Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Mac's Marketing Genius

As a former marketing maven, I'm constantly observing and analysing how companies market themselves. I'm probably very slow on the uptake on this one, but the other day as I was watching another of those "Mac and PC" commercials, it suddenly dawned on me what a brilliant ad campaign it was. The ads are funny and entertaining, but the real genius is in the strategy behind the ads. Apple is taking advantage of their unique place in the market by doing two things very well.

First, they are highlighting their superior technology in the form of their operating system not by beating us over the head with technological mumbo-jumbo, but by very simply personalizing (literally and figuratively) the experience. The Mac is cool, laid back, and hassle-free, while PC is geeky, uptight, and angst-producing. This has been the message of the Mac user community for some time.

The second element of their strategy is more subtle and just as powerful. They are taking advantage of the fact that PC technology has become a commodity. While Apple makes both the Mac and its operating system, PCs have numerous manufacturers albeit only Microsoft makes the Vista operating system. However, for all of Microsoft's marketshare in the software business, their operating systems have always been buggy, especially when first released.

What Apple has done very well, then, is to divide and conquer. Their ads attack PC hardware with impunity because their is no single brand being called out. It just doesn't make sense for a Dell or Sony to spend to counter the Apple ads. Yet they are able to attack the one monolith in their way, Microsoft, in its soft underbelly -- the legendary weakness of their operating systems. In one set of pithy, entertaining ads, Apple is able to dispense with both PC hardware manufactures and the largest software provider. Apple has managed to leverage their own great strength -- the integration of their hardware and operating software -- to fully take advantage of their market position as the singular source of the Mac brand.

This is a blog about writing, so why am I talking about marketing? Well, superficially, just because I wanted to. But on a deeper level, what Apple's marketing and ad execs did was to find and crystalize their message, and then present it in a very clear and entertaining way. The success of their "Mac and PC" ad campaign is as much about analytical, strategic thinking as it is about crafting the message. I can't think of too many things that are more relevant to successful writing than that.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Validation

Last Thursday, I participated in a forum for students here at Wright State University. The forum was hosted by the Communication Department. They invited students from their Mass Communication courses to talk with a dozen alumni who were gathering over Memorial Day weekend for a WWSU (the campus radio station) reunion.

During the forum, we went around the room, told a little about our academic and professional lives and gave some advice based on our experiences. I was sitting in the back row of the panel, so I was like the tenth person to talk. What struck me as I listened to each of the people who preceded me was that each one of them mentioned the importance of writing to their jobs.

The prevalence and importance of writing to these people's careers probably isn't surprising to you since writing is a form of communication and they were all communication majors. The diversity of jobs is what struck me. Among the participants were people who work in journalism, sales, and production. Some are on-air talent while others worked in training or had their own marketing businesses. One even runs his own government contracting company. But even in those areas that are more technical, writing was still an important skill set to their career success.

Sitting in the back row, I was thrilled that they were making my point for me. When it was my turn to talk to the students, it was easy to find examples to make the point that writing is important to success in your career. Since that's one of the major themes of this blog, I thought I'd share it with you as well.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Want to know what your audience wants? Ask them!

Having worked at a software development company for 10 years, I saw first hand how valuable it is to gather information from customers about what they want in the product. Customer feedback is gold to any business. It's no different in the writing biz.

As a student, you may not see yourself as being in the "writing biz," but you are. As in business, writing is an important skill in school, and teachers read your writing to discover what you know about a subject. If you're in high school and you're not doing a lot of writing now, you should know that will change when you get to college. College teachers assign a lot of writing and not just in English classes.

As a teacher, I emphasize two keys to good writing: understanding your purpose for writing and analyzing your audience. Most writers are clear about their purpose for writing. Students may have to work harder for that clarity because their purpose is often provided to them by the teacher. That might sound counter-intuitive, but often it is harder to write to someone else's purpose than to your own. Whether you're a student writer or writing in business, however, knowing what your audience wants is extremely important and can often be difficult to determine.

Audience analysis usually consists of trying to guess what your audience knows and the style of writing that will appeal to them based on demographic factors like their expected age, gender, income, and education. We want to create material that will appeal to our audience and persuade them to take our point seriously.

Often in class, as in business, we are asked to choose a topic that will interest our audience. As writers, we might spend a lot of time guessing what topic that might be. But perhaps we're missing an easy answer to our problem. Why not ask our audience?

As a business writer, I have often asked my bosses what evidence they would find compelling for say, a proposal. Most of the people I've worked for are interested in hearing new ideas for how to accomplish some goal, and they are more than willing to spend a couple of minutes sharing with me what criteria they will use to assess my ideas. Similarly, as I mentioned earlier, businesses often ask their customers what they'd like to see in their products. Students, however, rarely ask their professors and fellow classmates what they would find interesting in an essay.

