September 19, 2009We received an e-mail the other day that illustrates how organizations can write more effective solicitations. It asks us to support a new credit reporting system, a genuinely worthy cause. All it needs is a more worthy message, one the average reader can understand. We have some suggestions.
The release currently begins: Read the rest of this entry »
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August 6, 2009We’ve alluded in the past to Edward Tufte’s screed against The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint. To summarize, he argues that PowerPoint forces presenters to dumb down their arguments to bullet points, eliminating logical structure in favor of lists where everything carries the same weight, and to severely limit the amount of information the audience receives through any one chart or graph.
The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint was written in 2003. Last week The Wall Street Journal brought us news that Tufte’s criticisms have caught on—with a few. For example, T.X. Hammes argues in the Armed Forces Journal that PowerPoint has undermined the military’s whole decision-making culture: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Management of a publications enterprise, Presentations and meeting coverage No Comments »
July 10, 2009Recently we’ve discussed several ways nonprofits can improve their Web communications to increase online donations. Specifically, they should feature individuals’ stories and make sure to put clear explanations of their missions, goals, objectives, and works prominently on their home pages. We’ve also examined one strong example, Mercy Corps.
Frankly, though, Mercy Corps’ Website is so slick as to be almost intimidating, not to the user but to the publications manager hoping to emulate them. So we thought we’d show you another exemplary organization: the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, recognized by Charity Navigator as one of the 10 most consistently well-managed charities in the country.
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June 27, 2009We reported recently on ways for organizations to attract and engage visitors to their sites, based on studies managed by Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
There’s more. First, Pew’s studies document the speed with which the Internet is going mobile. In 2000, fewer than half of American adults owned a cell phone, and fewer than half used the Internet. Nobody had wireless connections. (Users made dial-up connections and stored data on their own computers. Remember?)
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June 23, 2009Lee Rainie, a pioneer in Internet research, talked to a select group of Washington, D.C. Web managers recently about what the Pew Internet and American Life Project has learned over the past decade.
Naturally, everyone wanted to know how to snag and hold visitors to their sites-and he told them.But first, he reminded them what a very big place the Web is. Internet users expend as much effort filtering out information they don’t want as finding what they do. One-half use a customizable information filter, like a Google News alert.
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May 20, 2009
Credit for pioneering content marketing generally goes to Deere & Company, which launched its magazine The Furrow in 1896. Over 100 years later, The Furrow is still one of the very best in the field, with a circulation of over 1.5 million worldwide, six editors, and nine regional editions in the United States (three in Canada).
The Furrow’s history offers several important lessons to the modern marketer. First, The Furrow works as a marketing tool in large part because its articles don’t push John Deere products. They offer straight news on trends in agriculture, developments in crop science, and innovations in weed control. Check out, for example, “Cover Crop Craze”(PDF), which surveys what farmers are planting to retain nutrients in their soils after harvest; “Living with less water” (PDF), which explores how they’re adjusting to dwindling water supplies; or “Space-Aged War on Weeds” (PDF), which details how robots, lasers, and computerized maps may come to replace herbicides in the near future.
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April 16, 2009Users typically read only the first couple of words of a website’s links or headlines when they appear in lists, such as search engine results, tables of contents, or product listings, according to usability expert Jakob Nielsen. In other words, most of the time they simply scan the list.
To learn how well readers comprehend what they’re scanning, Nielsen and his colleagues tested links from 20 websites representing a wide range of sectors: business-to-business, e-commerce, financial institutions, government, health care, and technology. Users were shown the first 11 characters of each link and asked to predict what they’d find if they clicked on it. They were also shown each truncated link mixed into a list of ten and asked to pick the one that would get them some piece of requested information. For example, one of the ten links led to Ann Taylor’s e-commerce site and users were asked to “purchase an Ann Taylor gift certificate.”
Posted in Framing content in print and on the Web, Marketing and promotion No Comments »
April 11, 2009In a recent post we called CaringBridge® a fundraising superstar. CaringBridge gives away websites to let users—150,000 to date, they report—stay in touch with family and friends during a critical illness, treatment, or recovery.
Recently the organization launched Version 3 of their site, aimed at “making personal CaringBridge websites easier to use, visually streamlined and more customizable.” A new feature is a Spanish-language option.
