Writing, marketing and technology
This is a guest post from my pilot blogger friend Sylvia Spruck Wrigley. She writes the excellent Fear of Landing blog and when I read her great new e-book You Fly Like a Woman, I asked her to tell me (and you) about the process of creating it. Having done the hard work – writing, [...]
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This is a guest post from my pilot blogger friend Sylvia Spruck Wrigley. She writes the excellent Fear of Landing blog and when I read her great new e-book You Fly Like a Woman, I asked her to tell me (and you) about the process of creating it. Having written the book, edited it, formatted [...]
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This is a guest post from my pilot blogger friend Sylvia Spruck Wrigley. She writes the excellent Fear of Landing blog and when I read her great new e-book You Fly Like a Woman, I asked her to tell me (and you) about the process of creating it. I have written some essays, a collection [...]
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This is going to be one of my (hopefully) rare curmudgeon posts. Apologies in advance. I just had an attack of the Victor Meldrews this week. I get very cross when I hear people talk about ‘passion’ in business. Either in mission statements (e.g. Microsoft: “your potential, our passion”) or in CV covering letters (e.g. [...]
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Apparently William F. Buckley forced himself to write 250 words in 15 minutes; writing faster and faster like a sprinter nearing the tape. This anecdote is the start of a great article from Slate magazine about writers’ productivity. There’s an old story about James Joyce. One night he was in a pub with a friend. [...]
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Back in 2006, I ran a post titled The worst press release ever. It made fun of all the words that people use in press release, like ‘quantum leap’ and ‘holistic’, when they don’t actually know what they mean. I was thinking of that when I read this on Callan Bentley’s blog. (Hat tip: Communicating [...]
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I was eating a bowl of ‘luxury’ muesli this morning contemplating the irony of calling muesli luxurious, considering it’s purpose and function. It’s another example of inflationary language. Now Wired reports the ultimate in misplaced grandiloquence: the Kohler Numi toilet. According to the manufacturer’s website, this $6,390 convenience “combines unmatched design, technology and engineering to [...]
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Concise, objective (not hyped), scannable text is easier to read online and readers prefer it, according to research by Jakob Nielsen and others. I talk about this a lot on my blog, Bad Language, and I run training courses in it for Microsoft and others. But, like a doctor who smokes, it is sometimes hard [...]
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Matthew Stibbe is CEO of Articulate Marketing and Turbine, the easy, online way to deal with office paperwork. He edits Golf Hotel Whiskey and writes the Forbes Aviator column.
Check out my new, free eBook, 30 Days to Better Business Writing, 71 pages of expert tips and advice to make you a better writer. Available on Kindle, paper and free online.