Perhaps we think that to ask someone what they want and then to give it to them is somehow not right. Other people might accuse us of brown-nosing or being a teacher's pet. We may, ourselves, feel that we should be able to figure it out on our own. But take some time to really think about it: what's wrong with asking people what they want?

So the next time you get a writing assignment in one of your classes and you're given some freedom to choose your topic, ask around. Ask your classmates what they'd like to read. Ask your teacher. You might not get a direct answer. You might have to dig a little. In fact, maybe you could try offering some options, "would you rather read about this or that?" The key is to give it a try. You might just save yourself a lot of valuable guessing time.

Monday, May 5, 2008

New Stuff

There have been some small changes here at btw2. The most obvious is the change in the Beyond btw section. I've created one section for links about writing and another for links about career success. Look to find links to sites that discuss leadership, management, and other career-oriented topics that you might find useful as you seek to develop the skills necessary to succeed in business (and many other endeavors).

The second change is less obvious, but this post is actually a small example. I intend to post more often even if it is a small post just to make an observation or point you to a cool new resource. My longer posts will continue, but I want to give you good reasons to check back more often. Writing in your career is still the central theme of this blog, but there are other topics related to success in your career that I think might be useful to you now as well.

I'd like to take this opportunity to point you to Jim Collins' website. Collins has conducted exhaustive research on what differentiates merely good companies from great ones as well as research into what businesses do to ensure their success lasts. You might not see yourself as a business person yet, but the beauty of what Collins has discovered is that his observations about greatness apply equally well to individuals as they do to businesses. If you want to set yourself apart from the crowd, I highly recommend Collins' work to you.

That's all for now. I'll be back soon with a post on the power of process. Stay tuned.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Solving Problems Through Argumentation

In beginning Composition classes we often ask our students to choose topics that are arguable. We routinely ask them to make arguments, to take sides on an issue. Often times students reply to this by expressing skepticism about argumentation. “Arguing is stupid,” they say.

I suspect this response stems from the meaning we place on the word argument. An argument for most of us is an unpleasant experience full of anger and yelling. Even in the public arena this definition has gained ground as 24-hour news networks fill their time with rosters of pundits yelling about the righteousness of their “side” and shouting down anyone who dares disagree.

But argument and debate are critical rhetorical tools and being able to argue or debate well is a valuable skill (or more accurately, a skill set). Crafting a good argument entails gathering a sufficient amount of information on the subject or issue. That information must be understood and, indeed, weighed to determine the relative value of the information. Furthermore, argument requires the writer or speaker to understand the counter-argument – the other side of the argument – in order to be able to find its strengths and weaknesses. Arguing, then, is a way of deriving truth from an issue. Moreover, it is a way of solving the problem presented by the issue.

Certainly, this is a simplified view of argumentation. Many arguments persist because there is no clear “truth” to be found; the evidence can rightly be interpreted in a variety of ways. It is also an oversimplification, and in fact a true error of thinking many of us make, to assume that there are only two sides to any issue or argument. Often, there are many sides of any issue.

Nevertheless, the value of argumentation as a skill set cannot be overstated. Despite the fact that is can often fail to yield the solution to an issue or problem, it often does yield a solution. The process, as we’ve said, is extremely valuable for understanding the nature of the issue or problem, and this process isn’t merely academic in nature.

Business is problem-solving. People work because there are problems to be solved. We need to get somewhere, but there is no clear path. Problem. So, we build a road. The road begins to slip into disrepair. Problem. We repair the road. We cannot get to our destination quickly enough. Problem. So we create fast means of transportation, like automobiles. Choose any product or service and you’ll find in it someone’s attempt to solve someone else’s (or their own) problem.

When your teachers are asking you to choose an arguable topic, they’re not out to frustrate you. They’re simply beginning the process of teaching you how to gather information, understand it, and propose solutions to problems. Every argumentative paper you write – arguably any paper you write – is an exercise in problem-solving. This is one of the most valuable skills you will acquire in school because no matter what career you choose to pursue, your ultimate job is going to be to solve problems.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Putting the 'W' in STEM

There has been a lot of excitement in the academic community about the new Dayton Regional STEM school set to launch in Fall of 2009. As you may know, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. It is in these critical areas that the school aims to prepare students for the new knowledge economy of the twenty-first century. Certainly an emphasis on these areas of learning is appropriate, but conspicuously missing from this formulation is the letter W – for Writing – which can serve as the root that allows the STEM school and its students to flower.

According to an article in the Dayton Business Journal, the “STEM school curriculum will feature typical classes like, history and language arts.” However, it is clear that writing currently takes a distant back seat in the school’s educational plans. If this oversight isn’t corrected, the school’s goal, as expressed by Gregory R. Bernhardt, dean of Wright State University’s College of Education and Human Services and chief facilitator for the STEM school, “to prepare students with the skills necessary to compete in our rapidly changing economy” will be seriously jeopardized.

