Did you celebrate Earth Hour on Saturday night? Here’s what went on in my house:

All lights off. Both computers off and power bars off. Several “vampire” appliances (you know, the ones with the ready lights that keep sucking up power while waiting at standby) off. Played board games by candlelight (skunked by my son at both). Checked the neighbours and saw their lights all appeared to be on. Checked the starry sky to find no real difference, since all the street lights were on. After the board games ended, we turned on the TV to watch the end of the NHL hockey game.

I’m guessing there wasn’t a huge drop in energy consumption here, but apparently downtown Toronto saw it drop 5.2%. And there were sure a lot of lights off! Still no comparison to Sydney, Australia, where the idea took shape: electricity consumption fell 10.2% and 2.2 million people took part.

Some people wonder what was the whole point, but I think it’s done a great job of increasing awareness that we all have the power to make a difference.

I’ve been playing with the grammar function in Word after a reminder from the Publication Coach, Daphne Gray-Grant. By paying attention to things like words per sentence (aim for an average of 14 or less), passive sentences (no more than 10%) and Flesch-Kincaid grade level (grade 9 or less), you can make your writing easier to understand.

You will meet with resistance, but be strong. The other day I sent off an employee newsletter article for approval. The fellow, who in conversation had been clear, straightforward and human, sent back his changes. Introducing a lot of $10 words and taking much longer to say passively what he had originally said took the article from a grade 8 reading level to a grade 10. Readability also tanked. I countered with a simplified version of his changes but I don’t know yet if he’ll go for it.

I also used the grammar function on an awful internal announcement a friend sent me. The writer was an HR person, who began the three-page reorganization announcement with a 48-word sentence – nearly 3.5 times the recommended length. (That wasn’t the longest, either. Another one stretched 57 words.)

He threw out comments about “major initiatives” that resulted in a “divestment of assets” and a “more attractive return on the investments made.” Further on, he mentions “necessary personnel actions” that included “the transfer or layoff of employees.” All this just sets the stage. It isn’t until the fifth paragraph that the announcement finally gets to the point: two people are leaving, or as it first says, “will no longer be associated with” the company. Three other people are going to co-chair a team “on a quarterly rotation,” which my friend tells me is the short-term plan until person 3 also leaves.

The grammar summary:

• Average words per sentence: 29.7 (aim should be 14)
• Passive sentences: 26% (aim: no more than 10%)
• Flesch reading ease: 24.3 (aim: 60% or better)
• Flesch-Kincaid grade level: 12 (aim: grade 9 or less)

Do you suppose the writer wanted the copy to be so dense most people wouldn’t understand it? Yeah, I think so too.

The signs are small, but growing. As I navigate the ice and snow that STILL cover much of the ground, birds are singing. I spotted a cardinal on my walk with Jake this morning, and a robin perched on the rail of my deck. The past three mornings, Jake and I have passed a mallard and his lady love, swimming in a creek swollen with melted snow.

The Toronto Star has invited readers to send in photos that show spring is truly on its way, and there is a great collection of birds, raccoons, migrating swans, squirrels and more here. Enjoy!

March 26, 1978 was a Sunday - Easter Sunday, in fact. I was awake but still in bed when the doorbell rang. It must have been something like 7 a.m. so my parents and I knew that something was wrong; we arrived at the door at the same time, throwing on robes. There was a police officer standing there, cap in hand. My sister, 24 years old and just one year older than me, had been killed in a fire.

Grief affects people in ways you cannot imagine until you experience it. I found it wiped out entire tracks of memory, like a defective tape or a DVD that hits a scratch and repeats a scene or suddenly skips to the next. I have no memory of getting dressed and going to church while my parents went to identify the body, but I recall sitting in the pew. I have no memory of getting to the funeral, but I do know the church was full. I have no memory of who was there. I have no memory of talking to anyone.

By chance this week a library hold came through: Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, in which she recounts the sudden death of husband John Gregory Dunne and the year that followed. (A good book, by the way.) She says:

“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it…In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be ‘healing.’ …We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place…We anticipate needing to steel ourselves for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue…Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.”

Joan was blonde, blue-eyed, attractive, lively, fun. She had lots of friends and always had boyfriends. We shared a room until she went to university. She became a dietitian and had her own apartment, and we had been talking about me moving in with her. I am both sad and kind of mad that I didn’t get the chance, that she did not have the joy of walking down the aisle with the man of her dreams, did not get to be part of my wedding party, did not get to be a doting aunt to my two boys or have children of her own.

There are a lot of people in my life right now who don’t know about Joan. I can talk about her with others who knew her, but I’ve been unable to introduce the idea of having and then not having a sister without choking up. Yes, even after 30 years. Now that you know, feel free to mention her, or to give me a hug.  And if you have a sister, be sure to give her a hug too.

From Encarta’s top 10 business buzzwords:

• Delayering: A newer, more PC term for “rightsizing,” a.k.a. downsizing. Potato, potahto. It’s still a layoff.
• Narcissurfing: Googling yourself to see where, when and how often you show up on the Internet.
• Al desko: To save time, I often dine al desko, usually after five minutes of microwaiting. (In other words, I eat at my desk after heating up lunch in the microwave.)

From Word Spy, a web site “devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases” that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, web sites and other recorded sources:

• Lifestreaming: An online record of a person’s daily activities, either via direct video feed or aggregating the person’s online content such as blog posts, social network updates and online photos.
• Clickstream: The path taken through a web site or multiple sites.

Well, I tried, I really did. While proofreading a section of a newsletter I had written, I glanced through other sections and flagged this: A person quoted in an article about the switch of IT support to a call centre in India calls the staff “a well-trained, highly incented and duly rewarded group of employees.” UGH! I understand the intent, as the perpetrator explained: “Highly incented in this case means they work in a competitive environment where the high performers are rewarded both as individuals and in teams.”  But really, don’t you think the word “motivated” might be a little more attractive?

