I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
Read, subscribe to my newsletter, enjoy!Tash
Most annual reports contain the same general information year after year.
Whether it is an introduction, history of the business, outlining products, naming directors or key staff, there are sections of an annual report that don’t change much over the years.
Repeat the wording?
The fastest option therefore is to use exactly the same wording in those sections every year, just changing small details as necessary. The freshest option would be to rewrite all those sections.
There are pros and cons to both options, such as:
if you assume most people don’t read annual reports from cover to cover, and probably don’t remember last year’s report in depth anyway, not changing the words would probably escape attention from the majority of people
repeating the wording not only saves you time rewriting the content but also in gathering feedback and approvals on it – it was approved last year so will meet the criteria this year too (if major style changes have occurred, copying old content isn’t an option!)
it looks a bit slack and old to anybody who does notice the wording hasn’t changed
it is easy to make errors when you assume ‘oh it was ok last year so I’ll just skim read this bit’ and miss the reference to ‘our new office’ a year later or forget to update 2012-11 to 2011-12.
content from the annual report can be copied and used elsewhere because it is approved, public information. Updating the content each year is a nice way to update basic information in numerous places so your profile is kept fresh and interesting
depending on how your annual report is presented online, you could end up with what appears to be duplicate content on your site (if four pdfs are all 33% the same, for example, there will be a lot of repetition). Search engines do not like duplicate content and can penalise your site for it
staff can get bored rereading the same words – new content gives them fresh wording to utilise in presentations and on phone calls, too
So what do you think – would you be unhappy getting an annual report that was largely the same as last year’s? Would you even notice?
It gives the host blog some control over the standard of posts accepted. The host blogger can accept great post ideas and make sure they read well.
Specific policies are more effective
Many blog policies include something like
All guest blog posts may be edited before publishing.
As a potential guest blogger, that makes me nervous. What will they edit? Will they tell me they have edited it before it is published? What if their edits include poor grammar/expression so it looks like I made those mistakes?
As a host blogger, I would feel uncomfortable taking advantage of such a policy and making huge changes to someone else’s post. I would also start to think it would have been easier to write my own post on the topic!
I prefer a more specific policy, such as
Guest blog posts may be edited for spelling and basic grammar.
For full transparency and relationships building, I would add an extra sentence, too:
We will get your approval on any edits other than typo corrections
If you’re submitting guest posts, which blog would you choose if the only difference was in their editing policies?
I spent the weekend camping with 50 Scouts (from 6-year-old Joeys to 17-year-old Venturers). We had a lot of fun, completed many activities and came home exhausted!
With such a diverse age range, not to mention the range of personalities and other abilities, it could be challenging to keep them all involved and engaged.
As leaders, we could have said lets learn how to cook in a fire and use a compass. Instead, fitting with our Harry Potter theme, we created choc-orange cauldrons and searched for the Philosophers Stone.
When a little more time was needed to prepare something, I could have asked the kids to wait patiently or run across the oval to burn energy. Instead I said “Sarah and Wil, see if you can run across to the tower and back before anyone can catch you”. They all ran off, had fun and didn’t notice the delay for preparation.
Communicating via sorting hat
The best example, however, was putting the Scouts into groups for the weekend. Any other time, we might just read out a list of names and leave it at that. This time, each scout was called up to greet the sorting hat and have it decide on their group. Yes it took longer but there were no complaints nor restless kids as they loved the process.
HOW we presented the activities and our messages was important in making the weekend a success – the WHAT was important too but would have been less effective on its own.
Applied to business
A Harry Potter theme and changing ordinary activities into those with exciting names won’t help in most business situations. But the concept of adjusting a message to suit the situation is perfect for anyone, including businesses and websites.
You have a key message you want people to hear, so you may as well present your message in a way that maximises how many people will listen to it.
There are many ways to adjust your presentation, but here are a few to get you started:
put it as a question rather than a statement
add some humour
choose the words and tone to suit – perhaps more formal or casual, simple words or more sophisticated vocabulary
use a short and to-the-point version on Twitter but a friendly and more questioning version in Facebook
can the background be livened up to catch interest? For example, I’ve printed flyers on blue paper rather than white to put into conference goodie bags
Of course, to tailor your message effectively, you need to understand your audience. On camp, we knew we were talking to active 6 to 17 year-olds who wanted to have fun and be involved. Our techniques wouldn’t have worked so well if we’d had 50 4-year-olds or a group of business men on a team building exercise.
So how well do you know the target audience for your business? Well enough to adjust your message to suit? Well enough to tailor your message for different segments of your audience (e.g. those on Twitter compared to those attending a workshop)?
I spent a lot of time yesterday running around and throwing balls at kids (mostly during games of poison ball with Cub and Joey Scouts) so this pair of words came to mind for today’s Monday Meanings. It’s certainly a pair of words that would look very strange when used in the wrong way.
Throne [noun]: a seat reserved for use by a monarch; a large, ornate or imposing seat Everyone stood as the Queen approached her throne. A giant throne dominated the grass near the car park.
Thrown [verb – past participle of throw]: having propelled an object through the air, generally by an abrupt arm or hand movement; caused a fall; confused (common speech use) The ball was thrown five times before Jack could catch it. The cowboy was thrown from his horse when a snake crossed the path. “I was thrown by the word buoy in that sentence,” she said.