The National Commission on Writing, a research and advocacy group formed by the College Board, has been working with educators, businesses, and government to understand the important role writing plays in the success of students and workers alike. In their seminal report, “The Neglected ‘R’: The Need for a Writing Revolution,” the commission discovered what composition teachers have long known: “If students are to make knowledge their own, they must struggle with the details, wrestle with the facts, and rework raw information and dimly understood concepts into language they can communicate to someone else. In short, if students are to learn, they must write” (9). They further concluded that “The reward of disciplined writing is the most valuable job attribute of all: a mind equipped to think. Writing today is not a frill for the few, but an essential skill for the many” (11). Clearly, then, writing is critical to success in both the classroom and the boardroom.

In one of several follow-up reports, “Writing and School Reform,” the commission further established the importance of writing as a core skill at the root of student learning:

In the past, the best schools placed great emphasis on writing. Grammar, rhetoric, and logic (saying things properly, saying them well, and saying them in a way that makes sense) were seen as cornerstones of powerful educational strategies. Exclusive private schools continue to rely on them. The valuable tool of writing must be put back in the hands of schoolteachers, not because writing is an optional talent that students might find useful at some point in their lives, but because writing (and the conceptual skills it reflects and develops) opens up new and powerful means of learning for all students (16).

Leading educators participating in commission-lead discussion forums developed a strong consensus that “the widespread use of writing across curriculum areas, including mathematics and science, holds the promise of improving students’ writing competence” and “deepening subject-matter knowledge” (25 emphasis mine).

In a recent edition of Dialogue, a Wright State newsletter for faculty and staff, Susan Bodary, executive director of EDvention, characterized the goal of the STEM school as one of “prepar[ing] students who solve problems, create, innovate and lead us toward the future.” Clearly, if the school is to achieve that goal, writing must be a central element of the school’s curriculum.

Without writing as a root of learning, the STEM is unlikely to draw enough nutrients from its educational soil to allow its students to blossom.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Don’t Be a Hater: WAC Ain’t Whack

Dr. Guy Guzzo’s recent post over at writing.bytes. about “whacked” assignments brought to mind another kind of WAC, Writing Across the Curriculum. If you’re attending classes at Wright State University, you’ve doubtless encountered writing intensive courses that are part of our WAC program. If you’re heading off to college in the near future, you’re bound to encounter something similar at your school of choice. Some schools refer to their programs as Writing in the Disciplines (WID – I guess they didn’t want to be know as WAD), but it’s all based on the same philosophy, namely, the use of writing to learn.

I’ve touched on the concept of writing to learn in my earlier post about interview preparation. The concept is very simple: writing about a subject helps us to understand the subject and clarify what we think about it. Writing assignments in writing intensive courses, then, may not all be “formal” ones. In other words, you won’t always have to write an essay. Often, you may be asked to make journal entries, produce an annotated bibliography, or similar assignments designed to let you leverage the writing process to learn the subject matter at hand.

As a student, I didn’t really like these assignments. It wasn’t that they weren’t effective; they were. It was that I had to work harder. I had to think more deeply about the subject matter. I had to engage with it, as we teachers like to say. Of course, it’s just this kind of hard work that actually pays dividends. You might not like assignments that demand more of you, but they are the very assignments that most help you to learn. In a very real way, they are the kinds of assignments that help you to get your money’s worth out of your education. Moreover, they model what you may be asked to do when you embark on your career.

Before coming to Wright State, I worked at a software company. Our software developers often used writing as a way to gather and understand customer requirements for our software. They would interview customers to gather the requirements. Then they would create a document to share the requirements with other members of the development team. Where the writing to learn concept really came into play, though, was in something we called a “walkthrough.”

When a programmer had completed a draft of the requirements document, we would gather a team together to review the document. The team consisted of members of our support, marketing, documentation, training, and sales departments – basically anyone who knew enough about our product and customers to have an opinion. Prior to the meeting we would all have reviewed the document.

During the meeting, we would go around the room and each person would make one positive comment about the document. Then we’d go around again and each person would comment on one perceived deficiency in the document. That process would continue until no one at the table had anything left to say about the document.

The comments were sometimes about small issues like formatting and grammar, but most of them were about substantive matters such as whether the document was clear and, most importantly, whether the document accurately captured what was required in the product. By engaging in this process – often multiple times for each document – we reached a deeper understanding of what the customer expected and ensured that the programmers knew what was expected of them.

We used this same technique in our marketing, documentation, professional services, and quality assurance departments. In a very real way, our company used writing as a way of learning about our customers, potential new markets, even about ourselves. Even when we weren’t producing a document for an external audience, writing played a major role in the development of our business.

