Fellow independent Joanna Turlej pointed me to Trendwatching, an interesting site about – what else – trends. As you can imagine, the spotters at Trendwatching come up with new words all the time to describe the trends they see. They credit Faith Popcorn, probably most famous for coming up with the term cocooning, for the trick of combining two words related to the trend, as she apparently did with “manity,” referring to “male vanity.” Some of the interesting ones I ran across:

Trysumers: Transient, experienced consumers who become more daring in how and what they consume, trying out new flavours, destinations, services, etc.

Crowd clout: The clout that crowds can exercise to demand what they want.

Still made here: The comeback of all things local.

Checking the site also took me on a side trip to My Virtual Model, where you can create a model eerily similar to you and dress her up in clothes from H&M, Lands’ End and others. An amusing diversion!

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t use social networking sites to their full advantage. Perhaps that’s why I so appreciate something both Melcrum’s Communicators’ Network and MyRagan are doing: sending weekly e-mails with highlights of what’s going on, pointers to topical discussions and free downloads.

Actually, until Bell Canada was in doing repair work last week, I didn’t realize that it wasn’t normal for it to take forever to log in to the sites (especially MyRagan). So maybe now that the sites actually load quickly I’ll do a better job of checking in more frequently. Maybe. I still find that working to deadlines most of the time prevents little excursions just to see what’s going on.

I was catching up on my Bloglines feeds and came across some great advice from Seth Godin on building great web sites. I particularly liked this one, which mirrors how I feel about sites that use fancy Flash bits for no apparent reason other than they can do it and then hide the “skip intro” near the bottom of the screen:

“Many sites say ‘look at me.’ Your goal ought to be to say, ‘Here’s what you were looking for.’”

Number 8 is also inspiring, and applicable to many other fields (writing, garden design, home renovations…):

“If you hire a professional, hire a great one…10 mediocre website consultants working in perfect harmony can’t do the work of one rock star.”

A mailing sent this month by the Toronto chapter of IABC that would normally include the monthly newsletter, Communicator, instead contained a sheet of paper that said, “A new and improved Communicator is coming this fall.” The notice included this line:

“We believe the Communicator should contain information and strategies that help you achieve PR excellence every day.” (emphasis mine)

It’s true that communications includes PR, but one is not the same as the other. I don’t consider internal communications, my specialty, as anything like public relations. Does anyone else find this an odd statement for an organization for and about communications to make?

Thursday and Friday were spent in downtown Toronto at IABC’s two-day writing conference, which featured a number of well-known presenters who have wowed audiences at IABC’s international conferences. Here are some of the things I learned/was reminded of/realized/found notable:

