The Communicator

Let’s be clear: there is absolutely no excuse for bad spelling. Yet every day, I see websites, brochures and even newspaper articles where, in the author’s haste to produce content, they have decided to forego the rigour of a simple spell check. 

Indeed there seems to be a pervasive feeling these days that good grammar and good spelling are somehow passé. Has Twitter and texting killed the need for communicators to worry about spelling? 

Hardly. In fact, a recent story on the BBC’s website (well worth reading) claims that – as a result of poor spelling – UK companies are losing millions of pounds per year in revenue.  It seems that consumers don’t particularly trust websites that contain spelling errors. 

In fact, given the increase in fake websites, online scams and phishing emails, consumers have become increasingly wary of anything that does not seem on the up and up. No wonder: one of the surest ways to identify scam email (besides the obvious fact that very few people with $3 billion tend to legitimately need a Wisconsin retiree as a transfer agent) is their poor – often laughable – grasp of spelling and grammar. 

As self-styled Guardians of The Written Word, the responsibility of monitoring spelling and grammar often falls to professional communicators. So what can we do to eliminate spelling mistakes and destroy bad grammar in our organisations? Here are a few ideas: 

• Slow down: Given the pace of work for most professional communicators, we tend to see ‘editing’ as a nice-to-do rather than an absolute must. But taking the time to reread our work is absolutely critical and cannot be rushed or ignored. In fact, communicators may consider rethinking their content development process to create a formal review round that is focused solely on grammar and spelling.
• Get some help: A second set of eyes on a project can be invaluable. And while there are many great external editors (like us) with the right skills to make quick work of editing, communicators may also want to develop a ‘buddy system’ with a colleague that can act as an editor on higher-risk pieces.
• Know your kryptonite: When it comes to spelling we all have an Achilles heel that is impervious to spell check. For some these may be innocuous (‘fro’ instead of ‘for’), others can be more embarrassing (‘pubic’ rather than ‘public’). Self-aware communicators may want to keep a short list of these usual suspects by their computer and do a ‘find and replace’ to hunt them down and eliminate them. 

Finally, communicators should remember that an over-reliance on the spelling gurus at Microsoft and Apple is no solution and – as we pointed out in an earlier posting – can even be detrimental to your career (and your relationships). 

Need a great writer or editor? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

The English language is full of words that have lost their meaning. Many – “awesome”, “cool” and “sick” for example – were hijacked by pop culture years ago and patiently moulded into our minds with completely new meanings. Others were usurped by the business world to metaphorically represent complex ideas to the public in simple terms (some of my personal favourites are “deliverables”, “synergize” or “utilization”). 

But there are a growing number of once-useful words whose meanings have been diluted through extreme over (and occasionally improper) use. 

A prime example is the term “innovative”. At its root, innovation is about creating something completely new. Think Thomas Edison or Alexander Cummings.  Until recently there was a high creative threshold to be crossed before you were considered innovative. Today all you need to do is install the latest software package or use social media in order to brandish this innovation badge. 

As professional communicators, we have all been complicit in the proliferation and dilution of once emotive and strong terms such as innovation… even though it’s sometimes difficult to avoid jumping on the bandwagon for fear of seeming out-of-touch or being left behind by your competition. 

However, from a marketing standpoint, innovation has become an extremely overcrowded market to compete in. Let’s be honest: any value that remains in the term innovation is being fought over by old-world leader GE and new-world upstart Apple, and I’m guessing your pockets aren’t deep enough to seriously challenge either of them. So (as Al Ries and Jack Trout would say) rather than trying to compete in a category with a behemoth incumbent, try to create a new category that you can own in your audience’s minds. 

For example, look for adjectives that are meaningful to your audiences and products, or that articulate your value to your customers and define your core brand characteristics. Try to avoid terms too popular within your industry and too metaphorical or cliché to have any real impact. It’s always best to avoid fads – unless you are the one setting the trend. 

At the end of the day, the key to success has always been to differentiate yourself from your competition. Why should your words be any different?  

Need help giving your words meaning? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca or visit www.CommunicationsUnlimited.ca for more information.

Summer is just around the corner. But if you were expecting some much needed R&R… think again. 

For professional communicators, The Dog Days of Summer represent the best (and often only) opportunity to focus on the fundamentals. As executive teams start to shift their thoughts from goals to golf, many communicators take advantage of the relative ‘down time’ of the summer to prepare for the business year ahead. 