It might seem obvious to you that as a writer and writing teacher I would promote the value of writing. It’s true that I have a bias. But that bias has been earned, so to speak. I didn’t always feel the way I do about writing. I used to feel the way you probably feel, that writing is a lot of work and a real drag. My confession is that I still feel that way sometimes. However, I’ve learned from experience that writing is one of the most powerful tools I possess, not only to communicate what I know, but to learn it in the first place. You might hate the process, but my advice is to gut it out, embrace it, and use it to learn.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Writing Your Way to a Better Job Interview

We’ve talked a bit in this space about the importance of writing to your career. That’s a major theme of this blog. At the same time, I’m sure most of you know how important a well-written résumé and cover letter can be to your attempts to land a job interview. Few people, though, have considered how valuable writing can be to them in preparing for the interview itself.

Katharine and Dr. Randall S. Hansen have considered it, and they’ve concluded that some pre-interview writing can enhance your performance in a job interview. You can read their article – “Promising Interview-Prep Technique: Composing Written Responses to Interview Questions” – so I won’t rehash it here. (For those academics out there, you can find the study upon which their article is based here.)

What I do want to say is that I think they’re right.

As a writing teacher, I’ve read a number of the studies about “Writing to Learn” that they cite in their research. Moreover, I’ve seen the results in the classroom. Writing – not to produce a polished final product, but to discover what you think and to make connections between ideas – is a powerful learning tool. As such, it is a very useful tool for self-discovery.

As an employer who has conducted a number of interviews and as an employee who has had to interview for a number of jobs, I can say unequivocally that interview preparation is one of the least emphasized aspects of the job search. Let me qualify that.

Some interviewees – usually people who have been through the interview process for multiple jobs – do the requisite research on the company with whom they are interviewing. Most good career and job counselors cover this aspect of interview preparation. However, most people do not spend much time preparing to talk about themselves.

I know that seems counter-intuitive, but potential employees rarely think deeply about their experiences. This is even truer for younger workers who don’t think they have a lot of experience to talk about. Of course, this makes it even more important to do some self-reflection before the interview.

As a prospective employee, you should spend time learning about the company with whom you are interviewing, but you should also identify those skills, abilities, and experiences that make you valuable to the company. You need to find effective ways to articulate your value to the company, to create what many businesses refer to as your “value proposition.”

Some of this work should have been done when creating your résumé and cover letter. Instead of just focusing on job titles, you should identify the tasks you’ve performed, the skills you’ve developed, the problems you’ve overcome and how you’ve done so, and the results you’ve produced. The résumé and cover letter is the place to demonstrate the value you brought to your previous jobs; the interview is where you get to make your sales pitch about the value you will bring to your new company.

The job interview is the main process by which employers determine whether you will be a good fit for their company. Employers are trying to determine not only what skills you possess, but also what type of person you are, how you communicate, and how you think on your feet. By taking the time to write to discover these details and hone your responses to their questions, you not only improve your ability to respond articulately in the moment, you actually practice the kind of preparation that can make you successful in other aspects of the job.

Interviews can be anxiety producing events – yet another reason to do some writing to prepare for your interview. By identifying your skills, uncovering your own personal success stories, and preparing answers to the questions you anticipate being asked, you can make your next job interview both more productive and less stress-inducing.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Writing: Practice for Your Career

I love sports. When I was younger, I played all the time, but I rarely took part in organized sports. Why? I hated to practice. Practice wasn’t like playing; it felt a whole lot more like work. If you’ve played any kind of organized sport, been in a band, a play, or any activity that required practice, you know what I mean.

Practice always entails activities that don’t seem like they have much to do with the game. I never played a single football game that required me to step through a tire, or a single concert where I had to play scales, but I had to do it in practice. Playing is free-flowing and fun while practice seems tediously prescribed and planned. You end up doing the same things over and over. What’s it all for?

The answer is that practice prepares you for the real thing. Repetition of plays, lines, or notes ensures that you can execute in the game, play, or concert without thinking about what you’re doing. Practice allows you to master your craft, creating a sea of calm in the midst of the ocean of chaos that is the competition or performance.

Why am I talking about practice? Because writing is great practice for your career. Not only are you likely to do a lot of writing in your career, but there are other aspects of the work world that writing mimics rather effectively. For example, even with the growth of the service industry, many jobs – especially those in the engineering and computer science fields – require you to create some sort of product.

Typically, there is a process for creating the products your business sells or uses. This process is often referred to as the Product Development lifecycle. To ensure the efficient completion of the product, this cycle must be managed. That process is called Project Management. These two disciplines can also be found in and developed using the writing process. The writing process yields the product of a final draft. In this way, the writing process parallels the product development lifecycle. Similarly, you need to employ project management techniques in order to complete your writing assignment on time.

