Write It Well

“Finance and clean technology—alternative energy, energy efficiency, the smart grid, etc.—are two vital industries centered on opposite sides of the country. Finance is New York, suits, and golf. Cleantech is San Francisco, khakis, and bicycling. The cultural differences between the two industries can also be seen in the attitude they have toward government intervention in, and assistance to, their markets….

“It’s common to hear bankers complain about the onerous terms of the TARP and how many banks didn’t really need it. The same folks, however, downplay the positive impact of other policies – the FDIC boosting deposit guarantees, the government guaranteeing the commercial paper market, the taxpayers standing behind the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Fed’s zero-interest policy—that have allowed the banks to survive and even thrive in a tough environment. They’re like people who show up at a restaurant, chow down at the cheap all-you-can-eat buffet, and then complain that there wasn’t any pudding.”

– Daniel Gross, “Wall Street vs. Cleantech: How to tell a West Coast businessman from an East Coast businessman,”

Slate Magazine, September 16, 2009

Here’s a typo we found on the Slate website. The author uses dashes correctly, but someone typed one dash differently from the others, before “the FDIC.” Consistency matters, but there is more than one way to type this kind of dash.

First, hyphens are shorter than en dashes, which are shorter than em dashes. Here they are in a row:

It’s become standard to use any of these three punctuation marks to indicate a dash:

All these methods are correct, though the last two look more professional. The important thing is to pick one way to type a dash – whatever way you prefer – and use it consistently.

For more tips about dashes, see Write It Well’s book Professional Writing Skills: A Self-Paced Training Program.

Smashing Magazine recently published a list of ten truths most corporate websites don’t want to face. I found Harsh Truth Number Five most interesting: “You are wasting your money on social networking.”

Not that social networking isn’t effective for corporations. As Paul Boag writes, “Tweeting on a corporate account or posting sales demonstrations on YouTube misses the essence of social networking. Social networking is about people engaging with people. Individuals do not want to build relationships with brands and corporations.”

How can a business use social networking tools effectively? Boag encourages companies to let their employees blog or tweet independently. With a few guidelines on acceptable content, employees can give their companies a personal, networked presence on the Internet.