Not sure where to start? Here are five areas that should be a priority for any communications team this summer: 

• Clean up your website: All too often throughout the year, press releases, feature stories and news items are rushed onto organizational websites in an ad-hoc fashion to meet an immediate need or crisis – sometimes with little regard to strategy or process. The quiet summer months provide an ideal opportunity to bring some much-needed focus and discipline back to your website(s).
• Update your corporate collateral: With long review and approval cycles, multiple stakeholders and complex production schedules, updating your brochures, press kits and other corporate collateral can be a time consuming business. While the summer season won’t necessarily speed up the process, you will find that key stakeholders (Finance, HR, Operations, etc.) are much more open to participating in these types of projects when their plates are less full. 
• Media train your executives: The worst time to media train an executive is in the middle of a crisis. To be effective, proper media training starts in a relaxed environment, free from distractions and competing priorities. Many executives benefit from group training sessions, which are also much easier to coordinate over the summer.
• Prepare for issues: While most issues are – by nature – unexpected, there are several ways that communicators can use the summer to prepare for the unknown. Standby statements, draft Q&As and position backgrounders are great ways to get ahead of a crisis, and the summer provides the perfect timing to conduct table-top exercises to ‘stress-test’ your crisis manuals.  
• Build/maintain relationships: Never underestimate the intrinsic value of a strong working relationship. Take some time this summer to build on your valuable relationships with your colleagues, peers and suppliers, as well as any key opinion leaders in your industry (media, bloggers, industry gurus, etc.). Besides, it’s a great time of year for a few drinks on a patio!   

Above all, take advantage of the comparative calm to take a vacation, long-weekend or afternoon off, and remember that achieving work-life balance is (or should be) just as important as achieving your business objectives. 

Looking for help to get ahead of your communications strategies this summer? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

Have communicators completely consigned their spelling skills to Microsoft and Apple? All too often these days, I find myself the recipient of emails rife with glaring spelling mistakes or sporting a completely out of place word. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I am often schooled by Professors Gates, Jobs et al., particularly when I’m short on time or enjoying the blessings of an (all too infrequent) brainwave. But rather than blindly right clicking and accepting the first offering that the magical red wavy line suggests, I always try to take the time to see my mistakes and learn from them. 

An even worse scourge, however, is the ever-helpful ‘auto-correct function’. This little gem has been responsible for frequent careless and often embarrassing mistakes around the office. I myself have been guilty of blaming the looming ‘pubic health crisis’ for many of society’s woes. 

Here’s the problem: as professional communicators, a basic command of spelling and grammar is a must. A disregard for spelling – and in fact for editing – only erodes your credibility as a communicator. Sure, your friends and family will forgive you the occasional mistake or misplaced word, but at the office, few will give you the benefit of the doubt. In the corporate world, spelling mistakes are indicative of two types of people: those who believe themselves to be too busy for ‘quality control’, and those that simply can’t spell. Communicators should fall into neither camp. 

Regular readers will know that I always like to provide a selection of actionable and practical advice for the challenges I raise. In this case, however, there really is only one solution: Always make the time to read what you have written. And while the importance of rereading your work should not diminish based on the length of the piece or the audience for which it is intended, communicators who have just pounded out a 30-page dissertation (or a short yet crucial quote from your CEO), will want to make sure they walk away from their drafts and return to re-read them with fresh eyes. And it’s never a bad idea to get a colleague to take a look over projects you have been staring at for a while. 

At the end of the day, communicators that do not take this simple but critical step may suddenly wake up to find that they have lost both their ability to spell and their credibility around the office. 

(Editor’s note: those with dubious sensitivities will roar in laughter at some of the ‘autocorrect’ horror stories found at http://damnyouautocorrect.com/. You may want to close your office door.) 

Looking for a professional communicator that understands the importance of good grammar and quality control? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

Communications professionals love surveys. Indeed, there’s nothing like a good round of strong statistics to prove a point or drive home a key message. 

But audience surveys carry an intrinsic risk: the data may not always say what you expect it to. Many a seasoned professional has put a survey out in the field, only to find that the results were either so bland that they were un-newsworthy, or – worse – contradictory to their company’s key messages. 

Unfortunately, surveys are notoriously difficult to kill. In part, this is because market research can be an expensive investment that is not easily written off. But most surveys also involve a fair amount of management buy-in and employee involvement (particularly in enlisting clients to participate), and so there is often a high level of expectation for communications professionals to deliver something valuable from the survey results. 

So what can communicators do to squeeze value out of bad data? Here are a few options that we offer our clients when in a similar situation: 

Chop it up and dose it out: OK, so maybe your data – in its entirety – isn’t all that compelling. But quite often there are seams of gold hidden within specific data sets that can be mined by cutting up the data in different ways. So, for example, try looking at the data in terms of age groups, industry sectors, or geographical region, and use the resulting data to target trade publications or special interest groups. In many cases, communicators can garner more media coverage using this strategy than a simple ‘newswire’ distribution and email blast.