Eric Verzuh, in his excellent book entitled, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, breaks the product development lifecycle into four stages:

1. Define product requirements
2. Design the product
3. Produce the product
4. Release / Operate the product (24-25)

These stages closely mirror elements of your writing assignments. Usually, your teacher defines the product requirements for you. Your paper needs to be on a certain subject, needs to be so many pages, etc. Similarly, your teacher usually prescribes the design of your paper, often requiring you to follow a certain style guide. Even without a specific style guide to follow, your teacher may prescribe a format for your paper to follow – put your name here, use a staple, leave 1-inch margins, etc. Your job, then, is to write the paper (3. Produce the product) and turn it in (4. Release the product).

So every time you write a paper, you are taking part in the product development lifecycle. The difference is that in your career, you might have more authority to shape the product’s requirements and design. In fact, just as in the classroom, the design and production of a product are often handled by different groups of people. The definition and design are where the decisions are made. If you like theory, analysis, and talking to customers, you’ll like the definition and design stages. If you’re a hands-on kind of person, you’ll most likely enjoy the production part of product development.

Developing the product is only part of the equation, however. The other part is managing the project. According to Verzuh, the project lifecycle has four linear stages:

1. Definition
2. Planning
3. Execution
4. Closure (20-21)

That looks a lot like the product development lifecycle above, and indeed, there are similarities. Just as a product has defined requirements, so too a project requires definition. This definition usually involves identifying not only what the project is, but also what resources (human, financial, and material) are available to complete the project. Just as the product needs to have a design to follow, a project needs to have a plan to follow.

In the planning stage, you identify each task in the project and allocate resources to accomplish those tasks. In a writing assignment, you will usually be the only human resource. However, you might anticipate the need for feedback from your teacher, tutor, or someone else who might review your work. You should identify these people in the planning stage so you can let them know you’ll be asking for help. This will help you to make out a schedule for your project, a key component to the planning process.

A schedule helps you estimate the time you will need for each task. Just as importantly, it helps you identify which tasks might need to be accomplished first and which ones can perhaps be accomplished relatively simultaneously (for example, you might conduct further research while your teacher reviews and provides comments on an early draft).

It’s very important to think ahead. The more complex your project is, the more advance thought you need to give it. JetBoy made this same point in his post at writing.bytes. Talking about outlines – a recommended project planning step for any writer – he wrote, “spending twenty minutes jotting down a rough outline of my paper saved me boat loads of time. I know where my paper is going, and I know how it's going to get there.” How right he is.

As important as it is for you to plan your own writing, it becomes even more important when you are employed in a project working with other people. When business projects are poorly planned – or not planned at all – other people suffer. Co-workers, customers, and the company itself can suffer huge consequences. How huge?

An entire methodology for ensuring quality by identifying defects, called SixSigma, has been developed to address the issue. According to iSixSigma.com, a content provider for users of the SixSigma method, the Systems Sciences Institute at IBM found that the cost of fixing a software defect was more than six times more expensive after implementing the software as it was to fix the same defect during the design phase. Once the software product was actually being used by customers, the cost to fix the defect was one hundred times what it would have cost to fix during the design phase. While these figures relate to software defects, the same principle is true for any kind of product creation from building a house to creating a fighter jet to writing a paper. When JetBoy says twenty minutes of planning saved him “boat loads of time,” he wasn’t exaggerating.

The third stage of the project lifecycle is execution. This parallels the product lifecycle’s third stage, producing the product. In the project lifecycle, however, what you are executing isn’t the product, but the project plan itself. Usually this means following the schedule you set up and making adjustments to it as certain tasks are accomplished more quickly or slowly than anticipated. In this sense, a project is a living thing, constantly in need of attention and maintenance.

Finally, the project is ready for closure. As with the product release, this fourth stage of the project usually means you are finished. However, the project can extend beyond the completion of the product. Once you turn in a paper, for example, your project really isn’t complete. A good project manager waits to receive feedback on the project. So, for example, your writing project might not conclude until after you get your paper back and you get the opportunity to see how you did. You can then assess not only how well you did on the paper, but learn from the results whether or not your project plan was effective.

Managing a project isn’t just about checking all the boxes in your plan and getting the project off your desk. As Eric Verzuh notes, “The definition of project success is that a high quality product is delivered on time, and the project concludes on budget” (17, emphasis added). Translated into writing terms, it means that your writing met or exceeded the criteria (measured by your grade), got done on time (usually also a criteria) and didn’t take you more time, effort, or materials than you thought it would.

Practice can suck, but it also prepares you to succeed. Like practice, writing is sometimes arduous, tedious, and can seem unrelated to what you really want to do. The reason is that writing is practice, not only for other writing, but for learning product development and project management skills that can help you succeed in your chosen career, whatever it may be.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Trick-E-Mails

One of the trickiest business writing tasks is the art of sending a good e-mail.