By pure coincidence, I had encountered incent earlier in the day, in a list of top 10 business buzzwords at Encarta:

Incent: A nonword that is often used in business as a verb. Instead of creating incentives, management types may try to incent their team to sell more by offering – you guess it – incentives.

For some reason, I can more easily stomach the other commonly verbed words given as examples: text (”Hey, text me the address”) and Google (”I googled him before the first date”). But incent is right up there with win/win and its evil cousin, win/win/win, as something I can’t bring myself to say. I’m sorry to say it’s going to appear in my client’s newsletter though.

Writers love to interview someone who speaks naturally, compares a complex topic or object to something others can relate to and isn’t afraid to share personal feelings or thoughts. It just makes the whole writing process a whole lot easier. In the corporate world, you are more likely to get someone who thinks big words make the speaker sound more intelligent, peppers the conversation with technical terms and acronyms, and probably doesn’t even admit to having feelings. So how do you pull out the kind of information that makes for an interesting article?

During a conference call with a client last week, writer and publication coach Daphne Gray-Grant shared some great tips (more on her Web site in “The art of the interview“):

• Come right out and ask, “How did you feel?”
• For those who won’t talk feelings, make assumptive statements, such as “That must have been frustrating/exciting/nerve-wracking…”
• Give a little push: “Would you say that’s like…?”
• Take the person back to a specific time by asking things like, “When did you know this product/project would be a success?”
• Ask the person to compare the topic/product/project to something, or ask how he/she would describe it to a child.
• Probe and be persistent in collecting stories/anecdotes/images.
• Try not to use superlatives. If asked for an example of the best or worst, people have to think too hard. Instead, ask for an example: “What were some of the problems?”

I usually end my own interviews with something like this: “Is there anything we haven’t talked about that’s important to include in this article?” Quite often that pulls out an interesting comment or an important perspective, or underlines something that may end up being a good place to start the article.

What are your tips for interview success?

Here’s some of what’s been going on behind the scenes of the happy freelancer:

• I had a last-minute panic call from a client. An executive did not like an employee newsletter article written by a junior staff writer. Could I listen to a taped conversation with the exec and rewrite? For the next day? I did so, sending off the rewrite with fingers crossed. Article approved with no changes.
• Following up with people you’ve been asked to interview draws a fine line between persistence and harassment. I’ve left weekly messages for one fellow and just can’t get anywhere. Since this week is March break, I’ll assume he’s away and try again Monday. After that, I’ll have to get my client contact involved.
• While editing a draft produced by someone else, I removed one of my pet peeves: “On behalf of myself and XYZ Company…”. Please, if YOU are speaking, that covers the “myself” part. All you need to say is “On behalf of XYZ Company.”
• This week, on various days I’ve enjoyed the freedom and flexibility that comes with freelancing to take my mother and son #2 out for lunch, take son #2 snowboarding, get groceries in the middle of the day when stores are quiet, pick up some books, take both sons for  lunch before a university tour and of course walk the dog every day.

What’s going on in your freelance life?

While taking Son #2 and a friend to a local ski hill to go snowboarding yesterday, I was struck by two brilliant (well, I thought so!) marketing ideas that I hope someone will turn into reality:

1. Wi fi at ski hills.
Normally I would be skiing while the boys were snowboarding, but I had writing to do and a conference call to sit in on at 3 p.m. So instead of being out there, I was inside the restaurant at the chalet with my laptop. Not wanting to run down the battery (and unsure how long it would last anyway), I searched out an electrical outlet and plugged in. Beside me, another mom had a book and a DVD player, on which she later watched a movie. Scattered at other outlets at various times during the day were other people, clearly working or passing the time while their offspring were out on the slopes. It struck me that there is a market here that would welcome wireless access to the Internet. Why not a wi fi café at every ski hill?

2. Gas station finder
On the way to the ski hill, which was about a two-hour drive from home, I kept my eye on the gas tank, as I had not had a chance to fill up the day before. With highway driving, we were running on fumes by the time I dropped off the boys. I asked several people in the parking lot if they knew where to find a nearby gas station, but they were all visitors, like me. The parking lot attendant thought maybe I could find one north off the next highway exit or maybe I would have to drive 10 minutes south; he wasn’t sure. So I set off trying to think positive thoughts (I will have enough gas to get me there) vs. panicky what-to-do thoughts (There’s a lot of traffic, if I run out someone will help, or I’ll call CAA). I did eventually find a gas station, but what I would have liked was a phone number to call that would tell me where to find the nearest one. Does CAA or AAA offer this service? If so, they don’t market it! If not, they should!

Today I found Marci Alboher’s New York Times blog Shifting Careers, which highlights “the newfangled ways we are custom-blending careers, and shares tips for doing it better.” Check out the post about the “Web 2.0 résumé,” which includes a YouTube video and Googlepages, but do continue on and read the comments.

As some of the commenters note, this may be great for applying for a “Web 2.0″ position (whatever that might be), but the traditional résumé is not dead yet. As my colleague and résumé guru Martin Buckland says, “If a résumé is read by a human [rather than electronically scanned, as is increasingly the case], it is first viewed for less than 30 seconds.” It may be difficult if not impossible to get someone to switch from looking through papers to checking out your video. Sure, have your “social media” version ready if needed, but the more critical step may be to ensure your traditional résumé includes links to your blog, web site, LinkedIn profile, and other online presence.

Well, that’s my opinion, but in all fairness you should know that I haven’t had to use a résumé for some time.

And thanks to Judy Gombita for the link!