From Writing
The Seven Deadly Sins of Employee Communications
This post was written in partnership with Blink, the world’s first enterprise app designed exclusively for frontline workers. How many did you commit this week? We are all sinners. Yes, all of us. When it comes to employee communications, we all sin. In fact, we often commit the same sins on a regular basis. In …
How to create content that’ll (actually) engage frontline workers: my 5 golden rules
This article originally appeared on the Blink Blog. Blink provides mobile solutions for employee communications. Let’s start with the bad news: communicating with frontline workers is fundamentally hard. Why? Because… They often don’t have access to the same technologies that other employees have; They are crazy busy (and so are their managers) They often work …
Be a content provider, not a writer
This week’s Wednesday Wisdom is ripped right from the New York Times. Why? Because you can always count on them to demonstrate the latest trends in writing and communications. I’ve created a video to walk you through an example I found in the Times that shows the power of creating content vs. just writing an …
This One Crucial Tip Can Improve Your Interview Skills
Always ask one more question One of the biggest mistakes many employee communicators make when developing stories and content is not actually interviewing anyone for the piece. We create content off of PowerPoint decks (I call people who do that, without at least picking up the phone and talking to someone, “Deckheads”). Or we do …
Did this headline stop you in your tracks?
We just spent a great couple of days with the communicators at a big utility company in Pennslyvania. Three two-hour, customized Zoom workshops over two days. When I build customized workshops, I ask the client to bury me in samples. For these workshops, I went through about 100 different articles, videos, leadership communications, and social …
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 …
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 …
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) …
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 …