A RETURN TO HISTORICAL PATTERNS

While venture capital investments are more concentrated in the biomedical sector today than they were in the late 1990s, focusing on the rising trend since that time fails to put investors’ interest in historical perspective. As the figure below shows, 2000 was the low point for venture capital focus on biomedical ventures because it was the height of the dot-com bubble.

Looked at over a longer time horizon, venture capital investment in the biomedical sector simply appears to have rebounded from an abnormally low level.

When measured in terms of the share of dollars rather than deals, the numbers are similar. As the figure below shows, the percentage of dollars invested by venture capitalists in biomedical ventures was high in the early 1990s, fell during the dot-com boom, and has been returning to historical levels. (We are closer to the peak biomedical share when measured in dollars rather than in deals because biomedical deals tend to be large.)

THE SOURCE OF BIOMEDICAL SECTOR DEAL GROWTH

What types of deals are driving the biomedical sector’s return to its historical share of venture capital? CB Insights argues that “the strength in healthcare investment has been driven largely by venture capital investment in medical devices and equipment.” I’m not so sure.

True, medical device deals have grown a lot since the end of the dot-com boom. But since 2000 they have grown more slowly than biotechnology deals, as the figure below shows. This subsector’s share of venture capital deals is now at its highest level since 1980, hitting 14.2 percent of all investments in 2009. The real laggard has been health care services, which has accounted for a declining share of venture capital deals since 1996.

As the figure below shows, the patterns are similar when measured in terms of share of dollars rather than share of deals. Since 2000, biotech has had the highest growth on this measure of any biomedical subsector, hitting a record share of dollars invested last year.

In short, the story of investment by venture capitalists in the biomedical sector seems different from what has been told elsewhere. The share of venture capital investment in this sector is returning to pre dot-com era levels from an abnormally low point. While medical devices are part of that resurgence, the growth is also being driven by biotechnology, with only health care services being left out of the picture.

Fear not, of course there is! Here are some tips to help you improve and write better content. It’s like 10th grade English without the fear of getting called on when you’re not paying attention.

Before you start writing…

1. Identify the goal of the content: One reason it takes us so long to write good content is because we don’t stop to decide what it is we want to say. What are you hoping your content will accomplish? Is the purpose of your article to explain how something works, put a customer on a determined conversion path, build brand trust? Whatever goal you’ve decided on, have it in mind before you start writing. Knowing your goal beforehand will help set the tone (and sometimes the filter) for everything that’s about to come next.

2. Decide on a hook: Every piece of content you write should have a hook. Just like in fishing, your hook is what you’re using to catch a reader in your net. Whether it’s a news hook, an attack hook, a humor hook or an ego hook, you want to decide how you’re going to draw people in. Keeping the hook  in mind will help you frame your article and organize it in your head. It will also determine the writing style that you use. You wouldn’t write a news hook with the same juice you’d use to write an incentive hook.

3. Think like your reader: Before you put fingers to keyboard, get in the mindset of your audience because your content is for them. If you’re attempting to explain something, talk about it from their point of view. How deeply would they need something broken down? Which terms would they use? Where might they get confused? Put yourself in the place of your customers and write like they would. Don’t use your view of the world. You’re the expert. It’s tainted with jargon.

4. Get rid of distractions: Log out of Facebook. Close Twitter. Stay away from YouTube. While it’s easy to head to these sites during a brain lull, they’ll only make your content sound more fragmented and make you spend three times as long trying to write. When it’s time to write, turn them off.

When you’re writing…

5. Only include what’s relevant: Do you still have the goal of your content fresh in your mind? Good. When you start writing, keep that goal in mind so that you only include information that supports your goal. Just because you know the whole alphabet about a subject doesn’t mean all of it belongs in one piece of content. For example, if you’re writing about how to make a good vanilla latte (my drug of choice), then you don’t need to include a five-page summary on the history of coffee, where the best beans are located, and how to brew the perfect cup. Leave the kitchen sink at home. The more irrelevant information you include, the further you take people away from your goal and the more you confuse them along the way.

