent application, then your answer is easy; tell them your concept is patent-pending. At that point they may want to see your provisional patent application, which is not a problem. But you might want to ask them to sign a non-disclosure agreement, given that you'll be sharing confidential information with them. Most likely, they will not sign yours, and will instead offer one of their own. There is nothing wrong with this, but make sure to examine their document very closely. Confidentiality agreements are written so that they protect both parties — what is known as a mutual non-disclosure agreement — or just one. If something doesn't sound right, consult a patent attorney or a licensing attorney. Yes, this will slow down the momentum you've got going. But it also makes you look more professional. To be honest, I've never relied on confidentiality agreements to protect me. But from a public disclosure standpoint, they're absolutely helpful. They can help you extend the length of your provisional patent application, for example. But please note laws regarding non-disclosure agreements differ between states. IPWatchDog.com has some good sample confidentiality agreements. Once you've come to an agreement, send them your provisional patent application and any other information that might help them figure out whether your product is right for them.

Continue following up with your contact.

inventRight coach David Fedewa, who has licensed several of his ideas, puts it like this: "You want to stay on top of their pile — on their radar, in other words." So Fedewa follows up with companies that are interested in his ideas every week and does so alternating between emails and calls. He focuses on how he can be helpful by literally asking questions like: How can I help? Do you need any more information?

"If you keep demanding, 'Do you have a decision? Do you have a decision?' then you're likely to be thought of a pest. But if you offer a helping hand, they're more likely to think of you as a resource. 'Why not work with him?'" Fedewa explained.

If the company isn't getting back to you despite your best efforts, you can always ask them pointblank as a last resort: Are you interested? In my experience, that's usually enough to get people off a rock.

If they are interested, that's when you should ask if you can put together a few terms that you all agree upon before moving forward. Technically, what I'm referring to is a term sheet, but you don't have to call it that.

Next up, I'll tackle what that term sheet should include, as well as negotiation dos, don'ts, and deal-killers.

Congrats - You've got interest!