A client/colleague of mine is a regular contributor to Ragan.com, an organization for corporate communicators (clearly not for web designers, which you’ll note if you visit the site).
Ginny has written several brilliant articles, particularly on the subject of writing clarity. One of her open-to-the-public articles is particularly Maven-like, so I thought I’d talk about it here.
In How a heart doctor helped one medical writer, Ginny shares how a cardiologist taught her a most important writing lesson: in lieu of complicated explanations, create word pictures that are fun to read and easy to understand.
Read Ginny’s article on Ragan.com.
No CommentsI fell for it.
I knew I was falling for it and couldn’t help myself.
In the mail the other day was an envelope that made me open it. The return address said “The Office of the Vice President” in all caps. I knew it wasn’t THE vice president, but I was intrigued because it looked very, well, vice presidential.
Also on the outside of the envelope were the words “IMPORTANT INFORMATION about the proposed 2008 INDIVIDUAL TAX REBATE.”
Hmm. Hot news topic. Something of personal interest.
Who’s it really from, what’s this about and, more importantly, what’s in it for me??
It was an offer from Andersen Windows “offering to match the $600 proposed individual income tax rebate to any customer who purchases 10 or more windows or doors.”
Well done, Andersen!
If I was in need of windows (which I’m not), I would definitely put you on my short list of companies to contact for an estimate.
This one’s going in my swipe file.
No Commentsw00t! meaning “expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word ‘yay.’” (You’ll often see people use the word ‘yeah’ for ‘yay’ but that is incorrect.)
Merriam-Webster (the only dictionary IMHO) has announced that w00t! is, indeed, its 2007 word of the year. Though they haven’t made it an “official” part of their dictionary, word has it that it has a good chance of making it in the near future.
According to M-W.com, the expression “became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t (leet or elite) speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters. Although the double ‘o’ in the word is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for we owned the other team—again stemming from the gaming community.
3 CommentsIt’s been an exciting New Year for me with lots of new projects and new clients. That’s why I’m so grateful that my clients understand the importance of onboarding.
What’s onboarding? It’s the process of building knowledge and establishing relationships. And I can tell you that it’s the key — and often overlooked — component that will fast-track any project and pave the way to better productivity, stronger relationships and great work.
The more time you spent at the start of a project educating your internal teams, your clients, your customers, your vendors and your freelancers, the smoother the project execution and the better the end product.
How you onboard is up to you … but I want to challenge you to build onboarding into every project timeline.
Contact me if you’d like more specific ideas on when, why and how to onboard.
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