6. Let yourself write: Stop me when this starts to sound familiar: You write a sentence. . . then you delete. You write three more and delete two. Then you get rid of a whole paragraph and pick at your title. Stop it! Writing and editing are two different stages of the content cycle, which means you shouldn’t attempt to do them simultaneously. When you sit down to write, just write; don’t self-edit. Focus on getting everything out that you want to say and putting it all down. Once it’s written down, then you can edit and make it sound cohesive. But the more time you spend self-editing as you’re writing, the longer and more fragmented your copy is going to sound.

7. Use short sentences: Short sentences are easier for writers to get out. They’re also easier for readers to take in. Stick with them and stop confusing people with overly complicated writing. Like short sentences, it’s that simple.8.

8. Use clear, direct titles: One of the best things you can do to improve your writing is learn to write killer titles. Direct titles aren’t always the most fun to write (who doesn’t love a good pun?), but they do the best job of telling readers and the search engines what your post is about. And that is your title’s main goal – to set up your content and make someone want to read it. Avoid getting so clever with your titles that you make it impossible for readers to predict what’s coming next or, even worse, set them up to be disappointed when your content isn’t about what they hoped it was. When all else fails, say what you mean. It’s true in life and in Web content.

9. Make it scannable: In our post on 4 things to consider when writing Web content,I encouraged readers to consider the medium when writing. Writing on the Web is different from other formats. Online, scannable content reigns supreme, as users still aren’t so great at reading on the Web. If there are five things you want readers to take away from your page, break them out into a numbered list and make it easy for users to grab on to them.  Lists, white space and short paragraphs are your best friends on the Web (other than links).

10.Use your voice: The quickest way to make your content unreadable is to remove yourself from it. In order for people to care, you have to give them a little bit of you. Voice an opinion, wear your heart on your sleeve, and write like it matters to you. It will take a little experimenting to find your blog but once you do it will make all the difference in engaging readers and bringing them into your site and your company.

Before you publish…

11. Read your content aloud: If you want to improve your content, read it aloud to yourself before you publish it to the Web or hand it to a customer. If you stumble over something  or think you’re being too wordy, so will your reader, and it may turn them off. I never publish or commit to any piece of writing before I’ve read it aloud to myself several times. Once I can get through it without stammering, I trust that it’s “ready.”

12. Read backwards: If you often fall victim to typos and misspellings, then scan your copy backwards to allow your brain to see words out of context instead of subconsciously seeing “what you meant.”

Those are some of my tried-and-true ways of improving my writing. What tips have you picked up over the years? Whose writing do you most try to emulate?

Below are five ways to increase user spread of your content.

1. Use Twitter Buttons

Twitter continues to be one of the most popular ways for Web users to share and pass on content in their networks. Users like sharing content on Twitter because it’s fast paced, it allows them to play the role as discoverer, and they can use it to start their own conversations. However, you need to encourage them to share it. In order for the typical user to share your resource on Twitter, they need to find it, use a link shortening service to shorten the link, and then go back to Twitter to tweet it out to their network. That may be too many steps for them. To help encourage spread, embed a service like TweetMeme on your site to allow people to tweet your post directly from that page. You can add the TweetMeme Retweet functionality to your blog via their widget or WordPress plugin.  Once it’s there, it’s one click to increased brand and content exposure.

2. Add the Facebook Like Button

The Facebook Like button is another way you can encourage users to share your content and was created to replace the Facebook Share button (though some peopleprefer to use both). The way this works is that when a user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user’s friends’ News Feed with a link back to your Web site. This serves as a powerful testimonial for your piece and gives that person’s network a chance to read the post and possibly become a member of your community. To add the Facebook Like button to your Web site, simply use the Facebook Like button configurator or use the Facebook Like Button Widget Plugin.  We’re starting to see more and more users adopting the Facebook Like Button as Facebook continues its fight for local and social domination.

3. Sharing Plugins

Social sharing plugins give site owners another effective way to encourage users to share their content. By adding the plugin to your Web site, it allows visitors to quickly and easily post your content to their favorite social media Web sites. The advantage to using one of these plugins is they capture a greater number of sites so that you can use one plugin instead of multiple site-specific ones. Many will also offer an option to e-mail a post for users who aren’t yet comfortable on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Some examples of basic sharing plugins include:

• Sociable
• ShareThis
• Add To Any
• Social Dropdown
• GetSocial [a little more intrusive than the others]

4. Make it easy to save your logo

This is a great piece of advice I’ve stolen from the super smart Andy Sernovitz and now live by. If you want people to share your content and your brand, then make it easy for them to lift your logo off your site. In fact, maybe even offer different sizes and shapes of logo. Why? Because your logo is your identity. When people talk about you, they’ll often want to use your logo to go along with their comments. You can either make it easy for them to properly represent your company or you can make it difficult and force them to represent your brand in some other, non-approved way.  I’d opt for the former.

