Off topic: A burst of musical colour

I try to keep this (rather scarcely-updated) blog to "official" business of mine, but I think MGMT's album, Oracular Spectacular, deserves a mention.

In a word, fantastic. A burst of musical colour, the record is an energetic, adventurous experience. It's a wild mixture of all things disco, Bowie, 80s synths, big drums, and anything else you can think of. I liken it to staring through - or perhaps being sucked into - one of those kaleidoscopes that you never had but had to borrow from your more interesting friend.

It also goes to show that amongst the anodyne R&B, Tupac reissues, unadventurous pop and bland MOR rock we are bombarded with today, someone somewhere is still making records that dare to be different.

Words and phrases that fill me with dread: "Can-do attittude"

As an employer, I would make a point of firing any employee or HR representative who ever suggested that a potential employee should have a "can-do attitude". It says to the candidate, "we couldn't think of anything else to write, and to be honest we aren't really sure what we're looking for, plus everyone else puts this in their job ads, so, erm...."

What's wrong with a bit of honesty? "We want someone who can do A,B,C and maybe D, and who isn't a complete social pariah and won't p*** off the rest of the office. If you are that person, call us. If not, don't bother, we are still using the last set of rejected CVs as scrap notepaper, so we don't need any more right now."

Phrases and words that fill me with dread: Part 1 in an occasional series

"Nu jazz"

It just sounds punchable, doesn't it?

Buy blank postcards and paint a picture with words

I've been silent for a long time. I just haven't felt in the right place to post for ages, but here's a wonderfully simple but effective piece of advice from one of my favourite blogs, Polon Copywriting, talking about Dylan Thomas' way with words.

"His language is beautifully poetic. But he made it that way by working hard at it, revising some of his poems as much as 500 times. Even on holiday he took the chance to be creative with words. You can do the same. In fact, the times when you don’t need to be concise, or use your writing to persuade people to buy something, are a great opportunity to have fun with words. Try buying blank postcards when you go on holiday. On the side that usually has a photo, paint a picture with words instead."

Eye for Image launches blog

Over the past couple of years I've established a genuine (I hope!) and very useful friendship with Aaron Bateman who works at Eye for Image, a copywriting agency in Copenhagen. The guys and girls there, led by Aaron, have now launched a blog for that extra bit of freedom in putting forward opinion and general pontification on all things EFI related - social media, language, Denmark, and much more.

Aaron's blog, Something Rotten (linked on the right as well), is also a much-visited site of mine and his photos are definitely making me want to visit Copenhagen for real instead of simply sitting in
Kastrup Airport transfer lounges waiting for a flight back to Finland. Check out the EFI blog and Something Rotten; there's much worse things you could do with a spare few minutes.

Downtime: how do you deal with it?

I'm rubbish at not being busy; it's been a quiet period for work from all my customers. Things are picking up now, but the last few months have tested my patience as well as my confidence. The trick is in keeping things ticking over in these lulls.

What do I do? I read. I scan blogs for tips. I look back over previous work to learn how to tweak it better next time for the same client. I read books to keep my eye in; getting back into reading properly has done my confidence the world of good. As a freelance writer I get struck by 'the fear' sometimes - can you still churn it out for other people on demand?

Thing is, all it takes is one or two bits of work that just flow out, as happened with a newsletter I did for a client last week, and bang, back comes the buzz and the confidence.

Grammar paranoia

I suffer from it all the time. "Oh God, I don't know ALL these rules. Here we go, I'd better do another Google on 'compare to versus compare with', or on my favourite 'which vs. that' agghhhh.
Polishing people's work brings with it an unspoken commitment that you can spell, you know what subject-verb agreement is, but without these books I'd be doing a lot more googling:

1) The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors - indispensable guide to all things. What's the proper abbreviation for Euro? When does good quality have a hyphen? Spam or spam?

2) The Penguin Guide to Punctuation - gapping commas, semicolons, question marks; it's all there, but what I really like about this book is that it's readable and has plenty of practical examples.

Enjoy

Scary brand loyalty

Reading Communication Overtones this morning, specifically Kami' s post on the three steps for corporations looking at getting started in social media, she points to Southwest Airlines' blog, Nuts About Southwest, as an example of a successful corporate blog. Interesting blog, but what really scared me was the level of 'brand commitment with which some of the customers were posting.

One fellow replies to a post about Southwest's policy of 'larger' passengers having to book 2 seats by saying "

Was a blog post really needed to point this out? It’s been enough bad PR for Southwest already, why call attention to it on a blog full of Southwest junkies where 95% could recite the entire Contract of Carriage word-for-word from memory anyways?

I know I can."

It's the holy grail; Southwest can sell that guy ANYTHING. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking him, but I can't see myself idly sitting on the bus reciting the terms and conditions of my ISP service provision agreement, even if they did sort out my line upgrade in less than 12 hours...

Create, fiddle, create, fiddle

That's how work has been over the past few months and I have no complaints. A good balance of creating original copy for some major ad campaigns on-line and fiddling with other people's copy. Some online, short and sharp copy for technical products, where 'speed' and brevity are important, was very enjoyable to write. Fiddling with it after customer comments was just as enjoyable.

Blogging is not a new idea. It's nice to read stories about blogs/websites working as they should,
like Mike Reed's site, helping writers secure work with new customers. Blogs have helped me get work and have been used as references when putting in for work with new clients. Long may it continue...

