Marketing

28 January 2015

Your Flowing Twitter Stream

On a recent camping trip, my pal Bill called out to me with some urgency. “Hey Rich! Come take a look at this!”

He was pointing to something floating in a nearby stream, swollen from the spring melt. However, by the time I made my way to the stream, whatever it was had floated on by, out of sight.

“Oh, you missed it,” Bill said. “It was really cool.”

We stood there for a brief moment, a mild look of chagrin crossed his face. “Well, tell me about it then,” I said. And he tried, but just couldn’t describe it in a way that did this mysterious object any justice.

“You just had to see it,” he concluded.

“Well, I suppose I could jog down the stream bank and catch up to it,” I said helpfully.

He gave me a wry smile. “It was cool,” he replied. “But it wasn’t that cool.”

And so it is with your Twitter stream. Tweets flow down your Twitter stream continuously, and many of them are cool. But unless you are there, on the bank so to speak, they just flow by unnoticed and unappreciated. Yes, you could “run down” your Twitter stream’s bank to peruse all those past tweets, but are they really worth it? Most likely, no.

Continue reading Your Flowing Twitter Stream

24 January 2015

The Value of Your LinkedIn Connections

I’m on my LinkedIn account every day. I get a lot out of it. I decided early on that to stay connected, nationally and internationally, I had to spend more time on LinkedIn. After all, it is the leading social media site for professionals, at least in North America. (In Europe, it’s XING. These same principles apply with most professional sites, though.)

The purpose of LinkedIn is, of course, linking to other professionals. It is these connections— and the extended contacts that it engenders— that form the robust network from which you all can benefit. To get the most out of LinkedIn, you must grow your connections.

Cultivating these connections takes time and consideration. It is, however, time well spent. Why? Your connections are a valuable resource that can assist you with professional dilemmas. But, as with all social media, this assistance is a two-way street; be prepared and open to help the contacts in your network as well.

Your LinkedIn network includes your first-degree connections (your direct connections) and your group connections, plus your second- and third-degree connections (people in your connection’s immediate network).

How Your LinkedIn Network Can Benefit You. You can add connections in many different ways. I’ll discuss a number of ways and present a rationale for each method. But first, let’s look at how you can benefit from your network. You can:

Get introduced to someone in a connection’s network.
Ask a connection a question to help solve a problem.
Learn from a connection’s expertise and even get advice.
Engage in a discussion about a topic of mutual interest.
Recruit a connection to help you get a job or contract in their company. (Your connections can tell you who hires technical communicators, the names of key people on the front lines, of the types of jobs that are being offered, and where you stand after you’ve submitted a resume or project offer.)
Request that your profile be forwarded to one of your connection’s contacts.
Ask that others keep you in mind when they see projects of interest to you.

With benefits such as these, you can start to see the value of a large, robust network.

Continue reading The Value of Your LinkedIn Connections

22 January 2015

Using LinkedIn to Get Work

Recently, I received this email from one of my LinkedIn groups: “Whether you are looking to improve your prospects in your current job or career, are looking for a new one, or are looking for great candidates to fill your available positions, the LinkedIn Job & Career Network is the place to be!” So I clicked the link and became a member. At last glance, the group had 65 jobs listed.

This prompted me (and co-author Ed Marshall) to investigate LinkedIn as a place to get work (jobs or contracts). And I discovered it is a great resource! As of February 2010, LinkedIn’s membership exceeded 50 million. Through LinkedIn you can look for work, research companies, and easily promote yourself in job searches. But first, you must create a thorough profile of yourself and gather professional connections.

Create and Continuously Update Your Profile. Your profile is basically your online résumé, so make it a living document of your professional life. But treat your profile differently from your résumé by being more creative and expressive. Write in the first person, fill it out completely (LinkedIn displays a percent-complete meter for you to gauge your progress), and include all your relevant jobs and education. Make sure your summary not only explains who you are (your features), but more importantly what your employer or clients get from your expertise (their benefits).