In the “good old days” before e-mail, much written business communication took the form of letters, if the correspondence was going outside the office, or memos, if it was an internal communication. Both letters and memos had their own special formatting requirements that visually identified the communication as either a letter or a memo. These correspondences had to be typed or printed out on the computer so both the process and the formatting gave the writing of these communications a sense of formality. It was easy to identify letters and memos as business correspondence. Not so with e-mail.

As the name implies, e-mail (short for electronic mail) is simply a faster way of sending a letter or memo. Not only do e-mails arrive at their destinations faster than postal or “snail mail,” but e-mail applications come with their own formatting making the production of the e-mail faster as well. E-mails become so easy to put together and the expectation of speed is so enticing, that writers often do not edit or proofread their messages before they send them. Similarly, the speed with which an e-mail can be sent, received, and responded to has led to the use of e-mail as an electronic conversation tool.

The same technology that makes e-mail such a fast way to communicate has led to newer forms of communication like chat rooms, instant messaging, and text messaging by cell phone or PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants). These additional technologies with roughly the same purpose have greatly blurred the line between formal business communications and informal personal communications. Text messaging, specifically, has led to the development of a number of acronyms and shortcuts because of the difficulty of typing on most cell phones. In combination, all of these factors have led to a more informal brand of communication.

Further complicating matters is the element of audience. I may be at work, but I may be sending an informal message to one of my colleagues, someone who might also be a friend. The message may even pertain to work, but because of my more informal relationship to my colleague, I may find that an informal e-mail is appropriate. In this type of communication, the standard rules of business writing and etiquette may well not apply. However, all of these factors may make it more difficult for me to shift gears when it comes time to send a more formal message to, say, my boss.

Without the traditional cues telling us that we are engaged in a business activity that requires a more formal writing approach, e-mail communications require business writers (which is almost anyone with a job) to be even more alert to the purpose of their writing and the intended audience. What makes the stakes even higher is that e-mail communication is easily duplicated and sent to a mass audience, many of whom may be people you don’t know or never intended to communicate with.

This situation happened to me recently. I had sent a colleague an e-mail about a proposed meeting. Since I was merely asking for information and since the colleague and I are friends, I included a stupid play on words in my e-mail inquiry. It wasn’t offensive or anything, but it wasn’t something I would have written for a mass audience. It was simply a silly, throw away comment that I knew my friend would find amusing because it was “so me.” To save time answering my question, my friend forwarded my inquiry to a group of colleagues with whom I did not have a close relationship. Since the request I was making was of a professional nature, I was appalled that my side comment to my friend was now being transmitted to other people to whom I would not have sent the comment had I contacted them myself.

The above example is not the only way in which an e-mail you might consider “private” can become public. E-mails may appear to be ethereal in nature, but each time you send one, a copy is made on the server that receives it. In other words, there may be numerous copies of your e-mail existing on your company’s e-mail server and the computers of people outside of the company as well. In a very real way, e-mail communication is not private communication.

The simple act of composing an e-mail is fraught with hidden consequences. This common and seemingly innocuous form of communication is one that requires a great deal of thought. It is important to be aware of the potential for public duplication and sharing of your communications.

In many ways, writing an e-mail is even more of a serious, professional and business writing task than business letters and memos used to be. Use care when composing your e-mails. Don’t merely think twice before sending it, think thrice.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Going Mental

There are many different kinds of work in the world, but all work can be conveniently divided into two types: mental work and manual work.

Manual work or manual labor can be very satisfying. There are very noble professions that primarily involve manual labor. Carpenters, construction workers, auto mechanics, and autobody specialists, to name just a few, all do creative, meaningful, and potentially rewarding work.

Equally important, though perhaps less appealing, are essential waste management and custodial jobs. Customer service is a growing field. Helping other people purchase their clothes and hamburgers takes a certain level of social skill, but is largely an endeavor in manual labor.

In addition to whatever enjoyment and financial gain you may get out of it, one thing that certain manual labor jobs have going for them is that they are harder to outsource. After all, you can’t drive to China to have your care repaired, and it doesn’t make sense to have your trash pick-up outsourced to India.

That said, this country has already lost many of the manual labor jobs that once formed the backbone of middle-class America. Jobs in the steel, auto manufacturing, and garment industries will likely never return.

Mental work, too, can be and has been outsourced. Nevertheless, mental labor has significantly more potential for earning you a significant income than most manual labor jobs. Furthermore, you are likely to have greater longevity in a field requiring mental labor than you are in one that demands manual labor.

The challenges you face to find meaningful and profitable work to sustain your career, your interests and your life are significant. The single most important thing you can do to help ensure your success in life is to equip your mind to think.

In our last post, Travis Greenwood, talked about the importance of critical and creative thinking in business. He linked both the development and demonstration of those abilities to writing. He’s not alone.

In 2004, the National Commission on Writing released a report entitled, “Writing: A Ticket to Work . . . Or a Ticket Out.” The report discussed the results of a comprehensive survey of businesses throughout the United States. Business leaders and human resources professionals were asked about the importance of writing skills in a wide variety of businesses representing both mental and manual work.

