Meerkat Communications

Something I struggle with a lot is creating the time to spend on my own writing; on the creative writing that fuels me or on the journalling that keeps me sane. I find myself making excuses for not setting a per diem writing word count or for not just sitting down and doing it. And I beat myself up if I’m not blogging regularly, and yet I always  say to myself “I’m a writer”.

That got me thinking.

What does that mean? Yes, it’s what I do for a living (both teaching web/business writing and my Meerkat copywriting), but what does that really mean? Sometimes I feel that it’s not an accurate reflection of me, because I’m not really doing enough writing other than for clients (don’t get me wrong, I LOVE doing that), but does that make me a writer? What is writing? What is writing to me?

For some, writing is a confessional. For some, writing is a secret hobby (teenage diaries being scrawled in the half dark; bad angsty poetry written by moonlight). For some, writing is what keeps them feeling alive – it is meditation, inspiration, and income. Or it is simply a mundane task that has to be completed every day at work.

And for me, I think it’s all of the above sometimes – or has been in different stages of my life. But one thing that will never change is my love of words. And how good I feel when I am writing – whether for myself or a client.

So I guess I can call myself a writer and I just have to not doubt that that is what I am. Who I am.

Geraldine

While I’m posting some great cartoons, I came across this one on Facebook. Unfortunately I don’t know the source, but it includes a link to The Plain Language Programme, so I’m going to assume that’s the original.

I came across this great Savage Chickens cartoon that made me giggle. I was feeling especially glum because I had finally done some new creative writing and then ended up losing it all on my silly computer, so this majorly cheered me up.

Now it’s the blank screen and the keyboard that do us in….

Email dominates our lives, often as much in a personal capacity as a business one. Unfortunately, sometimes the bad habits we’ve developed in our more informal correspondence creeps in to our business messages, and this can have disastrous consequences.

If you pay careful attention, however, you can avoid common gaffes when writing business emails:

1. Know Your Audience… But Do Something with that Knowledge

I came across a great quote by Pablo Picasso the other day: “Action is the foundational key to any success”… The number one rule to any business communication or business model is to know your audience. However, this knowledge is useless unless you actually do something with it.

As much as you can, use any possible information (or educated guesses you can make about your audience) to shape, organize, and influence your content. Choose language that your reader will understand, and explain any terms they may need to know but won’t be familiar with. Focus on relevant information only. Always think about how your reader will feel, and subsequently act, upon receiving your message.

And make sure that by the end of your message, you’ve  anticipated any possible questions or objections and included information to answer these before the reader has to respond and ask you, including anything that will help overcome their resistance easily.

2. Edit, Edit, and Edit Some More…

With the sheer volume of email, the kind of multitasking now needed in the business world, and the sort of technology-related short attention spans we now seem to have, people don’t have time to read long messages, nor are they likely to do more than skim even a medium-sized message. So once you’ve written your message, go back and slash it.

Cut out unnecessary information, keep sentences short and simple, reorganize paragraphs for the biggest impact, and place your main ideas at the beginning – at the message, the paragraph, and the sentence level. Get rid of those trite sounding “business” phrases. Get rid of “fillers” like “There are” or “I am writing to tell you” and remember that less is always more in this case.

3. Design an Easy-to-Read Message

Somehow, even though we know what we don’t like in a message, all of those things fly out the window when we write to other people. Nobody has time to spend wading through a long email with no sense of what’s important and what’s less important. White space, paragraphing, bullet points, and numbered lists are your friends, as are headings.

Headings in an email? Yes! Why wouldn’t you use any possible method you can to ensure your message is not only read, but understood, and then acted on? Use bullet points only for your most important information. Use a numbered list for a sequence that must be followed in order.

But don’t overuse themse You want the reader to have a visual sense of what is important, but don’t overwhelm them with so many lists that they can’t focus. If you use headings, ensure they are descriptive and relevant, and don’t use them in a very short email – it’ll just look weird.

Ensure your paragraphs are short and that your message is well spaced, with an easy-to-read font.

4. Proofread Your Document… And Evaluate Its Success

Nothing is more frustrating than trying to read a message that is riddled with grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors, or “text speak”. Ensure you’ve done a proper spellcheck, that you’ve read and re-read the message, and double-check that you’ve included any necessary attachments.