Include a professional photo, head shot only, and use the same one you would use in other settings. Write an update of what you are doing at least once a week, or more often if you’d like: announce what you are working on, awards you received, whether you are looking for work (more on that later), and whatever else you think would be of interest to your connections and anyone else who might be viewing your profile. (Tip: Bookmark LinkedIn and add it to your browser’s toolbar for quick access.)

Continue reading Using LinkedIn to Get Work

16 January 2015

Effective Business Communication

Today, business communication is simple.

You can communicate through email, instant messaging, your Web site, Web portals, Web casting, Web cams, streaming video, streaming audio, pod casting, video conferencing, phone conferencing, instant messaging, text messaging—not to mention mailing, telephoning, faxing, and myriads of other emerging methods—through an ever emerging plethora of electronic devices. Communication moves fast and furious, information is easy to find, easy to send, and easy to receive. Never before have you had so many options. Technology makes it faster and easier to communicate to a wider audience.

Or does it?

While there are more methods than ever to send a message, are you really reaching your audience? And isn’t that the point? Too much communication today is focused around sending a message, telling what you want an audience to hear. But is it really something they want to hear; are they really listening to your message?

A constant barrage of messages inundate, interrupt, and overwhelm. Cell phones buzz often at inappropriate times; emails pop up to interrupt our thought flow and then contain links to even more annoying messages; web sites display annoying motion to distract and pop ups to sell unwanted items and services. It is information overload: so much to receive, so much to sort through for relevance, and so much left over to discard.

Besides having more ways to deliver messages, the methods are becoming more complicated to use. Do you know how to use all this technology, and when it is most appropriate to, say, email someone rather than phone them, send an electronic file rather than a printed version?

Take the telephone, a tool for having a conversation. Simple to use? Consider this example.

Continue reading Effective Business Communication

15 January 2015

Marketing Your Service

On becoming visible

You check into a hotel. How do you know your room is clean? You visit a lawyer. How do you know she is competent? You stop at a tailor’s shop. How do you know he will sew a hem correctly? We encounter services like these every day. Since services are a process, not a tangible product, how do we evaluate them?

By what we see.

In a very specific way, it is what we see—the visual clues—that represent a service. The chocolate on your pillow, the plaques on the wall, the ribbon tape measure—they all identify the quality of a service and the expertise of the practitioner.

Current and prospective clients evaluate independent technical communicators the same way: by what they see. Why? Because we provide a service too—it’s at the core of what we do. We inform readers; we instruct them on how to perform certain tasks; we persuade them to act in a certain way. While much of our work centers on the written word—our product— marketing our service requires more than that: We must also pay attention to how customers perceive our service. So, independent contractors and consultants must carefully create, present, and manage the visual clues and nonverbal behaviors that represent our services.

Your goal: to have clients perceive you as an expert practitioner and better appreciate the service (and by extension, the product) you deliver.

Let’s examine this goal a bit more. I’ll start with the difference between marketing a product and a service; next, I’ll focus on some specific visual clues that can speak highly about your service; and finally I’ll present some nonverbal behaviors that embody you, the practitioner.

Continue reading Marketing Your Service

20 April 2012

The Nine Tasks of an Editor

Nine hierarchical tasks enable an editor to ensure your document fulfills its intended goal

They returned dejected, and a bit humbled, filing slowly into their manager’s office. Their manager started.

“What happened?”

“We weren’t invited to present.”

That was surprising. “Why not? You told me we had a great proposal, that we could clearly meet all their needs.”

“We do, and we can.”

“Then… what happened?”

“They rejected our proposal out of hand.”

“Huh? What does that mean?”

“They told us our proposal didn’t read well, that it was disorganized, wasn’t clear—‘fuzzy’ is what they said—that it rambled, was a little redundant, had some typos, and…” the hardest part, “it didn’t follow the rules of their RFP.”

“I don’t get it. I thought you guys had this all down pat, that you were expert.” It was more a statement than a question.

“We are expert in all the technical aspects required in the RFP. But…” The pregnant pause hung in the air. “But, as we’ve said before, it’s one thing to be technical experts, it’s another thing entirely to be able to communicate that expertise clearly, concisely, and conclusively. That we struggle with.”

The feeling of disappointment was almost palpable. Mildly accusatory glances circled around.

