I recently finished designing and developing a website for a nonprofit client and many exciting things are happening for that organization.
First, they received a phone call from a very well-known actress whose son has a childhood disease. My client’s organization is researching methods to healing that, and other, diseases.
Then, they got a call from the Wall Street Journal…
I’m so happy and excited for them. I mean, sure, I’m thrilled that my work potentially will be seen by millions of people around the world…all from links to my website. But more than that, I feel like I’ve been a part of the likely success this organization will have and that, even though my part for this client was small, I helped.
It just goes to show you that your client’s success is your success. And that’s what it’s about…making them look good.
I recently read an email on a listserv from a person who supervises technical writers and she asked for suggestions of criteria to use when performing yearly evaluations on her employees. A number of people responded with the typical answers: did she meet deadlines?; was he available and willing to take on additional assignments?; did she complete her assignments well?…etc.
I responded and suggested that the manager also use competence in language as a criterion for evaluation. In other words, is the employee meeting, exceeding or falling below whatever quality standards the company has for the language these employees are required to write in? Remember, these are technical writers, so you’d think that competence in the required language would be a good thing.
Well, the manager responded to me and said that she thought that was a great idea.
I thought the discussion was interesting, so I brought it to another listserv for technical writers. I didn’t receive too many responses, but when it came down to measuring competence with the written language, I heard from a manager who felt that her degree in English Language and Composition from a U.S. university was a “guarantee” of competence and that that same level of guarantee was all that was required for her employees–a degree from a university. (And interestingly enough, she had some errors in her response. I’ll be generous and assume that her haste in responding via email was the culprit.)
For me, that wouldn’t be enough for an employee or a subcontractor. I’ve seen people who bill themselves as “expert” writers or “senior-level” communicators, etc., and they don’t use punctuation properly, as an example. I mean, how many times have you wondered where the comma actually goes–inside or outside of the quotation marks? Well, depending on where you are geographically, the answer is different. But for me, if I’m hiring someone who supposedly is an “expert” in the American usage of the English language, that person darn well better know the answer!
I don’t know, but it seems strange to me to not measure the competence in a language when your job requires you to be proficient in that language. And the fact that quality of writing is just not easy to quantify once you get past the nuts and bolts of grammar and punctuation.
By the standards of the second manager mentioned above, I must be proficient in English simply because I have a degree in English Literature from a U.S. university. And I guess those four years of Spanish that I took in high school and college make me darn near fluent in that language.
I will be presenting a free half-hour webinar on “Using Public Relations Tactics to Promote and Build Your Business or Nonprofit” from 12 to 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009. The presentation is free; registration is via www.SearchitRight.com athttp://tinyurl.com/wordtexprtactics.
The free webinar will educate small business owners and nonprofit staffers about how to create and use a press release to publicize their organizations. Among the topics are:
the difference between advertising and publicity
the style of writing
what makes something newsworthy
what an angle is
and the items included in a press release
If you’re a small business owner or work for a nonprofit, please feel free to attend. You’ll learn how to apply professional-level tactics when performing public relations campaigns.
And hey–if you’re in the Arizona area in March, I’ll be presenting a half-day workshop on this topic, complete with detailed information and actionable handouts.
The workshop, “Using Public Relations Tactics to Promote and Build Your Business or Nonprofit” will be from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Mar. 25, 2009 in Albuquerque, NM. Registrations currently are being accepted at www.whoscoming.com/prtactics.
Normally, I’m not the type of person to tout myself–I tend to do that for my clients–but I am so excited, I had to share this with you. Here’s the text of a press release about an award I won. Enjoy!
Andrea C. Carrero, president of Word Technologies Inc., based in Glen Mills, PA, is the recipient of a 2008 Apex Award for Publication Excellence. Carrero won the award for her work for the annual conference for a nonprofit association, which included the full range of campaign communications and materials such as conference website, member communications, e-newsletters, articles, public relations campaigns, direct marketing materials, press releases and more.
Approximately 4,500 entries were submitted for the award, which were conferred in July 2008.
“I am thrilled to be the recipient of such a prestigious communications award,” said Carrero, a professional with more than 20 years experience in business and marketing communication, journalism, public relations and technical documentation. “Writing is not a visual medium in and of itself and expertise and talent frequently is not noticed or rewarded. It’s exciting to have had a panel of experts review my work and deem it worthy of an award.”
