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Thursday
Sep022010

Limit yourself to better writing

DateThursday, 2 September, 2010

The ever-wise Writer sent me their e-thingybob today (well worth signing up for). In it they talk about using Twitter as a way of sharpening your writing (or at least bringing your sentence length down to more manageable levels).

Long sentences are a direct route to flabby writing. So far in my work helping companies with their in-house writing, the longest I've seen was 92 words. To be sure, it was a miracle of construction. It had so many nested clauses you could lose yourself in it for weeks.

There are a number of culprits at work here:

  1. Ironically, the first is a desire to be clear. It leads you to try to pack every possible thought into a sentence so that readers absolutely, 100% know what you're saying. Sadly it has the opposite effect.
  2. Too many cooks. My 92 word example above was the result of numerous edits from a wide range of people. Everyone added something without anyone taking anything away.
  3. A love of commas. (Some people are strange like that.)

Solutions

The Writer's Twitter suggestion is a good start but probably won't in itself do the trick. Sentences on Twitter may be short but that doesn't mean they're good.

Some things to try:

  1. For any sentence over 20 words, look to see if it is in fact two or more sentences. The telltale sign is lots of nested sentences between pairs of commas.
  2. Look to split these up into smaller chunks. Try using a three part structure (eg instead of:

    With a fresh approach to the way we serve the pharmaceutical sector, Dreyfus Technologies combines pharmaceutical sector best practice with an understanding of the pharmaceutical sector’s diverse needs, focusing upon building capability to deliver improved public services.' (Yes this is an actual, albeit disguised, sentence I've grabbed off the web.)

    You could have:

    'Dreyfus Technologies has a fresh approach to the way we serve the pharmaceutical sector. We combine best practice with an understanding of the sector’s diverse needs. And we focus on building capability to deliver improved services.' (Structure = 'First this. Then that. And then the other.')

    Not brilliant, sure, but better. With some time spent editing it could turn into something quite presentable.
  3. If you do have to use a longer sentence, follow it up with a shorter one. It'll make it more interesting for the reader. They'll feel less bludgeoned.

And for a bit of inspiration, check out the very small stories hashtag on Twitter. You can also follow the Writer on Twitter to see how they do it.

AuthorJason Ball | CommentPost a Comment | Print ArticlePrint |
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Friday
Aug202010

Intel and McAfee love-in leaves rivals out in the cold

DateFriday, 20 August, 2010

So Intel is to buy McAfee for $7.68bn (or £5bn in real money). Apart from a 'man that's a lot of money' reaction and 'what credit crunch?' it also makes me think 'if I was the competition, I'd be more than a little worried'.

I've worked for a number of security software companies (including Symantec and Trend Micro). It's become  a crowded market in recent years with a rash of new entrants as well as some open source alternatives. And while the need for the software is undeniable if you are on a PC or run any sort of company, protection has always come at a price.

Having a piece of software run processes in the background every minute of the day places a load on the PC. Now all the major vendors have got a hell of a lot better at minimising this and on most modern PCs its a more than acceptable trade-off. But...

From the BBC's report:

Through buying McAfee, a leading security technology firm, Intel intends to build security features into its microprocessors which go into products such as laptops and phones.

So what happens when you get the world's leading chip manufacturer engineering security features from its new acquisition right into the chips themselves? How much of a premium will customers pay for a machine with 'Intel security inside'? And what happens to the likes of AMD who are then inherently less secure? (Time to buy Trend maybe?)

The enterprise players (Symantec, CA, RSA) arguably have a little less to fear as security at this level is significantly more complex. But at the consumer end of the market things look decidedly more unstable. And when you combine this with a far more secure Windows 7 you can see why many in the market will be more than a little unsettled.

Interesting times indeed.

AuthorJason Ball | CommentPost a Comment | Print ArticlePrint |
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Friday
Aug132010

Hitting the right tone (of voice)

DateFriday, 13 August, 2010

Firstly, sorry for the lack of posts recently. The keen eyed among you may have noticed that I have moved Twelfth Day from a personal blog into a fully-fledged business. The good news is that it's taken off better than I could have imagined. The bad news is that I'm working all hours of the day. I think they call this a 'high quality problem'.

Anyway, one of the projects I have on the go at the moment is developing a new tone of voice for a major grocery brand. (I know, somewhat outside my B2B and tech specialty but it was just too interesting to pass up.) It's got me thinking about how tone of voice development is so badly done so much of the time.