“We have a solution though.” Wary eyes. “We’ve said this before.” Wary looks. “We need an editor; it’s not a luxury.”

Continue reading The Nine Tasks of an Editor

24 March 2012

An Editor: Your First Reader and Collaborator

Your editor is not adjunct, but essential to your writing’s clarity and cohesion

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

One of the most famous and memorable lines in all of movie history wasn’t written by the script writers—it was created on the spot by Humphrey Bogart while filming one of the many lightening-rod scenes in Casablanca. Not only is Casablanca considered the best movie of all time by most film critics, but its script is also considered the best of all time by the Script Writers Guild. Even with those sterling achievements, Bogart’s ‘editing’ of that crucial line improved the dialogue and the film. As a result, the line endures 70 years after Bogart uttered it.

This is the value that an editor enmeshed with the writers can bring to improve written text.

Self-editing as a choice. More than likely, neither the documents you write, nor the ones I write, will carry the same longevity of Casablanca’s script. Nonetheless, your writing is important. And yet, many of us—myself included—often self-edit and eschew the brilliance that an editor can bring to our writing.

Make no mistake, self-editing often is a useful way to improve your writing. Letting text you’ve labored over to rest for a few days enables you to see that text from a new and expanded angle when you return to it. There’s a renewed clarity after your subconscious has stewed, which allows you to improve and build upon your initial text. In general, though, you are still bringing the same mind-set to your text, using the same base of information and perspective that you brought at the beginning.

Continue reading An Editor: Your First Reader and Collaborator

14 February 2012

Where Are You Going with that Presentation?

A clear, compelling objective forms the foundation of every great presentation

“Where are we going?”

My teenage son and I sat in the car in our driveway. He was behind the wheel, beginning another training session as he learns to drive. No engine started yet, when he posed that question. I just looked at him quizzically.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No”, he said. “I don’t know where we’re going.”

I sat in silence for a bit, absorbing that. Okay, I thought, let’s start somewhere else.

“What are we trying to do?” I tried.

“Buy sneakers for me.” That’s good, at least he knew that.

“And where might we get those?”

“I don’t know.” The standard teenage response. Then he thought for a second. “How about the outlet mall? There’s a couple of stores there.”

“Let’s go then”, I said.

He started the car, and rolled a short distance, then stopped. He just sat there staring straight ahead. He looked deep in thought, pondering. I looked at him again, wondering.

He slowly turned to look at me, and with a look of chagrin said, “How do I get there?”

I laughingly smiled.

“You don’t know how to get there?” I asked with some incredulity.

“No”, he stated matter-of-factly. “How would I know that? I’m used to just sitting there and going along for the ride.”

Let’s pause the story there, and shift gears from driving to presentations.

Continue reading Where Are You Going with that Presentation?

3 January 2012

Nine Engaging Ways to Open a Presentation

Employ any one of these methods to instantly grab your audience’s attention.

Audiences pay attention at the start of every presentation. They want to know the context and objective of your presentation and what they can get out of it—before they continue to listen. Even with a compelling reason to pay attention, they also want to determine if it is worthwhile to listen… to you.

You can determine when you have your audience’s attention simply by listening to their nonverbal clues—their body language: they are sitting upright, looking at you, alert, bright-eyed. Ever look around while presenting and see the tops of people’s heads? Their heads are not bowed in deference; they are fiddling with their cell phones. And not listening to you.

You must connect your audience from the very start, employing an engaging and memorable opening, and giving them a compelling reason to listen. An effective opening:

Captures, and retains, your audience’s attention.
States your objective and its benefit to your audience.
Previews your call to action—what you want them to do when the presentation is over.

Consider using one of these techniques to open your next presentation with purpose.

A relevant story or anecdote. Audiences love stories. Telling a story or an anecdote that is directly related to your presentation, especially one that makes the point you are trying to make, can be especially powerful and motivating (no ‘war’ stories though). Tell your story so that your audience not only hears your words, but more importantly, can visualize the story and action. In my experience, opening with a story is far and away the best start you can make. It is, however, also the most difficult.

Continue reading Nine Engaging Ways to Open a Presentation