Essentials

Everyone has those sites and tools they just can't live without. Head buried in other things leaves me with this rather uninspiring but, hopefully, useful post. My top 5 essential tools, sites I visit at least once a day (or once an hour in some cases).

• Cambridge Dictionaries - the cornerstone of daily work for me
• Webcredible - these guys really know their stuff: accessibility, usability, writing for the web...
• Excess Voice - Nick Usborne's blog; a man who knows about putting one word in front of another
• Contentious - Amy Gahran, Communications guru
• Out-Law.com - Legal issues and advice on technology law. Good podcast every week and a good set of resources on the ins and outs of Privacy, Data Protection , Disability Discrimination....and much more
  

Google: a great 'context dictionary'

I often use Google as a dictionary, not so much in the strictest sense of the word, but you look up a word in the dictionary and, fine, you get the official line. If I want to know how and where a phrase or word is used in context, Google, or indeed any search engine I guess, is great for doing this.

It especially helps me if I'm working on technical documents and I'm reading something saying 'did they REALLY mean to say that/what the hell does that mean/is that really a word...' etc.

I just find that article from 'paint manufacturer machine mixer monthly' journal and away I go.

Scamp

Another good tip, which I found through Polon. They linked me to the Scamp blog where the advice is, if you're struggling to crack a brief, Pretend You're Two Blokes In The Pub. Great tip, and links to more of Scamp's 'Tuesday Tips'.

Receiving loud and clear - working with TenFour

A significant new relationship started for me recently, working with TenFour Communications based in Helsinki. Plenty of exciting projects are on the horizon as part of this relationship and I'm already in the thick of things. The future looks good.

George Orwell's six rules of writing

Taken from Polon where they post some great copywriting articles. Seems the perfect set of rules to live write by:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Ahh George, how right you are...

Is your online business model a secret?

Nick Usborne asks. Nick says:

'If you can’t articulate the basic value proposition to someone in the street in ten seconds or less, you’re not going to be able to build a truly effective home page for your business.'

How right he is; in fact, you're lucky if you get even 10 seconds on the Web...

Workplace jargon isolates employees

Finally a nice high-profile article on the BBC News Web site, regarding jargon. Specifically, the article is about a survey by Investors in People, about workplace jargon and how it excludes people.

The survey points out that "The most effective bosses recognise that one of the keys to engaging, motivating and enthusing people is to communicate in a way which everyone can easily understand."

'Blue sky thinking'...honestly, what next? Anyway, now I have brought that article to your attention I am departing to readjust my nutritional priorities, think outside the box and ingest some creativity-enhancing fuel...I am off to the fridge to see what I have for lunch.

Am I falling behind the times?

Kami Huyse on her blog Communication Overtones, a blog focused on PR, in her first post discusses PR's position in relation to new media and technology.

Kami discusses the fact that 'new PR' isn't new PR at all, new media hasn't rendered PR obsolete, and the 'paperless office' still isn't here! I had a think today about all the new gadgets, tools and phrases flying my way and felt quite behind the times, but am I obsolete? Web 2.0, Ajax, user-generated content, RSS, feeds, burners.....help.

I draw comfort from the fact that whatever the future holds, however this 'content' is delivered, whatever colour or flavour it is, however 'dynamic' it is, it's still about using words, playing with language to deliver a message, at least most of the time anyway, until everyone gets bored and just resigns themselves to watching online videos of kids hurting themselves on skateboards instead....then I'm really done for.

The million dollar comma

Brought to my attention by Out-Law.com (a newsletter about technology law from Pinsent Masons) a comma in a contract, regarding termination terms for a large power company in Canada, might end up costing one of the parties involved $1 million Canadian Dollars. You'd hope that now they would check up on clauses and comma usage....

http://www.out-law.com/page-7426

Stuck for things to write about?

Blogging and writing in general can (should) be fun, when you've got something to write about. Reading Dave Taylor's article about finding topics to blog about, the basic message is 'write what people want to read, not what you want to say'. Dave's good example is the photographer with a blog writing about 'why I'm a great photographer' - how boring would that be...?

Dave writes The Intuitive Life Business Blog and the extremely helpful tech support and business questions blog Ask Dave Taylor

Case studies....so what's in a good one?

A good case study - you might ask 'Is there such a thing'? In my opinion yes, (here he goes again) if they're well written...

Case studies suffer from a bad reputation. They can be long, bloated documents, churned out to make up the numbers for some government funded project. They can be poorly structured, with logic or no flow of ideas in the language, appalling obscure section titles and leave the reader thinking, 'well, that taught me nothing I didn't already know'.

A frequent complaint I've heard is 'Well, no one reads our case studies anyway, so why bother...'. Yes, and there's a reason no one reads them - they're really really badly written, they may as well be written in Klingon!

When put together well, they can be informative insights into a business, a project, whatever the subject. In my humble opinion, empathy, logic and remembering who you're writing for are the key issues. The point of a case study is to describe someone else's experiences and communicate a message, eg 'This could be you'.

A case study can also be the only time when both the good and the bad things that happen are set out in writing. Case studies I have dealt with succeed when I know the intended audience is going to read something and imagine themselves in that position, because the content is written in language they understand, the 'story' has a logical flow and there's an overriding message running through the document. Write from the outside-in perspective, not the inside-out.