Writing workshops, communication consulting and writing services
When my sister, Lynn Wylie, met Richard Dreyfus on a cruise, she asked the actor the obvious question, “What was it like to work with a mechanical shark?”
Almost every day, Dreyfus said, he’d arrive on the set of “Jaws” to hear this message over the intercom:
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?”
How about a resource you could use to show serial offenders how to fix label headlines, passive voice or leads that are more likely to get readers to take a nap than to take action?… Read the full article
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
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.”
His treatise on the topic, “Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please,” is a must for every communicator’s library.… Read the full article
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
First there was DBT, or Death by Tweakage: When a brochure or newsletter “fails due to unnecessary tinkering or too many last-minute revisions.” (BuzzWhack.com)
Then came nanomanagers: “Bosses who have taken micromanaging to a whole new level of nitpicking.” (BuzzWhack.com)
Enter niggling: That’s Procter & Gamble’s verb for editing a memo.… Read the full article
“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.'”
— Gilbert Cranberg,
Columbia Journalism Review
When I worked at one company, I once had to have — no lie — 100 people review and approve an article I’d written for our employee annual report.… Read the full article
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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
