It’s a potpourri today, though all the spicy petals and heady scents promise more than the supply of mere atmospherics: they encourage you to seek and exchange the currency of real communication, and to write worthily.

First up, a bit of congratulatory squawking for Pat Ferdinandi, who is a bridge between worlds: Pat is able to oil the dried-up gears between non-communicative nerds and tech-terrified businesspeople so that the machine of commerce (and better yet, the connectivity of communication) can move freely. In her new book, Parrotology, she shows how geek-speak and spreadsheet speak can meet, work together and enjoy each other’s company in the process.

Marketing magician Jodi Kaplan reviews Pat’s work with some flair here; you can download Pat’s free technologist’s assessment guide here: Bonus: You’ll meet her fine-feathered friend, Scarlet. As a muse, Scarlet is no bird-brain.

Writing to Change the World
More writing-world congratulations are in order: Pace and Kyeli, Chief Freaks at Freak Revolution, know that writing for writing’s sake isn’t enough. Writing can sear souls, give gravity-bound ideas wings, and literally save lives. They’re spelling it out for you with all the letters on your keyboard (and some magic ones you didn’t know about) at their World-Changing Writer’s workshop, that gathers a few of heavy hitters, like Chris Guillebeau, Jonathan Fields, Danielle Laporte and more. Check out their free special report, The Five Keys to World-Changing Writing. Write well, but write to change the world. (Note: this world-changing doesn’t have to be done before lunch, but before tea-time would be nice.)

Word: Cats
Lastly, I wrote a bit about my own word delirium in this post, but I want to extend that a bit: the Shelf Awareness daily compendium of bookish (but never boorish) news had this statement from author Rick Riordan the other day about something he learned in his Egypt-themed novel research:

I did quite a bit of research, and had shelves of books on hieroglyphs and how magic pertained. The ancient Egyptians considered all writing magic. They had to be careful: if they created the word “cat,” they had to deface it slightly, because they believed they could create a cat. The idea was that the ultimate form of magic was to speak and the world began. You see that influence in the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word.” All these ancient cultures dovetail, and they were all forming and evolving at the same time.

Behold the power of words! (Note: I spent all day writing variants of “Porsche” yesterday, but no car appeared. I did see an old cat move haltingly through the yard, however…)