5. Ask!

If you want to encourage people to share your content, not only should you make it easy for them to do so with appropriate widgets, but you should also remember to ask. One place where I think the “asking” technique is very underutilized is with e-mail newsletters. Are you asking people to forward your newsletter to their friends who may find it useful? If not, why not? Your e-mail newsletter goes out to people who have taken the time to opt in to what you’re doing. These people have told you they want a closer relationship with your company.  Use that to its fullest. Also, you may find customers are more inclined to forward an e-mail than to share something on Twitter because it’s just one extra click and a process they’re already very familiar with.  Don’t force them to learn new tools.

Note that none of this is to say that you should randomly litter your Website with different sharing plugins and applications. Instead, find out how people are sharing your content and then make it easy for them to do that. Empower them to do that.

If you’re not sure HOW people are sharing your content:

• Check your analytics. What are the top referrers? If you’re seeing a large amount of traffic from sites like Twitter or Delicious, then you know those are popular in your community. Make sure you’re using those buttons on your site.
• Use SEO for Firefox to see where your best content is already being shared and the kinds of stuff people like sharing. Any surprises?
• Go to Quarkbase and put in your URL. Then, take a look at how people are sharing your content, what sites/types of sites are most popular and who’s doing the sharing. Put in a URL for one of your competitors and note the same thing to spot favored sites in your industry.

Those are some of my preferred ways to encourage users to share content that I’ve written.  What methods do you swear by?

Mine includes exaggeration, combination and reversal, but one of my favorites is anthropomorphism, or more simply. . . talking animals.

When I get bored with a traditional scene or setup I drop in a bear, a mongoose or, in this case, a bunch of bees.  Then I set my mind on figuring out what’s going on. It’s a good way to lubricate the ol’ brain, and it’s just plain lots of fun.

The only problem is figuring out how to draw bees in a hive conference room, which I think I could still work on.

Statistics from the industry organization Opportunity Finance Network show that 56 percent of microfinance lenders received a greater number of loan applications this year.

Microloans are made by nonprofit organizations that are funded by the Small Business Administration (SBA); federal, state and local government agencies; or private donations. But the recession has put a crunch on microfinance organizations at the same time that more entrepreneurs are turning to them for help.

Even though they receive funds from other sources to lend to businesses, microlending organizations have to put up some of their own capital as a “loan loss reserve” in case loans go bad. With many organizations today lacking the funds to create this reserve, available microloan money is sitting unused.

Bank of America is taking steps to help. The bank has announced it will make $10 million in grants to help nonprofit lenders such as Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) create the loss reserves they need to continue microlending to small and rural businesses. The grants could unleash as much as $100 million in low-cost financing for small business over the next 12 months.

“Even the smallest grant enables a CDFI to leverage as much as ten times that amount to lend to small businesses, which helps initiate a ripple effect impacting job growth, spending and overall economic expansion,” said David Darnell, president of Global Commercial Banking, Bank of America, when announcing the move. “Bank of America is empowering these entrepreneurs by directing private sector capital to unlock exponentially greater amounts of federal dollars for their businesses.”

Bank of America is already the nation’s largest investor in CDFIs; it has made over $1 billion in loans and investments to 120 CDFIs in 37 states.

One microlending organization cited in a San Francisco Chronicle article surveyed 2,600 clients who received assistance between 2004 and 2008 and learned the clients had created 2,244 jobs at a cost of just over $4,000 per job. That, I’d say, is a pretty good return on investment.

The game has changed!  Do you have what it takes?

Here are the five essential characteristics to be successful as a marketer in today’s world:

Risk Taker – The Internet has enabled “everyone” to be an Internet marketer.  With that evolution, the amount of competition you have has increased exponentially–and your competition is much more diverse, skilled and savvy than ever before.  In order for your marketing activities to be noticed among the barrage of messages out there, you’ve got to be a little daring.  If you’re not willing to try new things, be a little uncomfortable and take some risk, you’ll drown in the sea of similar marketers, similar messages, and bland ideas.

