By Steve Crescenzo
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 …
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 …
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 …
Where do bad words come from?
People say “world class” when they haven’t the energy or the courage to find and use a word that actually means something There are a lot of bad words out there. And most of them can be found inside companies, where good people use bad words for the wrong reasons. You hear words and sentences in …
Great Writing is built on specificity
Great writing is built on specificity By Steve Crescenzo Organizational leaders love to talk about “the big picture.” They love to talk about “the view from 30,000 feet.” Why? Because that’s where they live. They sit up there on the corporate version of Mount Olympus, and hurl communication thunderbolts down upon the masses in the …
What is the communicator’s role in engagement?
While some companies spend thousands of dollars on useless “engagement surveys” smart communicators do their own thing to drive employee engagement This month, I’m giving a speech in Warsaw, Poland on the communicator’s role in employee engagement. And make no mistake: I believe a strategic, creative communications team do a lot to drive employee engagement. …
Infographics are a great way to get the attention of people who have no attention spans anymore
A lot of information in a small package Infographics are a great way to get the attention of people who have no attention spans anymore Infographics are taking the corporate communication world by storm. As attention spans get smaller and smaller, communicators are struggling with how to present complex information in easy-to-digest formats. And a good …