On Words and Business

Ahhh…now that Memorial Day has passed, a reader’s thoughts turn to a list (or pile, as you prefer) of books to read for the summer.

Starting off my summer is The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson. This book is, as described on the back cover, laugh-out-loud funny. The woman who sat next to me on the plane yesterday can attest to my occasional and, I would imagine, startling outbursts of laughter. This man is a literary genius.

A little taste

“The slowest place of all in my corner of the youthful firmament was the large cracked-leather dental chair of Dr. D. K. Brewster, our spooky, cadaverous dentist, while waiting for him to assemble his instruments and get down to business. There time didn’t move forward at all. It just hung.

“Dr. Brewster was the most unnerving dentist in America. He was, for one thing, about 108 years old and had more than a hint of Parkinsonism in his wobbly hands. Nothing about him inspired confidence. He was perennially surprised by the power of his own equipment. ‘Whoa!‘ he’d say as he briefly enlivened some screaming device or other. ‘You could do some damage with that, I bet.’

“Worse still, he didn’t believe in novocaine…”

1. Take it slow and build up a base, by repeated and brief communications. This became very clear to me when I was up all night trying not to scratch the sun rash my winter white skin got from being out all day in the bright sunshine for the first time.

2. If it’s timed right and the content is roughly what’s expected, the message, and the writing, doesn’t have to be perfect. Think: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Not the greatest movie ever written, but exactly what one expects, and wants, in a summer blockbuster (minus the ants, that is).

3. Keep marketing on a regular schedule. Yesterday, the Red Sox finally broke their on-the-road losing streak. So…keep trying. With marketing, like everything else, if it isn’t working make small changes until it does. Second…you can’t win all the time, and you’re not supposed to. (And if you are, you’re probably not challenging yourself enough.) So get used to not winning over every prospect, and let it spur you on to make the next contact an even better one.

Enjoy your summer.

And remember…whether it’s a day with an unbelievably blue clear sky, a brooding summer thunderstorm, or one of those nondescript muggy, gloomy days, the day still has something to offer if you look closely enough.

If I had two kids, Blogging and Freelancing, Freelancing would get a little bit more of my attention. She’s a bit more serious and sometimes would need a little extra TLC to understand how important she is. She would need extra help with her homework, but hate to ask for it. Blogging would be an independent young woman and I would take advantage of that, in a way. I would love her, of course, but probably have to think hard to remember if she had come home from school yet and was just upstairs on her computer.

Thoughts on sucky writing skills in the business world, from Peter Bowerman.

Is this really good news for those of us who write for others for a living? Or is it bringing the average down?

I would imagine the trend is transparent, even for those who aren’t professional communicators. But since I’m a professional communicator and think about these kinds of things, I don’t really know if that’s true.

Is it? Do you feel that communication skills, writing especially, have gone downhill, and that it’s affecting competitiveness? And what is your perspective–professional communicator or not?