Recommendation: Spend a day dreaming big.  Let your mind wander.  Come up with ways to get massive, immediate exposure for your business.  Don’t let any limitations get in the way.  Then, narrow it down to something realistic, yet crazy, and go do it.  Have some fun.

Mad Scientist – Risk needs to be balanced with logic.  This is where the Mad Scientist comes in.  Recognize that I said “Mad” Scientist, not just scientist.  Marketing has always been part science and part art.  In the past, the science part was less visible and less accessible to the masses.  Now, with Google Analytics, Website Optimizer, e-mail marketing (complete with open and click reports) and many other tools, tracking your marketing activites – both successes and failures – is easy. These tools bringthe science of marketing to any computer anywhere in the world.  If you’re not the type that likes to experiment, test hypotheses, tweak the experiment and test again – over and over and over – then you may not be cut out to be a modern-day marketer.  But, if you love test tubes, titration and mass spectrometry, it’s time to turn your skills in the scientific method into your method for determining what works in marketing.

Recommendation: Read everything you can at MarketingExperiments.com.  Learn from others’ findings and get ideas for your own experiments.

Geeky Analyst - Experimenting is one thing.  But analyzing the data afterward is an entirely different story.  It takes a different skill set – a different kind of warped mind – to sit and look at the results through every possible lens to determine cause and effect, determine the salient variable, and ultimately determine what the data is actually telling you.  If your inner geek gets excited about slicing and dicing the numbers and the reports, then marketing might be your specialty.

Recommendation: Read Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0.  It’s not for the faint of heart, but there’s definite gold in those hills.

Code Monkey – A general working knowledge of basic Web layout and programming is required for today’s marketer.  Why?  Because you can’t devise an experiment if you don’t know what’s testable.  You don’t need to know how to write a Java applet, but you need to understand basic HTML and CSS layout as well as the limitations of server-side and client-side scripting.  Armed with this knowledge, the Mad Scientist in you can go to work devising all kinds of schemes for testing everything under the sun.  Make sure the Analyst in you keeps the Mad Scientist in check.  Too much data can be a bad thing.

Recommendation: Launch a WordPress site that you can mess with.  Then, use the built-in editor to edit your Theme.  Play with it, experiment, change font colors, sizes, styles, etc.  Get familiar with the basic HTML tags and CSS styles.

Copywriter -  Every good marketer needs to be able to write compelling copy (or at least be able to recognize it).  Compelling copy is not always as cute, funny or clever as you may want it to be.  That’s why the Mad Scientist tests everything.  But decent copywriting skills can quicken the testing process by getting started with proven ideas.  There’s no need to become a world-class writer, but understanding the psychology of writing powerful copy is a must. 

Recommendation: Study John Carlton’s Simple Writing System.  Read Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini and everything you can find by Gary Halbert, Jay Abraham and other classic copywriters and marketers.

I don’t claim to be an expert at any one of these (except maybe the “Mad” part of “Mad Scientist”), but I do find myself continually seeking knowledge in each of these areas to become a better marketer.  How does this stack up against what you’re seeing?  Are there other characteristics you feel are essential? Let me know by commenting below.

“When conflicts arise in satisfying customers’ outcomes, they should be viewed as opportunities to take a new service delivery approach that challenges conventional industry wisdom.”

Bettencourt has crafted a fine book for service business owners seeking steps to address those opportunities. An experienced strategy adviser for Strategyn who has consulted for Microsoft, TD Bank and Abbott Medical Optics, Bettencourt provides a strategy development framework that business owners can easily understand and use to implement new services and operational ideas.

The Truth About How Your Customers View Your Services

Bettencourt approaches service innovation by declaring the four truths of services.  These truths describes the kinds of existing services from the point of view of the customers’ benefit:

1. Customers hire products and services for completing a job.
2. Customers hire solutions to accomplish distinct steps in getting an entire job done.
3. Customers  use outcomes to evaluate success in getting a job done.
4. Customers have distinct needs that arise related to the “consumption” of a solution.

These approaches, assert Bettencourt, mean that “a company is forced to think about service innovation from multiple valuable perspectives,”adding that the approaches can overlap yet still yield economic results.  He cites IBM’s revenue growth from $10 billion in 1990 to $50 billion as an example of benefiting from innovation discovery.