And then ask yourself a few questions:

• Have I actually said what I mean?
• Is my main idea clear?
• Is the next step obvious for the reader?
• Will I get the response I want?
• Is my message easy to understand?

Before you hit send, ensure your message is professional, well-designed, and easy-to-read.

5. Follow Up on Your Message

Weeks go by and tThings slip down the ‘To Do’ list , with no response from your reader… Even the best thought out and written business messages can sit unread, purely because of a lack of time on the part of the audience.

If you are sending an urgent message, then you need to ensure you’ve given the reader a clear deadline for response. Don’t assume that just because someone has a smart phone or iPad that they are constantly checking their email. If you don’t hear from them, then you have to follow up. Also, don’t expect someone to respond within minutes or hours of sending your message – wait until a reasonable amount of time has passed before you check in with them.

And sometimes you just have to pick up the phone… Don’t use email as something to hid behind, use it as you would with any tool – carefully and only for its intended use.

Geraldine

Sometimes, despite careful planning, a well crafted message can be misunderstood or misinterpreted or, perhaps worst of all, ignored.

One of the issues I find these days is that people really just don’t seem to have any listening skills, nor do they actually read all of what has been written. I have experienced both of these problems many times. For example, in my classes I can repeat instructions several times and put them in writing, and students still do not listen properly and end up doing the wrong thing (to their detriment). And I’ve also written very clear, well structured business emails (after all, it’s my profession so I have to show I can practice what I preach!), and still I get a response that indicates the person has not properly read anything I have written.

Sigh…

So what can we do about it? Unfortunately we can’t control others (oh for such a power!), but we can keep ensuring we construct well organised and thought out messages, and allow for feedback and questions. Sometimes, too, all it takes is a deep breath and a lot of patience. Something I learned a long time ago, because of the torture I experienced from certain teachers, is that if someone doesn’t understand something and they ask you to explain it again, explaining it in exactly the same way will not help, because the person did not understand you the first time.

We also have to be aware that communication is a process, a cycle from sender to receiver and back again, so we have a responsiblity to others to listen to them carefully and to read things slowly and with attention. This can save us time and unwanted issues.

So, it takes practice, patience, and sometimes, a healthy sense of humour to stay sane and ensure you overcome any barriers to communication to get your message understood and get what you want.

Geraldine

I came across an interesting article via Wordtracker on using the idea of what the author, Sean d’Souza, calls disconnectors to write effective, engaging copy. Using clear examples, d’Souza explains how disconnectors are just what soapies (sorry, day time dramas) like Days of Our Lives use to draw in their audience and keep them watching, and he demonstrates how this can be an effective technique in writing better copy.

The basic premise is the idea of keeping the reader paying attention by throwing in textual curve balls: seemingly incongruous stories/examples/subject changes that then eventually tie in to the main idea of the article. I agree that this can be a great way to write a more interesting article, though you have to be very careful that your disconnectors don’t go off on too far a tangent without returning to the point you’re trying to make, leaving your readers in the proverbial soapie coma…

You can read the full article, “Why disconnectors in copywriting are critical in keeping your reader awake” on the Wordtracker site. Let me know your thoughts.

Geraldine

I recently came across Inbound Writer through a friend. I’ve shared my brief thoughts on it with the students in my Writing for the Web class blog, but it’s worth repeating here…

Inbound Writer bills itself as the “first social writing application”. It combines a keyword search tool, SEO prompts, a text editor and social media platforms. As a writer, I’m not sure how I feel about it. It comes across as a DIY writing with SEO tool, which is most definitely useful, but what concerns me is the impact of something like this on the quality of the writing. The number one rule of SEO, as far as I am concerned, is that you still need to write for people, not search engines, and although I’m sure this tool is useful in many ways, I don’t think it can or should replace a writer.

Maybe I just feel that way because I don’t like the idea of an app taking my job?

Geraldine

One of the exciting though sometimes frustrating aspects of language is how it is ever changing. As business, too, is shaped and changed by globalization, technology, flattened management structures, and an increasingly diverse workforce, so is how we communicate in that realm.

I came across an interesting article, via LinkedIn, about the top 10 things to ignore in career searches, including for interviews, resumes, and cover letters. I was interested (and pleased) to note that many of these items are exactly what I tell my students and my clients when talking about career packages. You can read the full article here. I’m especially please to see that the article warns against the Career Objective on the resume. It has always been a pet peeve of mine, because very few people do them correctly, and I feel that they waste valuable real estate on the resume.

