When I was in San Francisco last week, I stayed for a couple of days at a hotel that I used to visit very often in the 90s on business. Remarkably, the doorman recognised me – even after ten years – and welcomed me in a very friendly way.
It was a change from my usual experience with doormen where my discomfort with the whole tipping process meets their lofty disdain for guests in general and me in particular.
I’ve come to see doormen at hotels in the same light as the troll under the bridge in fairy tales. You pay your fee and you get to the other side grateful for not having been eaten.
I remember a hotel in Florida where the doorman held out his hand for a tip even though I had been waiting 20m for my car. I remember another hotel where I resolutely refused to tip over the course of a dozen visits. Towards the end I felt I had earned a grudging respect from the doormen there, but it was only the respect that policemen give wily career criminals.
What always surprises me is that hotels want to put this barrier between an arriving guest and their hospitality. When you want to make someone welcome in your home you don’t demand money with menaces at the front door. The check-in desk is another barrier but at least you don’t have to pay extra to use it.
I think there is a danger that we do this when we write. I sometimes refer to the ‘lede’ in an article as the invitation to the party. But there are some other things we can do to make it harder for our readers to attend:
- Not give them a headline and a standfirst that helps them figure out whether the page they are reading is the one they want to readMake them sit through a Flash intro animation before letting them see the site.
- Not answering the readers questions as we write
- Writing from our own perspective about stuff we know well in our own words
- Using words and acronyms with special meanings that exclude the reader if they don’t know them
- Not treating the reader as your equal; either by being sullenly subservient or by trying to bullshit them with your hype
- Being cold, cynical, untruthful, unobservant, inaccurate, sly or greedy
- Waste their time with spurious ‘welcome to our website’ stuff
- Any kind of paywall. (Incidentally, this is why I decided to give my ebook away for free rather than charge for it.)
- Any kind of registration process. It’s very annoying when you want to download something from a website – a white paper or such – and they demand your complete personal history first. It’s even worse if you have to type it all in again to access a second document.
- Using Adobe Acrobat files to deliver content online without giving an HTML version. PDFs are not a great way to read online. This should be tattooed on the hands of everyone who works in marketing.
- Throat-clearing waffle. “Committed to industry-leading development blah blah blah.”
- Heavyweight pages. It’s annoying to wait for a page to load, especially if you have to download someone’s Flash animated advert before you read an article.
On the other hand, writers can learn something positive from doormen: people like it when you get their name right.
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As usual, a brilliant post. Much needed reminder to all. However I have a minor quibble: “Using words and acronyms with special meanings that exclude the reader if they don’t know them.”
“Standfirst?”
Hoisted with my own petard. Good point Richard. A standfirst is the bit of text between the headline and the body of the article that explains what it is about and why you should read it. Matthew
I love this post! It reminds me of my younger days when I used to be a food server. At first I used to hate it… and my tips reflected my attitude. When I finally understood that my bad attitude was a direct reflection of my bad tips I decided to change. I made a sincere effort to have a good time with my job – appreciate my flexible schedule so that I could go to school, be on my feet and get exercise as opposed to working behind a desk, and get a chance to hone my social skills by dealing with customers on a non-stop basis. It wasn’t long after my attitude sift that interesting opportunities surfaced for me. I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. The truth is we get what we give – it’s a Universal Law and there is no way around it. It reminds me of a book I recently read that I really loved: “Wake Up! Your Life is Calling.” by Andy Feld. It gave me these same lessons I learned so long ago, but in a way that was very refreshing.
It’s great to come across lessons – and it’s even better when we actually learn from them.
Thanks for listening.
Kim
We get what we give is a good lesson.
Matthew,
is standfirst a British term and if so what’s the equilavent over here? Hope you had a great trip to S.F.
I don’t know if it’s a British term or an American one but I don’t know if there’s a US equivalent. Perhaps its standfirst?
Touche…My ignorance revealed!