Warning: very, very long bus

Ibelieve that if you want to write good business prose – to persuade, inform, communicate – you need to put yourself into the head of your reader. What bothers them? What interests them?

I saw two vivid examples of this today, on my way to the latest Articulate Seminar.

1. A truck with a sign that read ‘if you can’t see my rearview mirrors, I can’t see you.’ Perfect. Message received loud and clear.
2. One of those bendy buses which had a sign on it: ‘this bus is over 18m long’. My first thought was ‘so what?’. It’s very hard to visualise 18m and to figure out what it means to you as a driver reading it. As an alternative, my wife suggested ‘this bus is longer than you think’ as an alternative and I thought ‘warning: very, very long bus.’

If you like this article, please share it!

• 

Related posts:

1. Carly Fiorina’s biography – a warning for writers
2. The Long Tail and blogging
3. Long time, no speak
4. Microsoft rules (at long product names)