Use case studies: Case studies are always a great way to bring data to life, and are often used by communications professionals to create a media ‘hook’ for bland data. The trick is to pick a company/group/individual that epitomizes an extreme respondent (either best or worst case) and is of interest to the general public. It would make sense, for example, to use Obama’s Presidential campaign to demonstrate the benefits of grassroots social media campaigns; or BP’s past two years to reinforce data on the value of a strong crisis communications capacity. 

Rethink the deliverable: When handed lemons, you don’t have to make lemonade; pies, cakes and cookies can be even better. In the same way, communicators should consider repurposing parts of the data to support other vehicles such as employee newsletters, sales sheets or websites. Communicators will find that this can be a great way to give their data some legs, while also demonstrating its value internally. 

But no matter how bad the data is, always remember that the worst thing you can do is ‘stretch’ the findings to suit your purpose. This is tantamount to lying and is an unnecessary risk for the project, the organization, and a communications professional’s career.

Need help turning your market research into something of value? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

Today’s professional communicator seems to need a Masters in Prioritization.

From the minute we step into the office each day, we are expected to balance between a series of conflicting priorities: the proactive against the reactive, the strategic against the tactical, and the quantitative against the qualitative. In fact, without excellent prioritization skills, most professional communicators would probably never leave the office.

But prioritization – in itself – is a reactive strategy. It assumes that each project is mandatory and ranks them based on a sense of urgency and timing. In fact, it is often the projects with the loudest stakeholders that take precedence, rather than the ones that would produce the greatest results.

Instead, professional communicators should first be applying an effectiveness filter, proactively selecting the projects that have the greatest impact on their intended audiences, and passing off (or killing altogether) projects that show little or no return on investment.

There are a number of ways to become more proactive about prioritization:

No sacred cows: In every organization there are always a number of ‘legacy’ projects (often things like newsletters, brochures and web portals) that no longer achieve their objectives and take a disproportionate amount of time to execute. There should be no sacred cows in communications and – if the project no longer pulls its weight – a case should be made for wrapping up the project in a timely and efficient manner.

Build centres of excellence: Many professional communicators get bogged down managing routine processes and tools that fulfill objectives, but don’t necessarily add value. Often, these tasks can be pooled into a ‘centre of excellence’ within the department, hived off to a coordinator or transferred to another department. Tasks such as monthly budget reports, newsletter distribution and the posting of web content are all prime candidates for this strategy.

Leverage technology: Communicators should be open to (and looking for) new technologies and innovations that can deliver more efficient and effective results, with less effort. Automating media reports, moving newsletters online and conducting ‘virtual’ meetings can not only save money and time, but may actually provide a more robust service than traditional methods.

De-politicize the process: In many organizations, process documents read like a ‘who’s who’ of the Executive Suite. Over time, process documents tend to organically grow, adding levels of approvals and complexity that may recognize various stakeholders, but don’t actually fulfil a specific task. Keep in mind that removing steps from a process is never as easy as adding them, and may need to be handled with tact and diplomacy. 

Even with a Masters in Prioritization, no professional communicator can do everything. Ask any hardened pro, and they will probably tell you that the trick is to isolate the tasks where you can add the most value to the organization, and delegate/outsource everything else.

Thankfully, there are always a number of professional freelance communicators available who can put a high priority around your low priority projects.

Need help with your extra projects? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

I’m an avid reader of e-newsletters. For the most part, this is an occupational hazard, but every once in a while I find myself captivated by a particular story, intrigued by an innovation, or simply waiting for my BOGO coupon to print so that we can go shopping.

The truth is that e-newsletters could be the most valuable communications tool you have. In general, they enjoy a more motivated audience, provide unique forums to engage customers in an interactive setting, and offer unparalleled cross-selling and business development opportunities. In addition, they can be wildly inexpensive to maintain, with an ROI that would put all of your traditional communications tools to shame.

So it shocks me when I see how many communications professionals have virtually abandoned this little treasure. Overwhelmingly viewed as a tactical inconvenience and delegated to communications neophytes or admins, many e-newsletters have become as much a chore to read as to produce.

However, when managed properly it can be relatively simple to create and maintain consistently high-value e-newsletters. For example, try formalizing the production of your newsletters into an approved business process that accounts for the different needs of content generation, editing and review, layout, approvals and distribution. That way, you can easily manage any variables that arise, while ensuring that you have the appropriate resources lined up against the right tasks.

At the very least, make sure that you actually have some content. Just last week, my local grocery chain sent me an email with a huge banner ad imploring me to check out their unbelievable Weekly Special. OK… <click>…  and how was I rewarded? “There are no special offers at this time. Please visit again soon.” Wow! The only thing unbelievable about that is the wasted opportunity.