From there, Bettencourt identifies the four approaches to service innovation that a company can pursue to develop opportunities:

1. Core Job –  a specific job requested by customers
2. Service Delivery — how customers obtain the benefits of a service
3. Supplemental Service — a service that helps customers gain more value from a product to complete a specific job
4. New Service — an introduction of a new service

To help readers further understand, he treats the first three approaches in their own separate chapters.  This allows readers to understand the supporting steps to defining the opportunities.  Chapter Three, for example, examines a core job through formal questions such as “What must the customer do to successfully conclude the job?” and “What problems related to getting the job done must be resolved on occasion?”These questions are asked in a formal job map, a means to discover opportunities to improve service delivery.

I liked the book’s readability, and I particularly liked the job map processes.  There is a map for each kind of service opportunity outlined, and the aforementioned formal questions appear for each step outline. Supporting comments are ready to offer “ah-has!” such as the following comment on the question, “What service needs or inputs must the customer define or communicate to ensure success obtaining service or benefits?”:

“Even for simple services, a service provider can add value by helping customers to define their needs. To be successful, the customer wants to have the right inputs available for making decisions, not overlook any relevant needs, limit the costs of defining needs, and define the needs in a manner that can translate into decisions concerning service options. To ensure that its customers get an optimized treatment plan for their lawn, for example, Scotts LawnService uncover a lawn’s unique challenges through a detailed analysis of soil types, shade and sun exposure, types of weeds and varying levels of grass density.”

Tables and charts also summarize the suggestions well.  Figure 1-2 shows the flow chart for developing a successful service strategy, for example, while Table 7-1 lays out options for service delivery. You do not need to be the scale of IBM to use this methodology.

I thoroughly enjoyed Service Innovation because its concepts allow readers to take actions that can increase customer value and identify the opportunities for results. Service Innovation broadened my view of what I can look for to improve service to my customers.

An Outstanding Service Book You May Not Want to Share

Why, you ask?

It’s that good of an idea generator.

And given the number of small service businesses (they contribute 80 percent of the national GDP, according to Bettencourt), developing new ways to service customers is a worthwhile endeavor. This book flies in the face of those who cry out that customers are important yet never show exactly the way to really deliver.  Service Innovation has the right framework to  execute innovative ways to deliver services. The book quotes strategy guru Michael Porter, “…trade-offs are the essence of strategy. You just want to make the right ones.”  Service Innovation will show the way.

1. Hootsuite or Social Oomph

The beauty of Hootsuite and Social Oomph is that they let you manage all of your Twitter activity and relationships in one place. You can post-date tweets for another time. You can monitor direct messages and mentions as well as your Twitter stream. You can decide which posts will go to which social media platforms.

2. RSS Feeds and Subscriptions

These allow you to pull information to you. When you want to know about items of interest to you or your following, or find fuel for articles and blog posts, it’s easier to have the information come to your e-mail or dashboard than to go out searching for it. Whenever you find a blog, podcast or newsletter that you’d like to continue to read, subscribe via RSS feed or subscription box. Then the information will come into your e-mail box.

Another way to use RSS feeds is to pull your social media platforms to a dashboard like iGoogle or Netvibes. Like to answer questions on LinkedIn but don’t want to go there every day to find them? Great! Use RSS feeds to have the questions show up on your dashboard and make it easier to participate online. In the same vein, you can see all of your social media platforms so you can update your statuses in one place – saving you the time of going to each site individually.

3. iGoogle or Netvibes

These dashboards make it easy to monitor your social media platforms in one place. You can also send your blog there. If you make the dashboard your home page, it will come up every time you log on. I use both and keep them open while I’m working. That way I can take a look a couple of times throughout the day and see what’s going on. I can update my statuses easily as well. I have a couple of LinkedIn Question categories that I like to keep an eye on, so I’ve got them on my iGoogle page. They automatically update so I know I am seeing the most current questions.

I have my Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blog links attached to my Netvibes page. I’ve also added some other blogs that I’d like to follow there. Both websites are very easy to set up and manage. And, once set up, they handle themselves. Imagine the time savings of not having to go to each website to update your status!

