The search for an alternate way to say “man hours” and “manhole covers” for an employee newsletter article (how about “work hours” and “sewer covers”?) got me looking again at the whole issue of gender neutral (or gender fair) language. Some people scoff at even calling it an issue, but I notice that most of [...]
Monthly Archives: April 2009
Cool promos
USB drives are useful. Mini highlighters are cute. There are magnets, keychains, stress balls, lanyards, mugs and sports bottles everywhere. But THESE are cool ways to promote your company (sadly, not available to Canadians): *Â Sharpie will personalize your pen — nothing hateful or obscene, please! — for $11.99 for six. Be inspired looking at [...]
Feeling Twittery
And there you have it – one of my pet peeves about Twitter. How every second word is turned into adaptations and variations of the word Twitter and the messages known as tweets. Your words go out into the Twitterverse or tweetstream. People are Tweeple or just Tweeps. The cool kids are the Twitterati. And [...]
Left hand, meet right hand
A card arrived yesterday the old fashioned way, in the mail with postage stamp and all. It was from my friends at the local Honda dealership. Since I have just closed the deal on a new car, I thought it might be a “thanks for buying our car” type of card. Silly me! It was [...]
Follow up to improve customer service
My recent car-hunting experience made me think. Why don’t companies follow up? It all began when I brought my car in to the dealership for routine servicing. The service advisor called to say the mechanic had suggested some additional work, some of it fairly expensive. “Here’s the thing,” I answered. “I was going to buy [...]
Avoid this gobbledygook
If ever there was encouragement to stay away from the overused word “unique” (not to mention “very unique”), here it is. At least 48,095 news releases used it in 2008. David Meerman Scott‘s analysis of 711,123 press releases distributed by North American companies last year displayed in alarming numbers just how “unique,” “world class,” “flexible” [...]
Words that sent me to the dictionary
Some writers are known for sprinkling unusual words throughout their copy. It becomes their style or maybe a familiar quirk, but I do think it puts up a barrier between writer and reader. If you have to stop reading to go look up the word, doesn’t that break the flow and stop readers in their [...]
Eat for the cure ’09
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is three times more common in the Canadian population than multiple sclerosis or HIV, and about as common as Type 1 diabetes. But you don’t hear as much about it because, well, who wants to talk about something that happens to your bowels? I’ve written before about IBD, specifically Crohn’s disease, [...]
Newsletters rock
In his recent Alertbox newsletter discussing how non-profit web sites can attract new donors (you’d think it would go without saying, but obviously not: it’s be clear about what you are trying to achieve, and tell potential donors how you are going to spend the money), Jakob Nielsen comments: “For encouraging customer (or donor) loyalty, [...]
