For most businesses, the question of what to play while customers are on hold is not critical. Important, but not vital to customer satisfaction.

What if most of your business is handled over the phone? If you’re the iconoclastic savings bank ING Direct, you help customers cope with waiting by playing messages that are witty, informative and, most importantly, respect your customers’ intelligence.

Check it out!  ING Direct: On Hold Messages

• The disclosure on journalist Jeff Jarvis‘ blog BuzzMachine is a refreshingly thorough rundown of his business dealings, stock investments, religious affiliations and political leanings. It’s also funny in parts: “I make some would say too-frequent appearances on TV and radio but I am not paid for them (and I’ve been known to growl about that)…Most of my holdings today are in mutual funds because I’m a lousy investor.” (Thanks @xolotl)
• Brazen Careerist writer Penelope Trunk is currently blogging about her budding romance with a farmer who invited her and her kids out to his western Wisconsin spread. Last December, she wrote about what it’s like to be fired by Yahoo. Dig through the archives and you’ll find personal reflections on raising a child with Asbergers, going through a divorce and being in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11. Oh, and incidentally, she also offers some great advice on careers and startups. (thanks @turoczy)

Both of these writers seem to have embraced a level of openness that was unheard of before the advent of the Internets. That takes guts.

The first picture that turned up in a Google images search of “meatloaf.” Turns out it’s a vegan meatloaf by Field Roast Grain Meat Co. Go figure.

Mark Bittman, food writer at the NYT, just wrote a column about how to reduce your meat intake. With the rising price of oil directly and indirectly pushing up the price of meat — not to mention the ever-rising tide of health consciousness — it’s a pretty hot topic.

I won’t try to summarize his article. It’s a quick read: The Minimalist: Putting meat back in its place.

I like Bittman’s style. He doesn’t try to convince anyone on the whys. He deliberately avoids politically and emotionally charged issues and instead offers up some practical tips on how to buy, store and prepare food, so that if you want to change your diet, you can. The goal becomes more doable in part because it’s more convenient.

This approach is worth emulating, especially if you’re in a “green” field and have to advocate a position that requires your audience to make changes to old habits. How do you help people to conserve water, take public transportation or recycle more?

I think there’s a lot to be said for avoiding judgment and instead trying to sympathize with your audience. For me, the most persuasive speakers and authors have been the ones who I hear saying, “There’s nothing wrong with you if you struggle with X,” “I struggle with X myself,” and “Here’s what works for me — see if it works for you.” Those kinds of messages leave people intact and non-defensive, which keeps the door open for further discussion.

Hey, if you haven’t seen it, you might enjoy this video of Bittman talk at TED. Again, it’s approachable and not at all condescending.

Watch: “What’s wrong with what we eat.”

We recently decided to give our business a reboot. As any Windows user knows, a reboot is sometimes necessary to clean out the memory and bring the system running back to peak performance.

Not that our business hasn’t been successful and all that. It has.

But perhaps symptomatic of a deeper funk, we’ve been struggling for three years to revamp our old 2002 web site. (Embarrassing, but true!) Our perpetual “web refresh” has been one of those projects from hell that never reaches completion.

And then a couple weeks ago, I stumbled onto Robert Middleton’s More Clients Blog, where he had a post on getting “unstuck”. His definition of being “stuck:”

Stuck: Being constricted, limited, fearful, avoiding

The qualities he lists very much describe how I was feeling about having to write the copy for our new site. It wanted the site to be clever and engaging, yet honest and not the least bit hyperbolic (a quality I dislike in business web sites). Those expectations, that pressure to get it right, froze me in my tracks.

At a deeper level, “stuck” was also a fair description of where things were at with our business in general. We had been playing it safe, sticking with what had worked in the past, not venturing out and taking the chances that are necessary for growth.

By contrast, Robert’s description of the qualities of being unstuck were downright liberating.

Unstuck: Being expansive, unlimited, fearless, engaged

And sometimes that’s all it takes to get things rolling. Within days, we had an inspired plan for rebooting the business, including that pesky web site.

Our plan — not your typical task-oriented plan — went something like this:

1. Embrace action — Taking action and moving things forward is more important than getting it 100% right. To wit, within three days of getting together, we had a new web site up an running. Is it perfect? Is final? No. Another version is already under construction. The important thing was getting off the dime and being in motion — and being okay with the associated risk.

2. Embrace risk and mistakes — Without taking risks, trying new things, having some failures, how can you learn? I don’t mean bet the entire payroll on a startup kind of risk. But deliberate risks that stretch you personally and professionally. Thanks to Web 2.0, there’s never been a better (or more accepting) time to be experimental. For us, this means making good on something we’ve always wanted to do — to develop product offerings that bring in an income stream unrelated to billable time. The first product is slated for July.

3. Be open and honest — If you do take risks and learn from them, what good is the resulting knowledge if you don’t share it? We’ve given ourselves permission to start blogging openly about our business — what we’re trying, what’s working, what’s failing fabulously — as well as any non-business topics of interest. I find this to be especially liberating, as I’ve suffered from blog anxiety — the irrational believe that you can only post when you have something important and deep to say. Being deliberately clever is exhausting work! So, forget about trying to look smart and just be yourself. What’s more, risk is at the heart of blogging — if you want to have an impact and build a community, there’s no choice but to be authentic.

4. Be connected — This tenet requires a pinch of faith — faith that if you “put it out there” and write honestly, like-minded and appreciative people will find their way to you. That people who don’t like what you’re writing will simply go elsewhere. Isn’t that’s the definition of networking? 1) Find people you like. 2) Work with them. 3) Repeat.

Our particular plan for rebooting might not look anything like yours would. But if you’re fatigued, uninspired and wondering what’s next for you in your life as an entrepreneur, rebooting might be just the thing!

I’d love to hear from other entrepreneurs who have been stuck. What’s been keeping you from going forward? Have you tried rebooting? How’s it going? If you have any thoughts, please leave a comment!

Photo credit: Reset button inside, uploaded by pwbaker

Brian Unger, Day to Day, (National Public Radio) commenting on a study showing that 81% of men and women washed their hands after using the bathrooms at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.

Suketu Mehta, in Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, describing the convoluted and preposterous plot of the Bollywood film, Jai Shakumbhari Maa.