4. Google Alerts

Want to know what’s going on in your industry? Looking for interesting articles to tweet or use to write articles or blog posts? Using Google alerts is a great way to have that information come to you. You can put any words into an alert and choose how often you’d like to receive an e-mail with whatever Google found with those words. You can then go to the webpage and read the item for yourself.

This reduces the time it takes to participate online. Instead of having to search the Internet every day, you’ll have the information you need coming to you. The more you can pull information to you, the less time you’ll have to spend accomplishing your online goals.

5. Linking

So you have all of these great Internet profiles. However, having to post to each of them could take over your life. Solution? Link them. Let’s start with Twitter. You can link your Twitter account to your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. Now when you tweet the post will go to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. One post, three sites.

Next is your blog. You can link your blog to your Twitter profile by using Twitterfeed.com. When you post to your blog, the post will go to your Twitter profile and then to your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. One blog post, four sites.

If you write articles and submit them to online article submission sites, you can link those accounts to your profiles as well. When you post an article, the news that you’ve posted will show up on your LinkedIn and Facebook profiles.

As a small business owner, you need to have and maintain an online presence. More than that, you should be building your brand online. The challenge is to do this without spending all of your time on it. Using these tips can help you streamline your activity so you have time to be active online and in your business.

First Steps

Six entrepreneurs to inspire. When planning to start your own business, think not only of the money you’ll make but of awesome products and services you can create that will make the world a better place. Here are six entrepreneurs whose stories should get you started on the road to your first great business idea. Personal Dividends

Trusted resource or product pusher. David Siteman Garland frames this in terms of a Website marketing content, but in the end it’s really about all businesses. Before you start your company, ask yourself what need you fill, what resource you provide, what help you can render to the people who you hope will become your audience and customers. Don’t make the mistake of believing business is just about pushing a product. It’s about much more. The Rise To The Top

Legal

Is LLC right for your small business? The LLC, or Limited Liability Company, is a popular way to incorporate a small business these days. With some protection as far as litigation and while avoiding the tax difficulties connected to some other forms of incorporation. Learn the basics of the LLC format compared to other kinds of business setups to decide whether it may be right for your small business setup. MoneyedUp

A ton of small business legal resources. When it comes to seeking other legal advice on your small business startup you may wish to consult an attorney. But also remember there are a huge number of small business legal resources on the Web as well. For example, take a look at this incredible overview of small business legal resources (Thanks for the nod to BizSugar as well, guys!) in the initial nominees for an upcoming “Top 25 Business Law Blogs for 2010.” Add your own resources, if you like.LexisNexus Communities

Marketing

Learning more about marketing. In the end, your small business will only be as successful as your ability to market it effectively. This said, Susan Oakes runs down some of the most important myths about good marketing and gives us a guideline for what great marketing needs to be. M4B Marketing

Picking the right domain name. Another important part of starting your business will be establishing an online presence. Few businesses today will not need at least some Internet marketing and this means both a Website and a domain name. But how do you choose the right domain name for your small business Website. Here is one possible strategy. ScottFox.com

Financing

Do I want to give you money? OK. You’ve got a workable idea and have worked out the fundamentals of your business. You’ve thought about the legal organization of your business and created a marketing plan. But wait. Where will you get the money to start? Selling your business idea to investors is another point to consider. Startup Professionals Musings

Basic financials a startup MUST understand. Having great ideas figuring out how to structure and market your business and even how to raise funding is fine…critical in fact if your business is ever going to become a reality. But when it comes to running your business day to day, there are also three very basic ideas you must understand, potentially the difference between success and failure for your new venture. Michael G. Holmes

Conclusions

The biggest mistakes a business startup faces. Though, they shouldn’t deter you from starting your new business venture, be aware there are many mistakes that can spell doom for your dreams of becoming a successful small business owner. Here’s a list of some of the big ones. WSJ

It’s lonely at the top. You’ll meet some fantastic people as you work to start your small business. Many will mean well, give you encouragement and even offer to help with your cause. However, in this guest post Brett Owens suggests that, when it comes to making that big idea really work, an entrepreneur is really on his/her own.

I’m not kidding. “Shred it really good.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to do that – barring maybe setting the shredder on fire in the process – but I assured him I would.  I wrote down “shredder set to puree” on a Post-It, and drew it up that evening.