On Words and Business

Why is business writing often dull?  The what and who of any business is communicated via the written word, so maybe it’s time to be interesting about it.

In What’s Your Point? Jason Fried gives a few examples of exceptions to the rule, and some hints about what makes good business writing good.

• Be original
• Care about how your product or service is described
• Use buzzwords and jargon sparingly if you must use them at all
• Let the business’s personality shine through
• Tell an original story

Cut This Story!

An argument that the format of newspaper stories is part of what is killing the industry. Interesting theory.

Check out this blog by writer and psychologist Susan K. Perry: Creating in Flow

The topics stem from her curiosity about how the best writers’ create.

Unlock your own creativity…

Freakonomics…you read the book (and enjoyed it, I hope). Now read the blog.

I can’t wait to read SuperFreakonomics, the new book by this amazing team.

The cover story in this week’s Publisher’s Weekly is about an interesting new way to publish books and still make money. Counterintuitively, it includes giving away a free e-book. It also includes some pretty creative ways to monetize the effort. But it isn’t all about the book.

Maybe it isn’t all about the book anywhere anymore. Maybe it never will be again.

Good luck to Cory Doctorow. I hope is experiment is wildly successful!

The Nieman Journalism Lab.

Interesting stuff.