Posts filed under 'Writing'
Catching up on Blog reading I came across another from
Johnnie, on Reboot7
, that’s worth comment:
Pretty closely related was the idea of ordinariness and “good enough” solutions. David Weinberger championed “good enough” knowledge classifications; Skype favoured simple language (”Talk” not “VOIP”).
While I agree with the concept, I think the Skype example isn’t the best illustration. From a communication perspective, I think “VOIP” would have seemed “good enough” for most technology vendors. That Skype went with “Talk” shows great sensitivity to its target customers and is a hell of a lot better than “good enough.”
By the way, I only started using
Skype
last week and I am kicking myself for not starting sooner. Free. National. And. International. Calls. That’s better than “good enough,” too.
June 17th, 2005
Johnnie Moore has a
nagging doubt about the story thing
:
It might be this: an awful lot of storytelling is done after the event. Stories rationalise action. If they are great stories, they sometimes provoke action, setting in train some more actions which will later be
post-hoc
rationalised as another story… Somehow it feels like storytelling is being reduced to a calculated exercise in getting people to do things.
I share Johnnie’s doubts about stories as “the next big thing,” another means to manipulate others, but that’s a problem with the use we make of story, not with story
per se
.
Yes, meanings are made out of stories - sometimes even
meanings which the storyteller did not anticipate
- but that’s fine, so long as the storyteller accepts that expanded meaning gracefully. Of course, some stories are just plain dull.
But a
good
story remains one of the best, time-tested ways to transfer knowledge, and contributes to greater retention of that knowledge by listener or reader than almost any other method. Which is why
CIO on Knowledge Management
, urges us to:
Tell stories. KM experts agree that tacit knowledge (the 85 percent of human understanding that resides in someone’s head as opposed to an external place) is the most valuable type of knowledge. But getting at tacit knowledge is complex. Melinda Bickerstaff, vice president of knowledge management for Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), an $18 billion drug manufacturer, has people tell stories about their experiences (such as winning Federal Drug Administration approval for Sustiva, an anti-HIV medicine) as a way to exchange lessons learned.
In-house journalists take detailed notes during the proceedings and then write up a report in article format, no slides allowed. “There are 16 dimensions to a story and only one or two to a PowerPoint,” says Bickerstaff. Writing an article as opposed to a bunch of bullet points allows the synthesizer to weave together themes into a complex whole that more fully reflects the tacit knowledge of the people who worked on the problem.
So what if “weaving together themes into a complex whole” is
post hoc
rationalisation of action? That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
PS I may have pulled Johnnie’s remarks too far out of their original context -
a post on seth Godin’s
All marketers are liars
. Go and read Johnnie’s post if you haven’t already - it’s great - and all the comments too.
June 17th, 2005
Jonathan Kranz
had a great article in Marketing Profs last week on
How to improve your writing for the web
. He offers five pointers; my favourite is number 4:
4. Become ruthlessly specific
Print out your Web pages—or the drafts of the Web pages you intend to post—and grab a yellow highlighter. Mark every phrase that reeks of broad abstraction (”enterprise process solutions”), vague promises (”exceeding customer expectations”) and empty boasting (”best in class services.”)
Now take a look at your page. Good copy should have very few, if any, streaks of yellow. Bad copy will look like a field of dandelions. Pull the weeds. Replace all the yellow copy with specific promises, facts, benefits, features and other pieces of concrete evidence that can support your causes and claims.
You might transform the previous parenthetical examples thus: “enterprise process solutions” becomes “browser-based manufacturing and inventory control”; “exceeding customer expectations” becomes “a 30% decrease in material waste in just 60 days, guaranteed”; and “best in class services” becomes “recognized as the industry standard by the Institute for Chemical Forensics.”
Bonus link: kranz.com carries ten tongue in cheek
reasons not to hire Jonathan
. I like that idea so much, I just might steal it. The worrying thing is we all know people to whom this ten could apply.
June 13th, 2005
The Governator’s giddy aunt
Alex Barnett brings us news that
Arnold Schwarzeneger is podcasting
in his capacity as governor of California.
I mention this not because I want you all to rush off and download the Governator’s latest, but because Alex uses that most singular of British exclamations:
Oh, my giddy aunt
The Peevish slang dictionary defines OMGA as a “mild exclamation of surprise,” but provides no etymology. Does anyone know the origin of this phrase?
PS The Peevish Dictionary of Slang is definitely
not
for those of a sensitive disposition. If swearing offends you,
don’t click this link
:
Peevish
.
PPS. Here’s one for the American readers.
Lisa Haneberg
said in a Skype call with me last week “We are copacetic.” Now I know what copacetic means - in sync, all good - but does anyone know where that word comes from?
2 comments
June 12th, 2005
Drayton Bird’s
Black Magic article in Direct Marketing Weekly
is all about what’s wrong with marketing.
There was a long list of terms and conditions and a prodigiously long list of addresses in type so small it was almost illegible, divided into large geographic areas so it was hard to find one near whoever reads them. And nothing else. Nothing.
No wonder research shows most of their senior colleagues, and much of the public consider marketers to be useless.
Setting aside the problem - which always happens - of the people on the ground knowing nothing about the promotional offers in which they are involved, what stuck in my mind was the need for “print usability.”
On the web, usability has been made famous by the likes of
Jakob Nielsen
,
Jared Spool
and
Steve Krug
. Any web designers worth their salt will have on their bookshelves
,
and
. Usability heuristics may be honoured more in the breach than the observance, but most of us know the basics.
Are there no heuristics for print usability? No print usability gurus?
Greg Storey’s
Better Tighty Whitey
on Airbag - this link is an oldie but a goodie - shows how print usability might just change the world.
May 23rd, 2005
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