Verbs are the engine of strong writing
Someone much smarter than me once said: “Verbs are the engine of strong writing.” Truer words have never been spoken. Or should I say uttered. Or screamed or shouted or declared? But in the corporate writing world, we don’t USE good verbs. We use verbs like “Implement” and “Leverage” and “Optimize” and “Impact.” It doesn’t …
From Corporate to Creative … how to get there!
For 25 years, I’ve been telling communicators they need to take the “corporate” out of corporate communications, and replace it with “creative.” And where is the most creative stuff happening? In the consumer world. Everything from Artificial intelligence and mobile to gamification and humorous videos. Our job, as communicators, is to make the important interesting. …
Data Gives You Power
This week’s tip on Low Hanging Fruit: Use data as power to communicate differently. My wife and business partner and MUCH better half, Cindy Crescenzo, is the queen of employee communication measurement. She speaks all over the world on the topic. And her favorite thing to say is: “You never want to walk into a …
Is it time to retire the term, “Intranet?”
In 1994, I launched a publication called The Intranet Report. It was a print newsletter! Remember those? The publication was all about this weird new “internal World Wide Web” that people were starting to call “Intranets.” I was working as the Editorial Director and VP of New Product Development at Ragan Communications, a publishing/conference company …
Is it time to publish baby announcements in employee publications again?
When I wandered into the weird, wonderful world of employee communications, back in 1994, I learned at the feet of the great Larry Ragan. Larry was, along with Roger D’Aprix and a few others, one of the founders of what we consider “employee communications” today. Just a brilliant man. And a wonderful mentor. Larry was …
What is holding communicators back? Take this quiz to find out!
Communicators, pencils ready! You have three minutes to complete the following multiple-choice question. Good luck! Why do most corporate communicators fail to reach the status of Strategic Counselor in their organizations, and instead fall into the “Communication Order Taker” role: a. Never-ending deadlines that suck your time away and leave you no time to be …
I’ve got all this data, now what?
The good news about being a communicator is that there are so many ways to collect all kinds of data these days. The bad news … if you collect it, you’ve got to do something with it. Often times, we end up with that sinking feeling and we say to ourselves, “What did I just …
Five reasons your internal surveys are generating a low response
As you can see, we’re talking a LOT about measurement in May. But so many times when I talk to communicators about conducting internal surveys, I hear this: “Surveys just don’t work for our organization. No one pays attention to them.” When it comes to using surveys to measure your internal communications, does this statement …
What does ‘engagement’ really mean in the communications world?
In the communications biz, we like to throw the word “engagement” around a lot. We’re always trying to figure out if our workforce is “highly engaged,” or “somewhat engaged” or “disengaged” or some other kind of engaged. But the problem that none of the high-priced engagement consultants want to admit is, it’s really, really hard …
Avoid passive voice with this proven technique
Just one word to describe this tip: genius. Go on … give it a shot. You know you want to. Thanks to Rebecca Johnson, a professor of culture and ethics at USMC for this proven writing technique: Just in case you have doubts: The HR initiative was launched on Monday (by zombies — passive voice) …