• John Sturtevant said that the most important goal in writing is to be clear. Readers are thinking “Is there anything here of value?” Help them find the value by asking the questions they would. One of the best questions to answer is “So what?” The answer to this is the story readers want to hear. The best response you can get from readers is “I want to know more.”
• Don Ranly is passionate about good writing. (I had the privilege of introducing him, which was just a little out of my comfort zone, so it was good for me, I suppose!) Among the tips I took away from the two sessions he led: Find a person and use him/her to start your story, whatever it’s about. There’s no reason to ever be boring (For example, could this be any more boring? “On the morning of January 6, a major winter storm hit.”). People remember facts better when they are told in a feature style vs. the inverted pyramid (who, what, when, where, why all in the lead). Use similes and metaphors to liven your stories.
• Listening to my iPod on the train going back and forth, I was reminded that musicians are great at this. Two examples: “Pale as a lightbulb, hanging on a wire” (Tragically Hip) and “My love for you is deep as a coal mine” (Sam Roberts).
• Ann Wylie also has great advice for writers. Among the tips: Writing should deliver more gain (value or reward) with less pain (less effort required to read). Translate features of the product or program you’re talking about into advantages (why they are important) and benefits (what’s important to the reader), and lead with the benefits. Use the “skim test” on your writing, which means can the reader figure out the gist of your story by scanning the headline, subheads, list, photo cutlines etc.? The “palm test” is the online equivalent of the “dollar bill test” — a palm or bill placed over the copy should always encounter elements that break up the copy, such as headings, subheads, photos, pull quotes, lists, links and so on.
• I’ve done it before, but oh my, commuting is no picnic. I had to get up at 5:30 a.m. to walk my dog (under the stars, as it was still dark) before showering, dressing and rushing to catch a train. Wearing jeans and bare feet in my home office beats getting dressed up (ouch, even low heels are hard to wear for 10 hours). I knew this, but was reminded that I don’t like to rush to get to a certain place for a certain time every day.
• I do enjoy getting out and meeting new people. IABC conferences are great for this because your badge clearly identifies you as a communicator; all you have to do is introduce yourself.
• Transit authorities make assumptions that don’t help non-commuters. Exhibit A: On day #1, I could have caught an earlier train but the board inside the station said the eastbound train I wanted was on track 2. The train already in the station was on track 1. When it pulled out, I realized it too was eastbound. Regular commuters knew the train already in the station made every stop on the way to Toronto, while the next one was an express making no further stops. I still don’t know why it wasn’t listed as eastbound. Exhibit B: Switching from train to subway, I had to move out of the flow of commuters to first figure out how much the subway fare was, then count out my change, then merge into the traffic to get through the turnstile. One small sign attached to the fare box was all that showed the fare required. There didn’t seem to be an option if you didn’t have the right fare. Exhibit C: Getting off at the right subway stop, I couldn’t find any clear signage to tell me which direction I should exit; of course I chose the wrong one.

Overall, the two days were great and I highly recommend getting out and fine-tuning your skills at whatever kind of sessions are appropriate to what you do!

So I’m on the line with Bell Canada as we speak. We’ve had months of issues dating back a year, when Bell was supposed to dig up the phone line to get rid of noise on the line. In the meantime, Bell strung a “temporary” line to our neighbours phone. (Note to Bell: It would be nice if you had a card to leave with the neighbours saying what you are doing and why. Our neighbours had to come over and ask what was going on.)

Months passed, Bell forgot us and winter arrived so the ground was too hard to dig. So we waited. We had internal phone problems in March and a technician came. I asked about the other repair and found out the ticket had been closed as if all was taken care of. Supposedly it was reactivated. Spring passed, summer passed and here we are at fall. The temporary line seems to be gone although I never saw a technician and no digging ever happened. The line isn’t noisy any more but our so-called high speed Internet access acts as painfully slow as dial-up and it regularly cuts out; sounds like a line issue, don’t you think?

The Bell guy I’m talking to asked if I’ve called Sympatico. Not lately, I had to say, because they just are no help at all. It’s possible my voice was a little testy because “James” assured me a technician will be by today. All I have to do is wait around between now and 5 p.m.

I’m struggling a bit with what to do when contacted by someone I don’t know — say on LinkedIn or Melcrum’s Communicators’ Network — asking to add me as a contact.

On LinkedIn, you can edit the note sent to include some context (such as “we have this contact in common” or “this contact suggested you and I should connect”), which is helpful. Communicators’ Network just sends the request, so you are left puzzling out who the person is and why they have your name. The trigger seems to be having a contact in common, which you find out by visiting the person’s profile.

Now all you early adopters, is the point to add all your contact’s contacts to your own network, so yours grows ever larger (and presumably more impressive)? Or is your network generally made up of people you already know or have met (in person or online)?

I’ve ranted before about the bad things that happen to good quotes at the hands of executives, so I was pleased to see my sentiments echoed in an article (sorry, I tried to link to it but it may be one of those limited-time-access things) by the impassioned Steve Crescenzo in the latest Ragan’s Grapevine e-newsletter. In “When is a quote not a quote?,” Steve exclaims:

“Quotes are important! Words need to earn those wiggly marks! A quote should have to fight its way into a story. It needs to add something: perspective, humor, credibility, something. We can’t just slap the wiggly marks around a string of words and call it a quote!”

Unfortunately, that seems to happen all too often. Let’s make a pledge to fight the good fight for real words that say something!