Posted in Audience research and strategic planning, Technologies for publications and Web content No Comments »
April 5, 2009Potential donors know what they want to see on the Website of a worthy cause. Yet fewer than half of nonprofits put that information on their home pages.
Those are among the key findings of a recent study by usability guru Jakob Nielsen. If he is right, nonprofits leave a huge amount of money on the table. Today, they receive about 10 percent of their donations online, a figure destined to balloon to over 50 percent by 2020, by Nielsen’s estimate.
Nielsen paired similar nonprofits’ sites and observed how users interacted with each of them as they decided which should receive their donations. Those observations revealed that by far the most important factor in users’ decisions was whether or not the organization offered a clear explanation of its mission, goals, objectives, and work prominently on its home page.
Posted in Framing content in print and on the Web, Industry trends, Marketing and promotion 1 Comment »
March 2, 2009Keeping in touch with current and prospective readers often requires cultivating lists of email addresses—not potential spam recipients, but people who are actually interested in hearing from you.
I took a stroll around the Web and inventoried some of the most frequently used methods for soliciting opt-in email addresses:
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February 26, 2009We are rapidly becoming a society that sees its experts as sources of valuable information and opinion rather than as directors of behavior. For example, patients come to their doctors having already done extensive Internet research on the conditions they think they might have. Read the rest of this entry »
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December 26, 2008When it comes to persuasion, Robert Cialdini has no illusions. That’s why everyone in publications should pay attention to his work. We recently wrote about Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion. Now this, from Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
It’s called the contrast principle, and it’s frighteningly simple. If two things are presented one after the other, and the second is different from the first, people tend to see the second as more different from the first than it actually is. Read the rest of this entry »
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November 24, 2008Almost from the beginning, the Web promised cost savings in the time-honored way: labor automation. A recent study by usability authorities at the Nielson Norman Group and summarized on Jakob Nielson’s site under “Design Quality” shows how we all can do more to collect on that promise.
The study examined state Web sites, but the results are broadly applicable. Commissioned by the Pew Center on the States, Being Online is Not Enough: State Elections Web Sites asked whether governments were realizing the most basic of returns on investments in usability: less time on the phone answering questions. Read the rest of this entry »
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November 18, 2008Like most organizations in the publications business, we’ve been intrigued by the Kindle, Amazon’s portable reading screen.
Did you know you can publish a book on Kindle right now? Go to Amazon’s Digital Text Platform for instructions. There is no charge up front—not a penny.
Posted in Technologies for publications and Web content 2 Comments »
October 24, 2008A few days ago we linked to Gapminder, a Swedish company specializing in animated graphs. Since then we’ve had a chance to peruse their site some more, and it’s opened our eyes to animation’s possibilities. Of course you can’t use animation in a printed document, but Gapminder’s method (now owned by Google and in part available for public use) seems to us a remarkably effective way to show trends in complex sets of data over time. Check out this presentation on changes in the developing world over the last fifty years.
Take special note of the moments when Hans Roslings, Gapminder’s director, separates the big bubble representing all of Africa into separate, smaller, country bubbles, and then further separates a single country into income quintiles. To get that much layered information before a reader in a print document would require a very skilled graphic designer, or several graphs for the reader to compare him- or herself.
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October 22, 2008Clients have always deserved to know in advance how much an outsourced project will cost. In today’s economy, this is more important than ever. Our advice to them: If in doubt, ask.
Some cost increases are unavoidable. We specialize in large-scale, complex, innovative projects—in other words, big, difficult things no one’s tried to do before. Sometimes that involves unexpected challenges. For example, a recent project required a lot of images to accompany the text. The client’s intended sources of those images didn’t work out, so we put in additional time on photo research and paid licensing fees.
As a publications manager, we understand that you need to know about these increases as soon as possible. If you ask for something that departs from the original scope of work and the contractor thinks it’s likely to cost extra, he or she should say so immediately, and then follow up in writing, in an e-mail, explaining specifically what the new thing will cost, and as a result what the whole project is now likely to cost. The contractor should ask for a reply to confirm that you have understood.
Posted in Management of a publications enterprise No Comments »
October 16, 2008Many consulting engagements have to overcome rough patches in order for the client to understand fully what the consultant is trying to accomplish. True collaboration usually takes months.