Carrero has a strong background in marketing, journalism and creative writing, which she uses to write and produce strategic marketing plans and materials, as well as public relations tools, as part of her company’s service offerings. Her experience includes writing and editing for mass media such as daily and weekly newspapers as well as radio—and in public relations and publications for large nonprofit organizations.
In addition, Carrero’s experience includes more than 15 years in Information Technology (IT), where she has specialized in technical communication and training in a wide variety of vertical industries, including business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies with offices and customers worldwide.
About the Award
This year was the 20th annual competition, which is open to communication professionals from around the world. According to Communications Concepts Inc., which runs the competition, “Apex Awards are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence.” The panel of judges included a variety of editors and publishers.
About Word Technologies Inc.
Word Technologies Inc. (www.wordtex.com), a full-service business, marketing and technical communication firm. blends creativity with analysis to create highly effective business, marketing and technology communication solutions for companies in virtually any vertical market. With clients as big Fortune 500 international firms and as small as less than 100 employees, WTI has crafted custom communications to help them do business efficiently and effectively.
WTI’s services include strategic marketing plans; marketing collateral such as direct mail, e-newsletters, brochures, press releases, and the like; website design, development and copy; technical documentation, including end-user manuals and software development lifecycle (SDLC) documentation; and business communications, such as proposals, requirements, specifications, etc. For more information, visit www.wordtex.com.
Why? A few months ago, I taught a workshop to some small-business owners and nonprofit board members and volunteers. In the course of the workshop, which was fee-based, I provided hard copy of my presentation, plus some additional handouts. Some of the handouts were examples of points I covered in the workshop while others were information I created that were along the lines of resources for applying skills learned in the workshop. I clearly marked on all of the materials (except those I don’t own) that they are copyrighted to me–with all rights reserved.
All was well and good until a workshop attendee contacted me recently and asked if she could post my materials on the chapter website for an association to which she belongs. She sent along the PDFs she created from my materials for approval.
So, what’s wrong with that, you ask?
Well, she did right in asking me if she could post the materials before actually doing so (although she was denied permission to do so). But she didn’t seem to understand–and appeared quite miffed at being told–that she had had no right to convert the materials into PDF form in the first place! I’ve since sent her a couple of strongly worded emails requiring her to delete those files permanently. I certainly hope she does so, so that I don’t need to involve an attorney should they ever appear anywhere…
At any rate, it got me thinking that nowadays, with the proliferation of information worldwide, people seem to have forgotten a simple concept–if you didn’t write it, you don’t own it and it’s not yours to do anything with–not a thing. I likened her act of PDFing my materials to taking a book and PDFing each page in it to make a file. I explained that the author and publisher of the book would freak out on her–rightfully–if she had done that.
She’s not the only person I’ve had try to lift my work, although she is the first (and hopefully last) that is from the U.S.
So why am I still so shocked at this? Well, two things, really.
First, I’m going to gather that she doesn’t own the software she used to create PDFs. Since there were no ads on the files, she apparently didn’t use one of those free services. Most likely she used her employer’s software to do the job. Does she not realize that she could be fired if they found out she had used company-provided software, especially to violate someone else’s copyright? Or, as one person I know termed it–to “steal” the materials? I know many companies that would fire this young woman immediately for misusing company property and doing something illegal. And does she not realize that she also has opened up her employer, if she did use company property and time to do this, to a potential lawsuit if the files were to ever be posted or distributed?
But perhaps the most distressing part of this is the second thing: she was a fellow writer! How could she not know what she was doing was wrong? How sad that someone who bills herself as a writer would do something so pitiful, so awful–so wrong. And add insult to injury at not seeing the problem.
The internet is a wonderful place, filled to the brim with information galore. But please remember that simply finding information on the internet–or being handed materials in a workshop–does not automatically give you the right to reproduce the materials–by photocopying, by creating PDFs of the materials or by reproducing them in any other way. Remember, she who creates it owns it.
Contact me if you’re interested in having Word Technologies Inc. present workshops on writing, editing, press releases, public relations, communications, marketing, technical documentation or other topics.
I almost had lunch with Peter Shankman the other day, but his client cancelled on him so he cancelled on me. He did promise to reschedule our lunch, though, so I can easily forgive him and look forward to getting together the next time he visits his client near here.
