Writing Matters

Famous Inboxes: Who knew Michelangelo, Napoleon, and Satan wrote e-mail?

Apparently, the very talented, the very commanding, and the very bad are just like you and me. They have inboxes crowded with e-mails waiting to be answered. Check out   Mark Brownlow's Famous Inboxes blog and peer into inboxes that never were but should have been.

In Michelangelo's inbox:

• From Sistine Maintenance: "Pls tell apprentices to clear up beer cans & cigarette butts"
• From Mrs. Michelangelo: "Mama wants her kitchen tiled - can u do it Sunday?"

In Napoleon Bonaparte's inbox:

• From Twitter: "Welcome to Twitter, BonyNap!"
• From Wellington: "Least I don't have to wear high heels"

In Satan's inbox:

• From New Media Devil: "Webinar - 5 new ways to tempt a prophet"
• From Beelzebub's Beauty Boutique: "20% off cloven hoof lacquer"

Brownlow makes the Famous Inbox conceit look easier than it is. I gave it a try with the subject lines I invented for the inbox of Lot's wife, the Biblical character who was turned into a pillar of salt when she violated the "don't look back when fleeing Sodom" rule.

• From Architectural Digest Newsletter: "Doric or Corinthian? Find the front-porch redo that's right for you?"
• From FamilyTravel.com: "Get Out of Town - Weekend Getaways Just a  Short Drive from Sodom and Gomorrah"

Your turn. Let your imagination go. Send me your invented inboxes and, with your permission, I'll post your subject lines here.

 -- Leslie O'Flahavan

Announcing Marilynne's New Blog: WebOver50

When Leslie and I started E-WRITE in 1996 “the e-mail” was a very new tool and Al Gore was inventing the Internet. We knew that e-mail and the web would change how we communicate. But who could have envisioned Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or blogs? 

I’ve noticed that many of my over 50 friends and colleagues have been slow to adopt social media and the generation of new web apps. Why? Many feel it is unsafe, overwhelming and time consuming. And how or why would someone over 50 use it?

That’s why I’ve started a new blog WebOver50: The Web Is Wasted on the Young. Its purpose is to

• Sort through the jungle of web apps and tell over 50s what’s worth their time and what’s not.
• Show how to web-surf safely.
• Explain all-things-web in plain English.

Some sample posts:

• Should You Join Facebook Now?
• YouTube for How To's: Just-In-Time Learning
• How to Find Free Shipping E-tailers
• Safe Social Networking: What Advice Should You Give Your Kids?

While I’m donning a new hat—publisher of WebOver50—I’ll still be wearing my comfortable and familiar E-WRITE hat. That means I’ll still be writing web content for E-WRITE clients, working with Leslie to develop new course content, and contributing Writing Matters posts

Please take a look at WebOver50 —even if you are under 50. And pass this on to your over 50 friends and colleagues. Please subscribe and let me know what you think. Leave a comment or send me an e-mail.  

 --Marilynne Rudick

Download Social Media Toolkits from Mass.gov

From the National Association of Government Communicators list, I'm reposting information about a great resource: three social media toolkits from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Thanks to Susan Parker, Director of Mass.gov for this info.)  The toolkits cover

• blogging
• Twitter
• legal issues pertaining to social media

You can read the toolkits online or download the blogging and Twitter toolkits as PDFs. (The legal guidelines toolkit isn't available as a PDF.)

Highlights from the toolkits

Legal Guidance Toolkit
I was thrilled when I read the opening sentence of the Legal Guidance Toolkit: "There are no legal prohibitions against state agencies using social media sites or having social media identities." Such unequivocal language should help reduce the unreasonable fear of social media that prevents many government agencies from trying new ways of communicating with constituents. 

Blogging Toolkit

The blogging toolkit includes a Blog Preparation Checklist, which reminds agencies to answer these questions before they jump into blogging:  

1. "Who is your audience?
2. What business goals can your blog help you meet?
3. What topics will you blog about?
4. How will you administer your blog?
5. What is your publication plan / schedule?
6. What changes do you need to make to the template privacy, terms of use and social media policies? Have they been posted to your Secretariat or agency website?
7. What changes do you need to make to the template comment policy?
8. How will you publicize your blog?"