If you need a way to tell these words apart, remember that a throne is for one special person.
I have just read a great article* by Amy Birchall about social media being used to predict the future.
A researcher at Illinois University, Kalev Leetaru, was able to ‘predict’ events such as the Libyan revolution, Osama bin Laden’s location and the Arab spring revolts by monitoring conversations and trends on Twitter. (This made me think of the TV show Person of Interest which is based on a machine predicting the future!)
Extrapolating from that and other observations, the article discusses how social media can be used in many fields to predict things – giving warning to health authorities about epidemics for instance could be very important. Obviously, marketers and advertisers are interested by this as they can predict trends and position themselves accordingly.
It has also pointed out how valuable it can be to target the right (read influential) people can be. The example given was to immunise 96% of people for community immunity – or immunise the most connected 30% for similar results. In business terms, work at promoting yourself to 96% of your market, or to the 30% that influences the rest of the market.
With hash tags and various data monitoring and mining platforms available, it is possible to use social media to research your market and tailor marketing to suit. Have you used social media to decide on a strategy or campaign? Do you think it helped you make good decisions?
* I would love to link to the article for you but I can not find it online – Management Today does have a website and lists a number of articles but not this one unfortunately. I could upload a photocopy of the article but that would breach copyright so I won’t!
If you have gone to the effort of creating some procedures, you want to have your team make use of them.
Let’s face it, many of us have tried putting together an Ikea unit before reading the instructions – often to use them later. But we don’t want that happening to the procedures we spend time on writing to benefit our businesses.
Here are four tips for encouraging use of your procedures:
when presenting them (for instance, if emailing it out to your team), sell the benefits.
Would you respond better to ‘procedure you must use’ or ‘record sales data quickly’?
lay out each procedure clearly and neatly
if it looks easy to read and follow, people are much more likely to use procedures so use the basics of good procedures such as lists rather than paragraphs, decent size fonts and short instructions (‘hit submit’ not ‘use your mouse to click on the submit button’)
make the procedures easy to find
if you have a shared computer area (intranet or a shared folder somewhere) or a physical shelf or cupboard, put the procedures there so everyone can always access to most recent version. For specific equipment, keep the procedures nearby – I don’t want to have to visit the main office to use the machinery in the workshop. Then make sure procedures are named clearly so it’s easy to find the relevant procedure when it is needed.
keep procedures up to date
imagine following a procedure that has an old password or refers to an old version of software (especially a major change so steps have changed) – it’s very frustrating. Let people get frustrated with your procedures and they’re less likely to refer to it again. Most updates are quick but if it is a big change and will take time, note that on the existing procedure so at least people know to expect changes and that a new version is coming.
What makes you use any procedures you find helpful?
Despite the similarity in spelling for today’s words, they have very different meanings.
contemn: [verb] scorn, disregard, feel contempt for He seems to take price in his ability to contemn new performers.
contemplate: [verb] consider, envisage and observe consistently about a likely or probably action or outcome A wise person will contemplate all options before making an important decision.
The word contemn is not used a lot, but some people question whether it was the intended word in line two of The Ode (part of For The Fallen by Laurence Binyon and used in ANZAC and other remembrance services around the world):
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
help you make decisions
For example, if your policy is to be wholly Australian, it is easy to decide against international advertisers
save people asking you questions
Policies stating you don’t have advertising or guest blog posts mean fewer people will ask if you will accept their ad or post
reduce arguments
A no profanity policy is all you need to point out after editing the swearing out of someone’s comment or guest blog post
give comfort to someone looking for information about your and your business
For instance, if you offer lessons to children, I will trust you more to see your blog is family friendly and moderated
add to your professionalism
A policy shows you have thought about your blog and what it represents.
Have you made decisions about any blogs based on their policies?
How do you like to be updated about new blog posts from your favourite posts?
You can just visit the blog regularly in the hope of finding new posts and not missing anything good, or you can make use of technology to let you know about new posts:
RSS feed will collate all new posts from your listed blogs in one place
tweets from the blogger
an email sent from the blog
Facebook, Google + or linkedIn status updates
links in the blogger’s newsletters
updates from places like Google Alerts and Wotnews
Does your preference change for different types of blogs or different frequency of posts?
Theory has its place, but an example often makes learning something much easier. In many areas, an example of a mistake or poor quality is an even more effective teacher than examples of the correct technique.
Or I can give an example: Leave as long as possible before proof reading your writing.
Or I can show you a bad example: Another effective way to increase the possibility of increasing your link building purposes… Then explain the issues with it and write it well: Another effective way of potentially increasing your incoming links…
Does it work for you?
Do you like seeing poor examples of something as a means of learning to avoid those same mistakes yourself?
The bad examples I use are real but I never identify who wrote them – if you searched hard enough you might figure it out, but I respect that the writers didn’t mean to provide us with bad examples and use discretion 🙂
I think it is an effective way of showing how to write well – but do you find it useful? Would you like to see more bad examples I spot to help you improve your writing?
I spent the weekend 
You can just visit the blog regularly in the hope of finding new posts and not missing anything good, or you can make use of technology to let you know about new posts:
Recent Comments