So, who’s Peter Shankman, you ask? Well, he’s what some would call a “serial entrepreneur.” Or perhaps he’s just a lunatic who has jumped out of one too many airplanes. Either way, he’s got some great ideas and some terrific accomplishments
What I wanted specifically to talk about is a new connection community of his that is very cool and useful to business professionals and members of the media–his new venture, Help a Reporter (HARO). The premise is simple: reporters need good sources and businessfolk like marketers, publicists, biz owners, etc., want to be experts. So through Peter’s daily emails, journalists can ask for–and receive–sources for their stories.
There is a catch, though–and it’s not money. (In fact, signing up for HARO as either a journalist or a source is free.) The catch is that you have to reply to a journalist’s query only if your response is on target. Seems a fair trade to me.
And if you aren’t kind and good and, you know, on target, you may find yourself summarily barred from being on the list–and possibly losing out on the opportunity to be a source in an article. Just ask the viaticals lady who willingly signed up for the service then dissed Peter for sending the emails she had signed up for! Yikes! (Frankly, the comments on this blog entry are hilarious!)
So, if you have a business or an expertise in something that you want to share potentially with a journalist–or you’re a journalist looking to find sources for a story–sign up now. I myself have responded to a few journalists with sources appropriate to their requests–and I get nothing out of that except the joy of knowing/hoping that I’ve helped. As a former journalist, I can tell you that finding credible sources, especially on a tight deadline, isn’t that easy to do. I would have been happy in those pre-email/pre-internet dinosaur days if someone had set up a service like this.
A very good friend of mine, a history professor, was in town from the west coast and we spent the day in Philadelphia doing the touristy things—The Constitution Center, Independence Hall, Betsy Ross‘s house and the like.
When we were in the gift shop at Independence Hall, we saw a book about the love and legacy of John and Abigail Adams. Tom looked at the book and said there was only one problem with it—the picture on the dustcover was John’s son, John Quincy! As we walked around the shop, we saw many items on display related to the elder Adams, along with the book, that perpetuated the error. I told Tom that since I didn’t have the breadth of knowledge of history that he had (and neither do most folks) I never would have known if he hadn’t been there to point it out. Considering his specialty is U.S. history, I highly respect his expertise. (I guess it really pays to take a history professor along when viewing history!)
What does this have to do with writing, you’re probably asking? Quite a bit.
I read something today that talked about the top 10 errors people make in business writing. Most of the errors are related to spelling—typos, “aural errors” (those sound-alike words weather/whether, there/their, write/right), compound words and contractions. Other errors had to do with prepositions, double negatives, word choice (including slang) and verb form. I’d even go so far as to add these common mistakes to the list: passive voice, lack of agreement, improper punctuation, sentence fragments and lack of transitions.
Most people don’t recognize these errors and often perpetuate them through lack of expertise. Just like the picture of John Adams; I didn’t know what he looked like and wouldn’t have questioned the picture had it not been for the expertise of my companion.
The expertise that a professional writer brings to her clients is often not something easily quantifiable. You can see the value in proper grammar and punctuation, but only if you know the rules in the first place. What you can’t always see easily is the behind-the-scenes value a professional writer can provide for you. A professional writer can bring out the essence of your product, your service, your company by using the right words to convey the exact thought the reader needs at the time he or she needs it. Writing can be persuasive, educational or informative, to name a few.
And when done well, it shows your business—and you—in the best light. It can: create and extend your image; help to save you money or potentially help you stay out of lawsuits; and can help you to win and promote your business, among other things.
Considering the art of writing is so crucial to your business, why take a chance that you could end up to be like John Adams—the wrong picture on the dustcover?
As a writer, you know that my first words will be more than “Hello, world!”
I envision using my blog to talk about writing and what’s it’s like to be a professional writer, run a professional communications firm, to talk about grammar and punctuation (if I so choose) or just to rant or rave, as the whim moves me.
For now, for my first post, let me just say that writing is hard work. Someone asked recently for my favorite quote and why. I submitted this:
“Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” Gene Fowler, American journalist and biographer.
Why is it (one of) my favorite(s)? Because too many people think it’s easy and that simply because they know a bunch of words and some of the grammar rules they can write.