Twitter Toolkit
The Twitter toolkit includes a Twitter Best Practices list with plenty of practical advice. In particular, I like these three points for government Twitter-ers:

• "Be transparent. Who exactly is blogging for your agency? Is it a person? Is it a department? Make sure people know how they can reach the party behind the tweets. It makes a big difference in the perceived authenticity of your efforts."
• "Be proactive. Make sure you promote your Twitter page. Include a link to your webpage on your Twitter account, and a link to your Twitter account from your webpage. Include it in your formal communications plans. Insert it into your email signatures."
• "Be realistic. Twitter isn't quite as easy as it seems. You need to plan to devote time and resources to active engagement on Twitter. Additionally, building an audience may take longer than anticipated. Don't let slower than hoped for results diminish your commitment."

Susan Parker promised future Mass.gov toolkits that will cover YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, wikis, and survey tools.  If she posts more information, I'll link to it here.

Does your organization have a social media toolkit or guidelines you could share? If so, please let me know or post a comment. Thanks.

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

What Makes Web Content Compelling?

I had a chance this week to play catch-up and take a look at blog posts that I’d flagged as interesting but hadn’t the time to read. One of the posts was from Copyblogger: “Everything You Need to Know About Creating Killer Content in 3 Simple Words.” Guest writer Demian Farnworth suggests that clear, concise, and compelling are the three components of killer web content.

Writing clear and concise web content may require some heavy lifting—rewriting and editing. But there’s general consensus and plenty of “how to” guidance, from the iconic Elements of Style to our own workbook Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail. 

Compelling is more subjective. There aren’t straightforward rules or checklists that you can use or even agreement on what is compelling content. One person's compelling may be another person's ho-hum.  Trying to define compelling recalls Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of pornography in a 1964 obscenity case: “I know it when I see it.”

Demian says that a key to writing compelling content is tapping into human emotions. "You have to uncover what makes your reader tick. What strokes his ego. What plucks his gut strings. What keeps him up at night. And when you uncover that hot spot, punch it."

Sometimes writing compelling content is easy because the story itself tugs at our emotions:  miraculously landing a disabled jet or tracking swine flu. But as workplace writers, most of us aren’t given the gift of a naturally compelling story. More often we struggle with how to sell a useful—but not intrinsically spellbinding—product or service. Content becomes compelling when you successfully identify the reader's pain, then skillfully offer cures.

Compare these two examples of web content about a similar—and very unsexy—product: tax software for small businesses. Which do you find compelling? Why? 

Tax Software A: Online Home & Business

The Biggest Refund for You & Your Business

• Uncovers refund-boosting business write-offs
• Finds industry-specific deductions for bigger tax savings
• Easily gets you the maximum tax refund, guaranteed

Provides Extra Guidance for Finding Self-Employment Deductions to Help You Get a Bigger Refund

• Easier Interview — Customizes questions based on your business profile (sole-proprietor, consultant, 1099 contractor, and single-member LLC) and gives you step-by-step guidance for entering income and expenses.
• Helps Find Small-Business Tax Deductions — Shows you which expenses you can deduct for your vehicle, supplies, utilities, home office expenses, and more, to help you get every business deduction you deserve for the biggest possible refund.
• Finds Deductions Specific to Your Business — Walks you through tax write-offs common to your type of business so you don’t miss any opportunities to save on your taxes.

Tax Software B: Home & Business + E-file

What's in the box?

• 5 free federal e-files for your personal taxes
• One personal state program
• Unlimited business state programs
• Worry-free Audit Support

Makes Personal and Business Taxes Easy

• Project your estimated business earnings and tax liabilities for the next 3 years.
• Calculate and track depreciation for various types of business assets.
• Quickly prepare and print K-1, W-2, and 1099 forms and reports.
• One Ask a Tax Advisor session included for your personal taxes. A tax professional can help answer your tax question via 1-on-1 phone or e-mail consultation. 

Which of these did you find more compelling? My choice is Tax Software A. It identifies my pain: dread of doing taxes and fear of doing it wrong. Then it offers a cure: easy-to-use software that simplifies the onerous task, and even better, gets me the biggest refund.

Tax Software B focuses on what it is — software and forms — not what it does for me. The  focus on forms (federal and state tax forms, K-1, W-2 109) makes me feel like this is going to be a lot of work. The Worry-free Audit Support and the Ask a Tax Advisor session elicit my biggest fear: tax audit.  But the content doesn't do a good job of alleviating my fear. (I'd prefer avoiding the audit to getting audit support.)

The goal of compelling content is to get your reader to take action. Identifying my pain and providing cures are compelling reasons for me to buy Tax Software A now. (Maybe it will even make taxes fun!)

Do you have any examples of compelling content? Send us examples and tell us why you find the content compelling.