But recently we had one of those rare great experiences with a client, and it inspired us. It wasn’t an easy assignment, but from the very beginning our client gave us everything we needed to do a good job. We appreciated her efforts so much we gave it all we had.
Want to motivate your consultants? Take a page from her book, and be a great client who: Read the rest of this entry »
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August 30, 2008Researchers at Stanford University have shown that clean, jargon-free language makes it easier to absorb new ideas.
Of course, that’s not quite how they thought of it.
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August 27, 2008Only a handful of companies specialize in expert meeting coverage. We’re one. Another is The Conference Publishers, based in Ottawa. If you’re a long-time reader of The Editorial Advantage, you may recall a guest article written for us by their senior managers about the continued importance of face-to-face meetings in a world of teleconferencing.
Recently we received The Conference Publishers’ own e-newsletter and wanted to share their interesting new approach to meeting coverage, which they call “online nested content.” Read the rest of this entry »
June 30, 2008It’s a fairly regular occurrence when we cover meetings: an attendee or participant, having noticed the rapporteur typing away in the corner throughout the proceedings, comes over and asks if it might be possible to get a copy of those notes. The answer is always the same: our company has a policy against it.
Now this might seem like an odd policy. After all, why not try to be as accommodating as possible, especially when it’s a client making the request?
June 17, 2008Magnificent Publications specializes in persuasive publications. We just read a book on the subject from the Harvard Business Press, Persuading People by Harry Mills. The book is meant for oral presentations, but it applies just as well to written persuasion.
As discussed in the last post, Mills suggests different approaches to persuasion depending on the audience’s initial frame of mind. Here are a few more specific persuasion techniques he suggests for each type of audience. Read the rest of this entry »
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June 14, 2008Magnificent Publications specializes in persuasive publications. We just read a book on the subject from the Harvard Business Press, Persuading People by Harry Mills. The book is meant for oral presentations, but it applies just as well to written persuasion.
What does it take to persuade an audience? Among other things, Mills says, it requires that you find common ground. That takes knowing their frame of mind in advance and structuring your argument accordingly.
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June 12, 2008Magnificent Publications specializes in persuasive publications. We just read a book on the subject from the Harvard Business Press, Persuading People by Harry Mills. The book is meant for oral presentations, but it applies just as well to written persuasion.
Most developers of persuasive communications appreciate the difference between features—what a thing consists of or how it works—and benefits—how a thing will help users. One feature of a new computer might be the very latest microprocessor. The benefit is that the computer will let the user work faster and use new applications.
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June 2, 2008According to a recent survey, workers of different ages generally don’t talk to each other on the job.
[A] poll of 3,494 adults by employment services group Randstad USA showed that 51 percent of baby boomers and 66 percent of older workers report little to no interaction with their younger colleagues.
Employment experts fear the lack of communication could create a shortage of U.S. skilled labor because retiring baby boomers aren’t passing on their knowledge and experience.
…
The survey examined four generations, Generation Y, born between 1980 to 1988; Generation X, born 1965 to 1979; baby boomers, born in 1946 to 1964; and matures, born [in 1945 or earlier].
Posted in Audience research and strategic planning No Comments »
April 23, 2008The PDF format is highly useful. Any user who downloads a document can either read it on screen or print it out and be pretty much guaranteed of seeing the styles, pictures, fonts, and spacing that the creator intended.
PDFs have one big drawback, however. They usually live online, but they can’t be opened easily within a Web page. The user either has to download the whole document and then open it, or else wait for Adobe Acrobat to launch in his or her Web browser, which means having one’s whole computer “hang” for 10 to 30 seconds. Either option is a problem if you’re the owner of a Web page that might capture a person’s attention for a minute, if you’re lucky.
Posted in Technologies for publications and Web content No Comments »
April 16, 2008Magnificent Publications is often asked to create publications that present data clearly and effectively. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing some of the classic guidelines on the subject from a leading authority on data presentation, Edward Tufte.
“Parallelism is a stylistic arrangement in which similar syntactic patterns repeat, thus allowing reader or listener to rely on the grammatical repetition to echo the logical similarity of the thought and thus improving the clarity and efficiency of the passage.” So says the Columbia Guide to Standard American English.
