Linda, I think you may get different answers based on our different learning styles. I'll answer for my learning style, but realize that my general cognitive processing model is shared by only 15% of the population of the Western Hemisphere according to a study I'm aware of. (My specific one is shared by only 5%--I actually belong in the Orient, but I guess the stork got lost, lol.) I can't speak for the other 85%, so you'll have to take that into consideration whenever you ask for my opinion. Wait--did we already have this conversation? Can't remember, I'll leave it in. I bring it up so people will show patience with me, lol. Question #1 I would appreciate having access to both modules. I would read the optimization one first, referencing the other one when I needed clarification of a term. If you wanted to make them available as separate products, perhaps a glossary of those terms at the end of the optimization module would serve the purpose. For an ebook, maybe links to the glossary the first time a term appears. Question #2 "Foundations" already touches on that quite a bit in section 1. In fact, it pretty much covers exactly what it's named. People who are buying it are likely to have some idea to begin with what they want to do or sell--they're looking for the most effective way to do it. If they don't, going through the exercises is likely to help them come up with it. Then the trick is to find good products and/or the suppliers. If you wanted to provide a resource to help people find products that fit the business focus they've identified in section 1, you could make that available as an appendix to Foundations or make it a stand-alone product. I'd leave that project 'til last, though, because it would be added-value. If you don't want to get into an exhaustive list, maybe it would be better to teach them how to dig out the information for themselves. You are always researching stuff...write a book about how to research. I'd buy it! Now I'm going to editorialize a bit. For my site, I had three specific areas I wanted to address, and two of them already had a primary product. As I looked at them, I realized they were somewhat related, so it worked well to form one site around them. It's actually hard to do the exercises for three, though. I have to do one, then go back and start over for the next. While we were doing that, I got re-excited about another area...one that was only marginally related to the other three. It was my plan to launch this site and then actually create another site for the other area. More or less what you just did with ConsumersRRevolting, Linda. I don't see anything wrong with taking the theme that you are MOST interested in and developing a site around that, then moving on to the next. Each time it will get easier, because the steepest learning curve is the first time, right? Why would everything you're interested in have to go on one website? So something gets put on the back burner...that's ok, because chances are none of it is making any money right now anyway (I'm speaking generally here, not specifically about one of our sites.) Baby steps. End of editorial, lol. Cheri

Just looked at my last post...jeez, somebody stuff a sock in my mouth! Cheri

Hi Cheri ========================================= Just looked at my last post...jeez, somebody stuff a sock in my mouth! ========================================= lol.... I like that you elaborate. Then again, I tend to be wordy myself now and then. ========================================= my general cognitive processing model is shared by only 15% of the population of the Western Hemisphere according to a study I'm aware of. (My specific one is shared by only 5%--I actually belong in the Orient, but I guess the stork got lost, lol.) ========================================= This is the part I'm curious about. I've always thought I simply belonged on another planet..... lol..... so how does one go about finding out their general cognitive processing model? : ) linda

Linda, ============================================ so how does one go about finding out their general cognitive processing model? ============================================ You had to ask, didn't you, lol? Well, remember you asked for it. If everyone leaves your forum, on your head be it. ;-) The authors call what I'm referring to a 'body of work' called Human Dynamics. They classify people by how they process information, unlike all the personality profile methods you are probably aware of. Their studies indicate that this is innate and to some degree hereditary. In general, there are three aspects of cognition, physical, mental and emotional. This body of work classifies by your core, which is how you process, and a secondary aspect, which is what you process. The two most common classifications in the Western Hemisphere are Emotional/Mental (these are the CEOs of the world, bottom line, not detail oriented, also called Emotional/Objective) and Emotional/Physical (caregivers and service providers, also not detail oriented, also called Emotional/Subjective). These two groups make up the 85%, if I remember correctly. There may be two more that are a minor percentage of the larger group. I'm Physical/Mental. We're the engineers, programmers and bean counters, along with the Physical/Emotionals. These two physical groups make up the 15%. The practical difference is that as information comes into my brain, I analyze and classify it and file it in bundles that seem logical to me, for future reference. I need less of it to make a decision. Although I am detail oriented like all physicals, I can overwhelm myself with it easily. As information comes in for the other 10%, it is just absorbed, and saved for later classification and analysis. These people will come to a more thoroughly analyzed conclusion, but it may take them quite a bit longer to get there. This detail focus is what annoys Emotionals. They want the bottom line. We think they need everything that led up to it to properly understand it, lol. Hence the wordiness. The theory also encompasses the idea that if we each understand the other types, we can adapt our communication styles. I've found that I usually have to adjust mine, because I'm in the minority, and I'm the one with the knowledge of the theory. When I'm tired or overstimulated mentally, I don't do as good a job. The book "Human Dynamics" explains the study and describes the types. You pretty much have to determine yours by how well you relate to each discussion, unless you take the seminar that has come out of the studies. I was subjected to that by a former employer, and hated every minute of it. Mostly because I felt I was being put in a box, and nobody else was in the same box! They finally lumped me into a 'group' of two, with someone else no one could relate to, a Mental/Mental (philosopher, but in her case, no orientation to human values), very rare--like 1% of the entire human race. Over the years, though, the theories I learned have helped to explain quite a bit about how people tend to receive my communication. Most of the time, I work to adapt to my audience, but if you ask my opinion on something that you intend to present to the public, I have to give a disclaimer. And now I shall stuff a sock in my own mouth. Cheri

Hi: Don't stuff a sock in just yet. I'm still curious. So, what's a mental/mental? You got me thinking when you talked about "how" we process information. See, when I learn things, it's like a huge jigsaw puzzle is being built in my head, and every additional thing I learn fits into the right place, making a partial picture somewhere into a more complete picture. I figure my brain works like an if/else programming string. If this... then that and that, and that must also be true. If not, then this and this and this. lol The most common thing I've had people tell me is that "Linda, you make difficult things easy to understand" As for decisions, I make them in a split second, but I make them on gut feeling. lol And, my memory is quite frightening to people that know me. It's very detail oriented. Like, I can close my eyes and tell people what they wore on a specific day three years ago. I am very detail oriented, and yet, I am deeply emotional. The only "tests" I've been subjected to by bosses are an IQ test and the one that determines whether a person is left or right brain oriented. I was neither left nor right, but equally scored for left/right. This stuff fascinates me. So, what's a mental/mental?