--Marilynne Rudick

Rumor Central: A Gossip-Quelling Blog from Missouri's Retirement System

After my recent web writing presentation at the National Association of Government Communicators' annual Communications School in Orlando, Candy Smith, Communications Supervisor for the Missouri State Employees' Retirement System (MOSERS), asked me to take a look at her organization's blog. Now, I must admit that I didn't expect fascinating reading at a state retirement system's blog, so when Candy told me the blog's name, Rumor Central, I was intrigued. Candy explained that MOSERS uses Rumor Central to squash rumors about changes to retirement benefits and insurance, etc., rumors that flourish during the January - May legislative session.

Rumor Central posts are straightforward but not straitlaced. They provide answers to questions such as:

• Were any of our retirement funds invested with Madoff?
• I read an article on CNN that said Missouri was one of the states losing money in investments in the retirement system. What does this mean to us as state employees?
  

In a follow-up call with Candy, Krista Myer (communications manager), and Scott Simon (benefit services section manager), I learned that Rumor Central successfully counters incorrect information in the rumor-sphere with an authoritative, accurate response. It also helps MOSERS cope with high call and e-mail volume in their contact center. Simon estimated that in 2005-6 MOSERS' contact center handled 2000 e-mails per year, but in 2008 e-mail volume shot up to 8000. 

When it launched in 2005, Rumor Central wasn't a blog; it was just web content. But as the content grew, it became unwieldy and impossible to search. Pulling the content into Blogger provided a custom search engine and allowed MOSERS to tag posts. And while the communications team may reopen the discussion of whether to allow comments (currently, Rumor Central doesn't accept comments on posts), they are confident that Rumor Central is serving its purpose. It provides access and accurate information to a wide group of people, and it helps people see MOSERS as forthright and real.

Want us to tell your blog's story? Get in touch, and we'd be glad to feature you in an upcoming post.

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

Shovel-Ready Writing Projects: Getting a Leg Up in a Down Economy

As I looked over my writing projects wish list for 2009, I thought about the current catch-phrase, shovel-ready. It's a term used to describe infrastructure projects such as roads and bridges that can be started quickly to provide an immediate economic stimulus. I wondered whether I could apply this concept to writing projects.

Many of the projects on my list were ambitious—books and online courses that would require an intensive infusion of both time and money before they would generate income. With a recession of unknown duration looming, are quick-start—shovel-ready—writing projects a way to connect with existing clients and attract new ones?

Quick and Cheap
Blogs immediately come to mind when I think shovel-ready. They are quick and cheap to start. But is there room for yet another blog? In the crowded blogosphere, it might be difficult to attract enough subscribers to derive ad revenues from your blog. But think about your blog as a way to keep your name in front of your clients and potential new clients until the economy rebounds.

Short and Tweet
And what about the current darling of social media—Twitter? Do you have something to offer a group of followers? (Check out Mayra Ruiz-McPherson  and Debbie Weil  for consistently useful tweets.)

Shore Up and Spruce Up
Shoring up aging infrastructure is a natural category of shovel-ready writing. Websites are an obvious candidate. While a head-to-toe-redo is a major undertaking, fresh paint and window treatments are doable, perhaps adding new content to the home page or making sure project or product information is current. 

Old articles, white papers and research are all shovel-ready fodder for recycling and reuse. Do these oldies contain information that is evergreen and can be spruced up with current examples, case studies or data? Do these documents provide content and ideas that can be recycled for blog posts?

Just thinking about shovel-ready projects makes my shoulders ache! But I’m putting on my hard hat and work gloves and getting to work. As the year progresses, I’ll let you know about our shovel-ready writing projects and whether they hit pay dirt.

What about you? Do you have any suggestions or thoughts about shovel-ready writing projects?

--Marilynne Rudick

The Best of. . . Writing Tips for 2009 That Are Really Useful

It’s tempting to start the new year with a writing resolutions blog (write more, procrastinate less) or the evergreen Writing Tips for the New Year.  But even better is not having to write a top tips blog because it’s already been written. John Roach solicited tips from top writers  to compile his 2009 list for Pro Writing Tips.

This list goes beyond the hackneyed (punctuate correctly, use spell check) to provide useful and unique tips that can help novice as well as experienced writers.

One tip that I particularly like is from Lynn Gaertner-Johnston who writes Business Writing Blog:

“When you are struggling over how to craft a message, forget about what you have to say. Instead, write what the reader needs to know. A successful message focuses on the reader.”