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April 8, 2008Magnificent Publications is often asked to create publications that present data clearly and effectively. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing some of the classic guidelines on the subject from a leading authority on data presentation, Edward Tufte.
Last week we examined Tufte’s dissection of the graphs that failed to stop the ill-fated Challenger launch—his example of what not to do.
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April 4, 2008Magnificent Publications is often asked to create publications that present data clearly and effectively. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing some of the classic guidelines on the subject from a leading authority on data presentation, Edward Tufte.
Tufte describes his third book, Visual Explanations, as being about: Read the rest of this entry »
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April 1, 2008Magnificent Publications is often asked to create publications that present data clearly and effectively. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing some of the classic guidelines on the subject from a leading authority on data presentation, Edward Tufte.
In presenting information, it is important to draw the audience’s eye to the important relationships involved. This means drawing contrasts that are clear enough to represent those relationships without being so overwhelming that they draw attention to themselves.
Posted in Design 1 Comment »
March 30, 2008Magnificent Publications specializes in persuasive publications. We just read an excellent book on the subject, Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, so far distributed only in the United Kingdom. Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing some of its insights with you.
Successful persuasion requires your audience to perform some mental work: to understand what you’re saying, evaluate its merits, and decide if they agree. The more effort you ask from your audience, the less likely they are to meet you halfway. Read the rest of this entry »
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March 21, 2008Magnificent Publications specializes in persuasive publications. We just read an excellent book on the subject, Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, so far distributed only in the United Kingdom. Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing some of its insights with you.
How can you get your audience to trust in your strengths? Draw attention to your faults.
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March 17, 2008Magnificent Publications specializes in persuasive publications. We just read an excellent book on the subject, Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, so far distributed only in the United Kingdom. Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing some of its insights with you.
If something is rare, difficult to obtain, or disappearing, we value it more highly than otherwise. It follows that your audience is far more likely to do what you want if you tell them they might not get a chance unless they act now.
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March 10, 2008Magnificent Publications specializes in persuasive publications. We just read an excellent book on the subject, Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, so far distributed only in the United Kingdom. Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing some of its insights with you.
Have a big request to make of your audience? Make a small one first and then wait a few weeks. It may sound counterintuitive, but a person who has already done one small thing for you is much more likely to do something bigger than someone you haven’t tapped before. Read the rest of this entry »
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March 3, 2008Magnificent Publications specializes in persuasive publications. We just read an excellent book on the subject, Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, so far distributed only in the United Kingdom. Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing some of its insights with you.
People are more likely to do what you want if they think that they owe you for a favor you’ve already done for them. Scholars call this the “norm of reciprocity.” Read the rest of this entry »
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February 23, 2008Magnificent Publications specializes in persuasive publications. We just read an excellent book on the subject, Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, so far distributed only in the United Kingdom. Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing some of its insights with you.
How can you get people to do what you want?
Posted in Persuasion 1 Comment »
February 5, 2008In Michael Stelzner’s experience, it was. As he tells it, one Google ad brought him 4,000 strong leads in a year, for a total cost of around $1,500. That’s a pretty great result, and he recommends five basic things to consider :
Why are you advertising? Your landing page is critical. Spend to Earn. Good headlines outperform. Track your conversions.
Posted in Management of a publications enterprise, Marketing and promotion 2 Comments »
January 30, 2008It’s the Dogme 95 of PowerPoint. Invented in Tokyo in 2003 by a pair of architects, Pecha Kucha (pronounced peCHAKcha, Japanese for “chatter”) requires performers to present exactly 20 slides for exactly 20 seconds apiece. According to the official Web site, Pecha Kucha events have now been held in 100 cities around the world.
Like Dogme, Pecha Kucha’s restrictive rules are meant to free presenters’ creativity. Most of those who have adopted the form so far have been artists, architects, and designers. But Pecha Kucha has begun to attract interest from business presenters as well. Read the rest of this entry »
January 11, 2008The author starts complaining.
Contrary to stereotype, most writers love to be edited, at least when it’s someone who knows what he or she is doing. A great editor enhances a writer’s voice, clears away all the clutter the writer can’t see after so many weeks, months, or years with the material, and lets the essentials stand unobstructed.
