Create written communication guidelines
Ever wish you had a reference tool you could hand off to new team members to answer the question, “How do we write around here?”… Read the full article
Communication planning
Genius loves company
Bring the lawyers to your writing workshop
I learn so much from my brilliant clients.
When CenterPoint Energy’s Eydie Pengelly brought me in for a writing workshop last month, it wasn’t just for the company’s communicators.… Read the full article
Against the law
Law professor argues that legalese is bad for business
Law professor Joseph Kimble believes that legalese costs business and government a fortune, that “bequeaths” says nothing that “gives” does not, that simple language is more precise than legal language and that plain language “beats legalese in every way with readers.”… Read the full article
Mission creep
Don’t let the mission statement become the mission
“Sometimes [mission statements are] created at a retreat in the woods, between the trust fall and the passing of the speaking stick.
… Read the full articlePerform communication triage
Allocate your efforts based on the benefit to the organization
I remember the good old days at Hallmark Cards, when I was responsible for the company’s gorgeous, glossy employee magazine.… Read the full article
What does ‘niggling’ cost your company?
Develop a business case for reining in approvals
First there was DBT, or Death by Tweakage: When a brochure or newsletter “fails due to unnecessary tinkering or too many last-minute revisions.”… Read the full article
Share, share, share
Purina Cat Chow offers a case study on bringing home the bottom line
I don’t know about you, but any campaign that includes a Myers-Briggs-type personality test for cats is a winner in my eyes.
… Read the full articleDevelop an approval process that doesn’t drive you nuts
How to run the review process so it doesn’t run you
“Sign on a newspaper reporter’s desk: ‘The strongest desire is neither love nor hate. It is one person’s need to change another person’s copy.'”… Read the full article
‘The shark is down’
Most approval processes just don’t work day-to-day
by Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications Inc.
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When my sister, Lynn Wylie, met Richard Dreyfus on a cruise recently, she asked the actor-turned-Constitutional scholar what it was like to work with a mechanical shark.… Read the full article