Obstacles to plain language

Business writing, as a style, is bankrupt. Today's audience seeks a plain-speaking, authentic voice.

But this is the funny thing about plain language: While universally acknowledged as a good thing, it 's actually quite difficult to find examples of it in real-life business.

Press releases work perfectly well, thank you very much

Every now and then I come across articles helpfully pointing out that press releases have stopped working, and it's time to switch to a digital content strategy. Sometimes I don't know if marketers in the digital space are just ignorant, or if they are being dishonest in order to push their brand of marketing.

Press releases are nothing to switch “away from”. A media strategy and a digital content strategy are different things, and if anything they are complementary, not mutually exclusive. Just because you’ve stopped issuing press releases doesn’t mean you’re on the way to SEO and content marketing success.

More likely, if you didn’t know what you were doing with your press releases, you probably don’t know what you’ll be doing with your content strategy.

Going viral still isn't a strategy

What does the Singapore telco SingTel, UK sanitation pad brand Bodyform, and the US presidential race meme #bindersfullofwomen have in common? Other than that all three were news items that streamed across my Facebook page last week?

Yes, there's a good reason why I'm leading a blog post with the "What do X have in common with Y" cliché. Honest!

Writing copy for the web vs print [A satire]

Source - used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence

People don't read print the same way as they read content on the web.
The Web format allows publishers to influence readers' behaviour and perceptions. Through analytics and eye-scanning technology, we know what pages they've read previously, and what they're going to read next. Writers can present information in a logical sequence, supported by peripheral cues.
If you’re writing for print, however, you’re bound by an entirely different set of rules.

In content management, beware the 'Talker'

I've just read a HBR blog describing a customer profile that salespeople need to avoid: the "Talker". Talkers are people whom, despite being a friend of yours (or your product); despite strong connections with purchasing decision makers; despite repeated assurances of assistance, somehow fail to close the deal for you.

This passage, in particular, struck a chord:

There is a troubling paradox in the Talker. This profile embodies much of what sales leaders tell salespeople to seek out in the ideal stakeholder: they are accessible, they provide great information, they act as a hub for networking, they are pro-supplier — the list goes on and on.

In the end, however, these very traits ultimately harm their credibility inside the organization. The access they grant to the supplier and their energetic backing of that supplier results in doubt amongst their peers. Indeed, our data show that Talkers are anywhere from four to six times less able to build consensus for a purchase compared to Mobilizers.

This reminded me of the KM (knowledge management)/content management/Intranet projects I've been involved in before. For some reason, there was always at least one "Talker" leading the project.

Seriously, what's so wrong with "click here"?

Image via 365psd

Over the past week, several publications and aggregators I follow have been ripping into the practice of using "Click here" as hyperlink text. This struck me as a little odd--"Click here" has been verboten in web design practice for as long as I can remember. I'd hardly consider it a buzz-worthy subject.

And is "Click here" really so bad as to warrant repeat hazings? I certainly avoid them myself, but I was never fully convinced that the alternatives I came with was much better.

Responsive web content case study: gov.uk

One of the websites my colleagues and I have been paying attention to is the new UK government beta website. Clients have been asking us to think about what design lessons we can draw from it.

This is where I go crazy with infographics

While on a current project, I was asked to find opportunities to include infographics into the content mix. Being new to this whole infographics thing, I wondered if this print-medium artifact, which has really gotten popular this past year, really worked on screen from the usability perspective. I decided to do some research on Google to find out.

User expectations for government content

The Content Marketing Institute has just published helpful article on content development for government entities. If you are a inhouse content developer with a governmental organisation, or if you have a government client, you will find many useful tips inside the article.

This reminds me that I ought talk a bit about my current project: alpha.ecitizen.sg.

Surprise: When the message is not the medium

The idea of hiding features for users to discover is common to both content and platform, but the execution is quite different. In software, an easter egg must be well-hidden. In content, they must also be hidden--but in plain sight.