As described in The New Yorker a couple of weeks ago, that’s what Gordon Lish did for Raymond Carver. Lish was Carver’s editor, first at Esquire and later at Knopf. Read the rest of this entry »
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January 7, 2008Fairly often, prospective clients want to see our rate structure before they even begin to discuss work with us. It’s reasonable of them: why spend time hashing out the details of a project if the consultant’s rates are completely out of line with what you can spend? And do they know if they’re asking for the right services?
For a long time we could say nothing to such clients except that the price of a writing or editing job can vary tremendously based on the details. What kind of professionals will we need to engage? What kind of work needs to be done, exactly? (See, for example, the common confusion that arises with the term “proofreading.”)
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December 28, 2007There are times when you have to shell out for premium software. For example, recently we discussed how useful InDesign has been to us, worth its hefty $700-per-user price tag.
But increasingly you can find a free version of whatever you need. Here are a few we use all the time. Read the rest of this entry »
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November 26, 2007As I’ve mentioned, we cover a lot of meetings and see a lot of presentations. We’re always interested in the ingredients for success.
Andy Goodman thinks he’s found them. The consultant with Cause Communications spells them out in his book Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes—and How to Ensure They Won’t Happen To Yours.
If you’re used to conventional presentations, it may be hard to picture yourself doing what he suggests. But here are some of his prescriptions for an attentive audience: Read the rest of this entry »
November 7, 2007The use of jargon often indicates a gap in thought, the equivalent of the question mark in the underpants gnomes’ business plan:
(From South Park)
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October 30, 2007Did you hear the one about ….?
Congregants of Rev. Tom Ambrose, of St. Mary and St. Michael Church in Trumpington, England, met in September to complain of several things about their vicar, most notably that he delivered the Christmas sermon last year (and several since then) using Microsoft PowerPoint.
From the Daily Mail (London), 9-4-07. Reported in News of the Weird .
October 26, 2007Nothing is more embarrassing to your organization—or more easily avoided—than an obvious, simple mistake:
…because she was afraid of loosing.
But the only way to avoid such mistakes is to expect that they will be there, and plan accordingly.
Read the rest of this entry »
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October 15, 2007Every editorial manager needs to assign staff members to conduct interviews. Some interview subjects, such as celebrities and accomplished writers, are almost sure-fire hits. Others, especially public officials, disappoint readers by trying to sound erudite but communicating little real information.
If you want to guarantee a good result, no matter how difficult the interview subject, give your interviewer these guidelines from journalistic authorities.
Posted in Writing and Editing 1 Comment »
October 12, 2007“Mr. Wolfe is in the middle of a fit.…He’s…tearing sheets out of a book and burning them. The book is the new edition, the third edition, of Webster’s New International Dictionary, Unabridged, published by the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts. He considers it subversive because it threatens the integrity of the English language.” –Rex Stout, Gambit
Why should we care about the integrity of the English language? Because words and numbers are the currency of daily life, and when we muddy the meaning of words we make it harder to transact business—in fact, harder to communicate with others on any level.
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October 10, 2007Professionals record meetings with multiple mikes, an audio mixer, and carefully calibrated levels. But if all your employees need is a backup tape to make sure they produce accurate minutes, you don’t need quality that high. Here’s what to buy:
Read the rest of this entry »
October 8, 2007Do you or your staff hate writing executive summaries?
You’re probably trying too hard. When writers struggle to summarize their reports, it’s usually because they jumped into drafting without an outline, or they wrote an outline that was too sketchy.
There’s a much easier way. It’s spelled out in How to Write, an extraordinarily helpful little book by Herbert and Jill Meyer that gives you a simple three-point process for writing a first draft: Read the rest of this entry »
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September 26, 2007This article originally appeared in the Editorial Advantage newsletter.
The session has been taped, and now it’s your job to produce a summary for those who missed the session, didn’t take notes, or just didn’t get it. The task of summarizing can be daunting; but once you learn how it’s done, you’ll be able to turn a 90-minute conference session into a publishable paper in an afternoon. Here are a few ways to make the process go smoothly:
September 26, 2007This article originally appeared in the Editorial Advantage newsletter.
Event organizers sometimes need a verbatim transcript of a speaker’s presentation or proceedings. Cece Whitaker, a professional transcriber, answers FAQs about ways to get a transcript prepared accurately, on time, for a reasonable price.
Q: What’s the best way to find a transcription service?
