by Sue Horner | Aug 11, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
What’s the best practice for sending an internal newsletter – from the CEO, “Internal Communications,” the head of the Communications department or someone else? That was a question that came up this week. I don’t know of any definitive best practices related to who...
by Sue Horner | Jul 20, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Sometimes, it takes longer for people to read your words than you took to write them. I’m talking about the abyss called the “approval process,” which swallows your articles, reports, web copy and other writing that will – eventually – appear in public. This is fresh...
by Sue Horner | Jun 22, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
“How many words can you read on a computer screen before you start drifting off or your eyes start burning?” asks journalist, magazine editor and internal communications manager Rachel Ifans. Rachel calls print the best medium for long-form journalism (which you may...
by Sue Horner | May 24, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
“Never assume anybody knows anything.” That’s Lesterism #1, a truth about communications from Les Potter, ABC, International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Fellow, and a senior lecturer at Towson University in Maryland. Les explains, “Organizations are...
by Sue Horner | Mar 8, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Whether your organization has five people or 50,000, there is no “silver bullet” that will solve all your communication challenges. And despite the shiny toys of the digital age, panelists at an IABC event on Feb. 28 agreed that old-school listening, talking to...
by Sue Horner | Aug 23, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
One of the best mission statements I’ve ever run across was framed as instructions in the managing editor’s office of the Rocky Mountain News (which folded in 2009): “Get the news. Tell the truth. Don’t be dull.” Companies spend serious...
by Sue Horner | Jun 1, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
A campaign described in The New York Times last week got me thinking about how writers can contribute to safety awareness. The article reported that roadway deaths are on the rise, and we need to stop calling the reason accidents. Writer Matt Richtel quotes “safety...
by Sue Horner | Apr 19, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
What I write for employee newsletters and other content often involves explaining dense, complicated and potentially boring subjects. Yet a client once paid me this huge compliment: that among my strengths is the “ability to find the human angle in any...
by Sue Horner | Mar 25, 2015 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
How do companies communicate with their employees these days, when so many don’t have a desk or a computer? How do you reach those who work in a mine, in the cab of a delivery van, on the sales floor? Since it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a...