After reading John Roach's list, I wondered who else had useful and unique tips. So I combed the blogosphere (write more, procrastinate less). I like Angela Booth’s Top Ten Writing Tips to Help You Write More.  Among her tips:

"Pay attention to images. Your right brain thinks in images, and when you write, you translate images from your right brain into words. Usually this process happens so quickly that you're unaware of it. If you can make this process conscious, you can goose up your own creativity. Stephen King calls this process 'writing with the third eye '--- the eye of imagination and memory."

Among the most thought-provoking was Brian Clark’s Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing Well.  Clark applies Hemingway’s techniques to business writing.  Here’s one tip:

 “Use short sentences.  Hemingway was famous for a terse minimalist style of writing that dispensed with flowery adjectives and got straight to the point. In short, Hemingway wrote with simple genius. Perhaps his finest demonstration of short sentence prowess was when he was challenged to tell an entire story in only 6 words: For sale: baby shoes, never used."

Of course, reading all of these tips inspired me to send my top writing tip for 2009 to John Roach. He kindly added it to his list:

“Think of all writing as collaboration. Get feedback early and often from readers, reviewers, and good writers.”

With best wishes for happy writing in 2009!
--Marilynne Rudick

Grammar Girl Podcasts: Grammar Made Fun

Fun is not a word you normally associate with grammar. More frequent associations are root canal and hostage. But Grammar Girl's podcasts Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing address grammar and usage issues in a clear, breezy—and yes fun—way. Each episode is 2 to 10 minutes of easy listening, long enough to explain the topic and short enough to avoid grammar fatigue.

Grammar Girl is Mignon Fogarty, technical writer turned grammar tipster. If you have a grammar or usage question, good chance Grammar Girl has answered it. She’s tackled my pet peeve: Less Versus Fewer.  She’s taken on grammar’s equivalent of urban legends:  Top Ten Grammar Myths. (#1. You shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition.) 

But Fogarty’s guidance isn’t limited to traditional English teacher fare. She has waded into the here-and-now with a podcast on Text Messaging Grammar . Even bolder, she’s created a style guide for tweets:  Grammar Girl's Strunk & Twite: An Unofficial Twitter Style Guide.  No piece of guidance is longer than Twitter’s limit of 140 characters.

Which takes us back to grammar and fun. Or more specifically funnest. Grammar Girl took on this usage firestorm after Steve Jobs pronounced his new iPod, “funnest iPod ever.” This created what Fogarty termed a “grammar emergency.” Her response is an interesting explanation of word evolution: Is “Funnest” a Word?  

You can get Grammar Girl’s tips as podcasts, transcripts, and a newsletter. But I think the podcasts are the funnest. 

--Marilynne Rudick

Blog Design - How the Top 50 Look

Smashing Magazine has published a two-part study in which they analyzed the design choices of the 50 most popular blogs (according to Technorati):

• Part 1: A Small Design Study Of Big Blogs
• Part 2: A Small Study Of Big Blogs: Further Findings 

True to the name of our blog, I'm going to take look at a handful of writing-related trends this study found:

• 76% had no ads in the articles. This finding seems like common sense to me.  If a blog is how we maintain a conversation, a mid-post sales pitch might "ruin the mood."
• More than 50% show between 10 and 18 posts on their start page.   This number of posts seems just right.  Too many posts and readers are scrolling endlessly; too few posts and readers are clicking endlessly. 
• 34% used 85-94 characters per line. While this number of characters may seem longish, it's consistent with a 2005 usability study that found readers are able to read long lines faster than they read short lines.  Given that many blog subscribers scan, these longer lines help.
• 98% of the top blogs used dark text on a white background.  And so they should.

Do you like how our blog looks?  Send your feedback - we can take it! We think it looks great.  Many thanks to Kim Bieler Graphic Design for our blog's logo and to photographer Michael G. Stewart for the glamorous headshots!

(And another thanks to Chris Raymond for posting to the DC Web Women list about this Smashing Magazine design study.)

--Leslie O'Flahavan

Welcome to the Writing Matters blog

Welcome to the Writing Matters blog, written by E-WRITE's Leslie O’Flahavan and Marilynne Rudick.  In this blog, we’ll make a convincing case for how and why writing matters.  We plan to share the good, the bad, the funny, and the ugly in the e-mails, web content, articles, and business writing we all consume each day. We’ll offer seat-of-the-pants tips and how to's, as well as thought-provoking posts. We hope to spark conversation--better yet, vigorous debate--about writing and communication.  Thanks for joining us in this blog.  Please let us know how writing matters to you.