The Commission drew two conclusions from their study. “First, writing appears to be a ‘marker’ attribute of high-skill, high-wage, professional work,” and “writing is also a ‘gatekeeper’. . . . [O]pportunities for salaried employment are limited for employees unable to communicate clearly.”

The survey revealed that business professionals agree that good writing “consists of the ability to say things correctly, to say them well, and to say them in a way that makes sense (i.e., grammar, rhetoric, and logic [respectively])” (19, emphasis added).

One of the most important and consistent messages from business leaders in the survey were “comments equating clear writing with clear thinking” (19). One business leader expressed the consensus this way: “My view is that good writing is a sign of good thinking. Writing that is persuasive, logical, and orderly is impressive. Writing that’s not careful can be a signal of unclear thinking” (8).

The connection between strong writing skills and clear, logical, creative, critical thinking is clear. It’s equally clear that these very skills largely determine and define success as a professional.

Each writing assignment you encounter in school is an opportunity for you to develop and hone your thinking and writing skills. How you approach and value these opportunities will largely determine whether you end up working for a living or thinking for a living.

If you’re looking to advance into high paying career positions, my advice is Go Mental.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Interview: Travis Greenwood, The Greentree Group

Today marks the first of what I hope will be regular interviews with business professionals. Our inaugural victim is Travis Greenwood, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Greentree Group in Dayton, Ohio and a friend of mine from back in the day.

btw2: Travis, can you tell our readers a little bit about your college and business experience?

TG: I earned my Bachelor degree in Communications from Wright State in 1984. I also earned a Master of Science in Administration from Central Michigan University in 1991. Waiting a bit between the two degrees was beneficial in two ways; it allowed me time to enjoy a new life outside of school and, subsequently, I was able to take some actual career experience into the classroom during my master’s courses.

During my last two [undergraduate] years of college, I worked full-time as a Public Affairs Specialist at Wright-Patterson AFB. I was a writer creating hundreds of articles for a few dozen newspapers around the country. Upon graduating in 1984, I took my prior experience to San Antonio, Texas. A large corporation specializing in jet engine repairs for the military and commercial markets hired me as a marketing assistant and project manager for a few military engine programs.

A few years later, I found myself in Albuquerque, New Mexico working for an Information Technology (IT) firm who designed and built lights-out repair facilities for commercial and military needs. The company eventually transferred me back to Dayton, Ohio. During the next several years, I held a few project management positions with Lockheed Martin and Battelle Memorial Institute.

In 1993, I started a consulting business with my father called The Greentree Group. We’re a strategic and technology consulting firm headquartered in Dayton, Ohio.

btw2: What role has writing played in your career? Do you think your ability to write has helped you in your career journey?

TG: The ability to write well has played a huge role in my career. I learned a lot about the basics during my two years of writing newspaper articles. My boss always told me the goal was to write articles with the proper amount of detail (less is more) and ensure they were easy to understand. We used the AP Style Guide because it’s the bible for print journalism. It’s widely used and contains a lot of “stuff” to help [keep] writers from making errors of fact, grammar and punctuation.

Now think about what I just said. I learned to write to the proper detail, make things easy to understand and produce documents that followed established writing guidelines. During the past 25 years of my career, I have found that those three things are key attributes of communicating with people in the business world.

btw2: It sounds like writing skills are very important in business, at least in your career.

TG: If you can’t write well and communicate your message effectively, your chances of growing in a business are very limited. That’s because writing is a huge part of a normal business day. People in my company (as well as most others) will send dozens of emails and prepare two or three papers of some sort every day.

Of course writing an email doesn’t necessarily require precise writing skills – people expect blurbs of information and even grammar errors when reading an office email. However, people still want to read a message having the proper detail of information. They also expect it to be easy to understand. Possessing the key attributes is even more critical when writing formal documents such as proposals or position papers.

Building skills that produce those three attributes is a continuous process – you never stop learning to better communicate your message. Your writing style might change or mature. You’ll become more comfortable with your writing as time goes by. But if you can’t develop and continuously improve upon the three attributes, then I would suggest becoming a rock star or a doctor who writes cryptic notes.

btw2: I’ve always believed that the skills I use as a writer serve me in other areas of my career. For example, the kind of preparation I undertake for a piece of writing is very similar to what I do when I plan a project. What skills or aspects of the writing process do you see as transferable to other business or professional activities you might perform on a regular basis?

TG: I would agree with the similarities of writing and project planning. Building an outline for a paper is just like building a work breakdown structure (tasks) for a project. I’d go even further to say that those skills feed upon each other – one skill grows as the other skill grows.