I disagree somewhat with Point 9: “Your resume and cover letter [not] should be written in formal language.” While it is important to keep your tone friendly, and add your own personality, by avoiding formal language, you can err on the side of chatty, casual, slangy writing. I would suggest that you don’t try and sound overly formal by using big words that end up coming across as robotic or pompous, or that you fall into trite, cliche business language e.g. Please do not hesitate… Thank you in advance for…. Enclosed please find etc., but you do need to keep it professional and polished.

You need to remember that business is about relationships and if you hide behind jargon or cliches, then the audience will never get a sense of who you are, or feel invited to build a relationship with you, whether he or she is a prospective client or that elusive future employer.

Geraldine

Academic and creative writing are worlds apart from business writing. This does not mean you can’t be creative or intelligent when writing business messages. On the contrary, you need to be use the same kinds of skills of careful thought, research, proofreading etc. that academic writing requires, and you do need to think  and write creatively in order to focus your business writing.

If you can spend more time planning your business messages (whether a report, email, web pages, proposal, business presentation etc) and focusing on the following three tips for business writing, you will find that the process becomes easier, yields better results, and helps you project a positive image in the business world.

1. Keep it Objective Focused

In the workplace, there are certain tasks you need to achieve. When you communicate with clients, coworkers, employers, stakeholders etc, you are trying to achieve a specific objective. You may be trying to sell a product or service. You may be making a request. You may be replying to a message. No matter what the situation, you want to ensure that your communication not only delivers the message, but is understood, and produces the correct action and/or feedback.

Know what it is you want your audience to do. Write down “I want my reader/listener to…” and complete the sentence. If you don’t know what you are on about, they certainly won’t. Centre the message on this core idea. Emphasise the main idea throughout the message. Ensure that the follow up action is easy to understand and carry out. In this way, you succeed in the hidden agenda of business communication: protecting a positive image of you/your organisation and maintaining excellent customer relations.

2. Keep it Audience Focused

No where is it harder to write in an audience-centred way than in a job application letter. You are trying to tell them what you can do, so you fall into this resume repetition of “I can do this… I worked here… I studied that…”. People don’t care. What they want to know is what can you bring to them? What can you do (what are your “features”) and how will this benefit them? Always put yourself in the place of the audience.

If you know your product backwards, that doesn’t mean the audience will understand what you are on about, unless you “translate” the information into language that the audience will understand. You need to think about their level of knowledge and understanding and ask yourself

• What do they already know?
• What do they need to know?
• How will they feel and react upon receiving the message?
• How can you express your ideas in a way that will make them easy to understand?
• Will they understand jargon?
• What follow up action do they need to take?

If you have anticipated and answered all the audience’s questions before they have had to ask them, then you will be that much more successful in ensuring your message is received, understood, and acted upon.

3. Keep it Short and Simple (KISS)

The major difference between creative, academic and business writing is often length. Business writing needs to be concise, clear and focused because people deal with incredible volumes of data these days. People are also lazy and don’t like to spend time reading, especially if they inundated with emails. They also don’t want to sit through a rambling presentation.

Get to the main idea in your opening few sentences if you know the audience is neutral or positive about the material. Use crisp, precise words. Avoid unnecessary fillers (for example, my favourite is “I am writing to tell you…”. I know you are writing to tell me. I am reading what you have written). Minimise jargon if the audience won’t understand. Keep your tone friendly and conversational, but avoid slang and acronyms. Use short sentences and  short paragraphs. Order the information in a logical way. Group similar ideas together and include only the most relevant information.

Once you have  put your message together, edit and proofread  it. Cut out fillers, redundancies (e.g. revert back. Revert = to go back to), noun forms (e.g. “extend an invitation” can be replaced with “invite”) and long-winded explanations. Check for spelling and grammatical errors. You can still sound intelligent without having to use cliched business phrases (e.g. Thank you for your cooperation) or fancy words (remuneration = salary, so use salary).

Improving your business writing is not a challenging task; it simply takes a bit of careful thought and organisation. Focus on the audience, KISS, and what your reason for communicating is, and you’ll see positive results.

Geraldine