Writing for the web? Plan on impatient readers
“Write for impatient users.” If you take nothing else away from the latest study done by web usability expert Jakob Nielsen, that would be it. While Nielsen was specifically looking at how teens navigate online, you could make the case that everyone is...
Are you keeping in touch with clients?
The client put my business card on his desk. He had held onto it since 2003, after we had worked together on a safety newsletter. That’s right, since 2003. I was stunned. As a writer, I’m thrilled to be invited to quote on new projects with someone I have...
Six things I’ve learned in six years of blogging
Six years and 578 posts. Considering my awful track record of journaling (often months between posts!), I guess that’s not too bad. Since starting this blog in 2007, I’ve tried to share things I’ve learned or observed, including experiences with...
Show your personality! Ask Google; people love it
Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were going to the Burning Man festival in Nevada in 1998. For fun, they decided to draw a stick figure behind the Google logo, just in case, as “chief Doodler” Dennis Hwang says, “the site crashed and...
Networking queen shows IABC how it’s done
Donna Messer works a room like nobody else. Members and guests of IABC/Toronto’s Professional Independent Communicators (PIC) saw first-hand why Donna is known as the Queen of Networking. If any of us expected a traditional PowerPoint presentation, we quickly found...
A newsletter for the ‘shoemaker’s’ daughter
As the new year gets underway, advice abounds on how to keep the resolutions that are going to make this year the best ever. One of the most effective tactics, apparently, is to tell people what you’re going to do. So let it be known that I am launching my own...
Sadly, banning the words doesn’t seem to work
Bless the folks at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, MI. Every year for 38 years, they have tried — in vain, for the most part — to banish the top annoying, misused and overused words creeping into common use. You know it’s a futile...
The best of the Red Jacket Diaries in 2012
Thank you, dear reader, for stopping by the Red Jacket Diaries in 2012! Here are the 10 most-viewed posts this year: The annual National Punctuation Day throws out another challenge A recap of the contest for the worst opening sentence ever (following in the footsteps...