h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Zarq,

I would love to write an entry on NLP - but have been running scared of the subject for over a year because I haven't worked out how to do justice to it in such a small space.

I have invited Bels over here too, because he sounded interested. And I know of at least one other erstwhile researcher Afrael, who has done NLP trainings with McKenna Breen.

The easiest way I have disovered to co-write entries, other than just to discuss it in a thread, is to spend an hour or so on MSN or AIM chatting. It is surprising how much explaining something to someone else in a chat can help with writing normal text; especially if you are explaining complex concepts. The Diana entry was substantially improved as a result of conversations with a couple of other researchers.

The only problem is that I am substantially offline for the next three weeks, and then substantially online for an at present undetermined period of time.

Also I took myself of AIM because it was bugging my PC. But I will get myself on there again soon.

So if either of you are interested, we could just start posting here I guess.

What do you think?

an NLP Practitioner called Ben

I'm definitely interested, Ben, however I don't have AIM. I have MSN, but don't know how to use it. Here would be easiest for me. Perhaps we should agree to be on-line at a particular time and use this thread to chuck ideas in.

Not for three weeks - suits me. I have a weeks holiday in Paris (hopefully) at the end of the Summer term, but apart from that - nothing to get in the way.

I can see why you shied away from such a big topic. I think the success of this one will probably be in the planning stage. The five 'p's' - Proper Planning Prevents P*** Poor Performance!

The other thing to take into a account might be copyright.

Bandler says that he has developed NLP since it was first launched. I've come across some criticisms as well, so it may be as well to incorporate those.

If we link, say to McKenna Breen, would we be in breach of the ban against linking to commercial organisations? Not sure - some of the other sites linked to have been commercial, eg the ER(?) Giger one.

Hey, Ben

Thanks very much for inviting me in!

But unfortunately I can't commit to that sort of project, for various reasons.

Actually there are also a number of other things I would like to write about, but have decided not to because I don't think they are suitable for the h2g2 process. I did write one entry (A721162) which was a very basic piece written as a pilot for a much more extensive series or project on life issues and patterns. It was going to be a solo project, not a collaborative. It hit some rough weather and I really wanted to withdraw it from the EG process, but in the end I have gone along with a very kindly italic who didn't want to lose it and found a way to steer it into calmer waters. But I won't be submitting any of the planned follow-ups on this site. So as a pilot it was effective - it told me what I needed to know.

But that's just about me and my hangups. You don't have these hangups - you've maybe got your own...

Although I subscribe to AOL I don't use AIM. And MSN I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot barge-pole - it's full of all sorts of vulnerabilities. If you and ZSF and whoever else want to go ahead with this project - and good luck to you, don't let me put you off (as if you would!) - you could try setting up your own little yahoogroup and using the chat facility there. You could restrict it to members of your own group and have private online chat without having to join MSN or anything else. Think about it.

Regarding links to web sites, of course a lot of web sites have at least some commercial content. Linda posted recently that the big no-no is web sites that are little more than a vehicle for a shopping cart. These are definitely yikesed, she said. I think if a web site is relevant and adds some useful info it can be linked to even if 'commercial', provided it doesn't overtly have a shopping cart.

Anyway, I do hope you make progress with this, and perhaps draw other collaborators in, if that's what you'd like to do, and I'd certainly like to follow its progress and - who knows? - possibly put in my own 0.02 at a later stage if that's appropriate, but I couldn't commit to anything right now.



Bels

Hi Zarq, Hi Bels

If we agree agree a time and chat here Bels can keep a weather eye on us if he likes.

I accept what you say about MSN, but I assume that my chat conversations are like conversations on a train or in a pub anyway - in other words my next door neighbour or someone else embarrasing could be listening in.

On the other hand I like the idea of a Yahoo group. I may investigate that a bit more in July.

Enjoy Paris Zarq, and lets pickup on this later in the summer.

Ben

The point about MSN is not people eavesdropping on your chat. It's much more sinister. I've heard that hackers can use inbuilt loopholes to get into your computer and do nasty things. Urban legend or genuine risk? You decide.

Bon voyage, ZSF - have a great time!

I'm glad I don't use MSN then, Bels!

The idea about the e-group sounds cool, although I'm not sure what advantages it has over this thread, unless it is keeping the idea under wraps until it's ready. I usually sketch out my entries in headers first, then put sinews and muscles on it.

It'll be an interesting venture, I think.

It wasn't for the egroup that I mentioned yahoo. But if you set up an egroup there, you can have your own chatroom too. So if you have, say, 3 members of the egroup, you can make the chatroom 'members only' and the 3 of you can chat away even if you don't use the email part. There's also a Files area (gifs and jpegs as well as txt), so you can post files there, again restricted if you like, for the others to see. But if you are not wanting online chat you prob won't need a yahoogroup.

Thanks, Bels!

What do you think, Ben? I think we could probably do this on h2g2. Perhaps if we let the idea incubate, then we'll be able to throw together some ideas and sketch out what we want to do.

Lets do it on H2G2 later in the summer - it may even be worth starting something in the Colaborative Writing Workshop to invite anyone who hangs out there.

I have just been told that I will be busy till the end of July, so anything I do will have to wait till then.

But I am looking forward to it, and will keep it incubating till then.

Ben

Sometime after half term, it might be a good time to start thinking about this project.

What it is.

What it isn't

How it started and who by

(splits and rifts?)

Main concepts

What it's useful for

Caveats

Groups and links

What do you think? This is all top of the head stuff.

Looks great to me. The second section is, in my experience, the most important one. You clearly already know how many people think that NLP is a cult, or eye movements, or mirroring, or a flashy sales technique.

When is half term?

(I might hack something together this weekend and mail it to you).

(But then again, I might not - obviously need to work on motivation strategies here!)

Love

B

It's next week. I'm going to the IOW tomorrow and staying for a week. Dad's in hospital again! Should know more later this morning.

I don't know much about the history bit - do you?

Catch you later. Waiting for news.

I know a bit about the history, and more to the point, a know someone who knows a lot more. It is worth putting a para or two in about that, because it is such a melange of what went before, and new stuff, and people lose track of that.

B

Yes, Richard Bandler said that things have evolved and people are still teaching NLP in 20 days, whereas these days, they do it in 7.

I'll be interested in the history bit as I felt there was stuff that wasn't being said.

I'm not quite ready to run with this one yet, Ben and as I know you're down under, you won't be either.

However, I thought you might like to know that I was present at work at a so called information session for managers, when someone did a half day on NLP. It was the worst bit of 'training' I've ever attended in the whole of my life and there were lots of complaints.

The upshot of this is that I've been asked to do a half day session in January some time, not necessarily on NLP itself (I'm a licensed practitioner, so I'm not able to teach), but on relaxation techniques and stress management, which I should be able to do using some stuff I know from qigong and some visualisation stuff. I've not quite decided what to do with them yet - I want to analyse their 'happy sheets' (or 'unhappy sheets' as they mostly were).

Looking at websites for Richard Bandler, I notice how unhappy he is at people 'stealing' from him. What are your thoughts on this?