Write It Well

U.S. Cellular has taken an interesting approach to solving the email challenge.

There is no doubt that e-mail has enhanced communication but it has also created barriers to effective communication.  U.S. Cellular decided to turn it off one day each week. Results were mixed but at least one person’s work-around resulted in truly enhanced communcation.  Read more and tell us what you think.

Last week, Geoff Nunberg was on NPR’s “Fresh Air” with a piece about texting.  He offers an optimistic view that the text messaging language will stay within the texting world.  Our view at Write It Well is not so optimistic. We’ve seen the erosion of the English language and are here to offer tools for those folks who might have strayed.

We are not the only company that is talking about the need to write better e-mail.  Check out, on Brian Kondradt’ site, Lousy Writer.  He has a terrific article about all the reasons that you should take the time make e-mail work for you. 

A client came to us with a story that we hear all the time now.  Their sales teams and consultants will be on the road more and e-mail HAS to work better.  In our E-Mail Effectiveness workshop tomorrow, we’ll focus on these things:

• Establish e-mail guidelines.  Make sure that everyone is on the same page about how to use e-mail to communicate.
• Focus on reducing volume so that the important messages get the attention they deserve.  Avoid “reply all” at all costs. 
• Don’t forget about the phone.  E-mail is not always the best tool for the job. 
• Maintain a professional image.  Write clear, concise, grammatically correct e-mails all the time.  You never know where your e-mail might end up. 

We presented our half-day e-mail workshop to the senior leadership of a major healthcare organization in Atlanta, GA in March, 2008.  The workshop focused on helping people get their message across clearly, use the right tone, craft effective subject lines, save and find e-mail messages, and reduce e-mail risks. 

It was great to work with a group of people who communicate with eachother all day long because e-mail is systemic.  In other words, if you send fewer e-mails, you will receive fewer e-mails.  If you send high quality e-mails, you’re likely to recieve higher quality e-mails too. 

Today we receieved a note from a participant thanking us again for the workshop.  He said that he is, in fact, receiving fewer e-mails than he was prior to the workshop.  Now he has more time to focus on providing excellent healthcare to patients.  Bravo!

Why do we buy things from other people?  I found a product that I liked (a software program) and wanted to get more informaiton about it to determine whether it would serve my needs and if I could afford it.  I had a very positive sales experience so I took some time to think about what it was that made the sales experience so enjoyable. 

A lot of it had to do with the salespersons’ written communication skills. 

• He was a persuasive writer.  That means that he thought about the my point of view and what I care about.
• He answered ALL of my questions.
• His writing was professional.  That means that he used active language, made sure that there were no type-os, no grammatical mistakes, and no incomplete sentences. 
• He gave me the right amount of information – not too much—and told me how to get more if I need it.
• He paid attention to detail.  For example, in his e-mails to me, he included a complete signature, a compelling and descriptive subject line, and formatted the message so that it was easy to read.

Attention to detail paid off.  Keep in mind that we buy things from people who communicate effectively.  Take the time to make sure that your message is on target and professional.  Your hard work will pay off. 

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report called “Writing, Teens, and Technology.”  In brief, the report finds that ”teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.” 

More and more professionals are entering the workforce without the ability to express themselves clearly in writing. According to The National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, schools and colleges today neglect writing and, as a result, college graduates enter the workforce with poor writing skills.

We agree with Pew’s survey participants; writing is a fundamental business skill. In fact, a recent survey by the Commission found that half of all companies assess writing skills during the hiring process and when making promotion decisions.  That’s reason enough to improve your business writing skills today. 

Do you remember when we wrote press releases, printed them, stuffed them into envelopes, and mailed them? Now we write them, format them for the screen, and send them electronically. Write It Well’s new release is posted on PR Web where business editors interested in stories about business communications today will find it.

Electronic dissemination means that we can get the news out much faster. That’s good news. The bad news is that members of the press get a lot more news than they used to. How do we get their attention?

Getting their attention is the cornerstone of our writing skills training programs (books, onsite training, online training): always state your main point clearly at the beginning of the message.

Think about the journalistic triangle (an inverted triangle) which is described in our book, E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide, p. 20. Newspaper editors know that people often scan only the headline and first part of an article. They also know that the final paragraph or two might need to be chopped off to save space. That’s why they answer their readers’ most improtant question right at the beginiing. We need to keep that in mind when we’re writing to editors too.

Keep the journalistic triangle in mind when you write. Putting the most important information first gets the main point across right away and gives readers a context for the details that are coming.

We hope that you’ll read our entire press release but if you stop after the first paragraph, we hope you got the most important message!

Notice anything new today? That’s right, we’ve changed our site. New look. New features. Faster. One hundred percent organic. Let us know what you think.