The TOV issue

While everyone tends to talk a good game about tone of voice (check any set of brand guidelines) few do it well. For every Innocent or Pret A Manger there are countless, faceless companies touting almost identical tones of voice which are broadly ignored by their writers.

In some ways it's not so surprising. Specifying a tone of voice is tricky. No one can create a set of binding rules that will inevitably lead to exactly the right tone. Language is too malleable. Writers too individualistic.

The problem is that all too often brands take the approach of simply listing some characteristics and expecting that to work. They would, however, be better off remembering one of the first rules of fiction writing: show don't tell.

A couple of years back, I developed the new tone of voice for Ernst & Young. Part of the job was writing their new style guide. In it I of course introduced their values and the characteristics of their new tone. But I spent just as much (if not more) time showing the effects of applying the new tone to various examples of writing from across the business. I also had the luxury of training the writers who would become the standard bearers for the new tone.

Improving your tone of voice guidelines

While there's a whole book to be written on this subject, I have just few recommendations for starters:

  • Get the foundations right – me-too values will lead to a me-too tone of voice. Keep working to create a more distinctive set of values (not just open, honest, full of integrity and the other usual suspects)
  • Show examples of the right tone – short ones, long ones, ones that span many different applications
  • Find a model – look for a character or writer that exemplifies the right tone. It'll give you instant access to a body of examples that you simply won't find anywhere else
  • Avoid clones – the ultimate aim is to have a distinctive authorial voice not to write by numbers (eg every Steven King book sounds like Steven King yet each is distinctive in its own way) – if your tone of voice becomes a tick box exercise, you've got it wrong

 

AuthorJason Ball | CommentPost a Comment | Print ArticlePrint |
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Thursday
Jul292010

Is jargon killing your communities?

DateThursday, 29 July, 2010

I have blogged before about keeping your writing as simple as possible. I pointed to the fact that over 80% of words used by English speakers come from a list of just 200 and that simple writing is, on the whole, good writing.

B2B writing, and technology writing in particular, is infested with jargon. From the traditional three letter acronym to the creation of meaningless new terms, it's everywhere. And it is killing the effectiveness of communications the world over.

In linguistic terms, jargon serves two purposes:

  1. To create a allegiance and a sense of belonging to a small in-group (ie "It's OK, you're in our gang.")
  2. To exclude those who fall outside that group (ie "Shove off, you're not in our gang.")

In these days of such intense focus on community building, you could argue that creating allegiance is a good thing. Maybe we should be using more jargon.

The problem, however, is that if you want to increase the size of your community, jargon creates a powerful barrier to entry. It makes people feel foolish for not understanding. And as a result they will not want to engage with you or your content.

Finally, as a little light relief, check out the video below. (I think I may have been in a meeting with him once.)

AuthorJason Ball | CommentPost a Comment | Print ArticlePrint |
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Thursday
Jul222010

B2B or P2P?

DateThursday, 22 July, 2010

B2B marketing is different. Ask any B2B agency and they'll tell you so. Decisions take longer. They involve many more people. They are, in every way, more complex than B2C.

You'll hear talk about the decision making unit (DMU) – almost as if there is some crack team of buyers who swing into action every time a company needs a new piece of kit. Typically these purchasing ninjas will comprise a business decision maker (BDM), a technical decision maker (TDM) and often a financial decision maker (FDM) as well as other influential stakeholders.

So far so good. But...

The problem with this kind of thinking is that it makes audiences too abstract. It encourages B2B marketers to look at their customers as demographics first and people second. In doing so there's a tendency to 'target at' rather than 'engage with'.

Now I know what you're thinking, this is going to be another play for social media. It's not. It's a play for the core truism that people buy people. They want to work with people they like and trust. They want to know that when things get sticky (and they will) that they can have a human conversation with someone who can help and who cares.

Too often this can be lost in the cutting and slicing of DMUs and BDMs and all the other tedious acronyms. But B2B marketers do so at their peril.

Four things to do about this

  • Think of your customers as living, breathing, irrational people first and acronyms very much second (or third or not at all)
  • Focus on emotions – emotion drives behaviour in B2B just as it does in B2C, what do your customers worry about? Where do they need reassurance? How can you help? They'll have all the time in the world to post-rationalise their decisions later but it's emotions that'll get the ball rolling
  • Look at the connections – what are the roles of those making the decision (and don't simply look at their job titles)? What is the web of influence surrounding a decision?
  • Find out how you can make your brand and your offering more human and more engaging – and look at ways of sustaining this engagement over a long sales cycle

 

AuthorJason Ball | CommentPost a Comment | Print ArticlePrint |
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