I believe my ability to speak or communicate an oral message has improved because of my increased writing skills. I find myself organizing my message before I open my mouth (although my wife would disagree with that). I have also found that my writing skills have helped with my thought process – and my thought process has improved my writing skills.

btw2: You and I had lunch awhile back and I began talking about critical thinking. You surprised me by starting to talk about creative thinking. What is the value of creative thinking to a business and do you see a connection between critical thinking and creative thinking?

TG: Critical thinking is very important. A business must have people who know how to analyze problems, organize their thoughts and make good judgments. Every university in America teaches it. A business cannot succeed without critical thinkers.

However, creative thinking is just as important. Being able to take a critical thought and do something with it is vital to a business. Producing solutions or developing a new product requires fresh thinking, flexibility, and people who aren’t afraid to try new ideas. Bill Gates and Microsoft is a perfect example.

In 1975, Bill Gates was a 19 year-old sophomore at Harvard writing revolutionary computer code. His ability to organize his technical thoughts, write lines of code and make them do something was extraordinary – that was critical thinking at its best. However, what he did in the early 1980s was one of the most brilliant pieces of creative thinking I’ve seen in the business world.

During those days, a transition of huge proportions – from mainframe to personal computers – was underway. Gates approached IBM about using MS-DOS on their forthcoming personal computers. Executives at IBM offered Gates, who was now at the helm of Microsoft, a sizeable amount of money thinking that the code could be purchased. They were floored when Bill told them that all he wanted was to sell them the rights (for a small sum of money) to distribute the code each time the computer giant sold a personal computer. The executives bought the creative approach thinking they could take advantage of him.

Bill Gates’ creative thinking was the key to making his critical thoughts (the MS-DOS code) successful. And, as I write to you today on my personal computer, Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world.

btw2: You've been pretty successful, too. Tell us a little bit about your company, the Greentree Group. What does your company do and why would our readers want to work there?

TG: Greentree provides a broad range of professional and technical support services to federal, state, and local governments and to clients in the private sector. Our core competencies include business-focused strategies and solutions in three key areas: information technology, financial management and program management.

That’s the official, convoluted answer about Greentree. What we really do is solve our clients’ problems by helping them simplify or enhance their business processes through the use of computers and better management.

We’re a small, family-owned business with yearly revenues between $15-20 million. We treat our employees like members of our own family. Our people work hard and produce results because they know the company will reward them appropriately. It’s a simple theory based on a mutual partnership; as our people help the company grow, Greentree gives back to them. The minute that stops is the day we fail as a business. We also keep our priorities in line through a strong value system which fuels the belief that “we work to live, we don’t live to work.”

btw2: What qualities do you look for in a person when you’re making a hiring decision?

TG: Ethics, integrity are first and foremost. Critical thinkers are a dime a dozen. I am partial to the creative thinker because they’re always in short supply and it’s a talent that makes our company successful. Our people must be able to communicate effectively whether it is in writing or orally. And, finally, our people must enjoy coming to work everyday. If they don’t enjoy what they’re doing then they are no value to me or themselves.

btw2: I'm wondering how critical thinking can be important if "critical thinkers are a dime a dozen."

TG: I guess what I mean by the "dime a dozen" comment is that every university in America is teaching it through engineering, science, mathematics, and computer degrees. However, I don't think we see enough emphasis on the creative part. Fortunately, we live in America -- without a doubt the greatest country in the world. A country blessed by God with freedoms to allow all of us to create, express ourselves, and become successful. So, when I say "critical thinkers are a dime a dozen," many of those talented people can't or don't allow themselves to be creative thinkers. It's not something that is necessarily taught in schools but comes [from] a willingness to "think out of the box" and present ideas. Unfortunately, many businesses don't encourage that.

btw2: I see. So critical thinking is important – as you said before – but it’s kind of a given, something that is necessary just to get into the game. Whereas, creative thinking is more like the winning edge.

TG: Exactly.

btw2: Travis, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me and our readers.

TG: My pleasure.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

“Needless to say?” Then why say it?

I was listening to the radio as I drove to work this morning. A local station is having a contest somehow connected to a new TV show about a grocery store in Dayton, Ohio. The contest asks listeners to send in their work-related stories which the DJs then read over the air.

A woman sent in her story. She related how she had just taken over the daily operations at her mother’s business. One night, most of the staff was staying late to meet some kind of deadline or catch up on work. One young man, the brother of another employee, opted not to work late. However, since his brother was his ride, he had to go wait in his brother’s truck.

So this guy is waiting in his brother’s truck and he begins to get bored. He starts the truck and begins to drive the truck, which has a stick shift, the storyteller emphasizes. Here’s where the story takes a turn for the worst, not only in terms of the actual events, but also in the telling of it.

I’ve so far related the story pretty much as I heard it over the air, so you know as much as I did at the time. Can you guess what is going to happen next? I couldn’t. I mean, I had some ideas: he drives off and begins a shooting spree, he hits a tree, he does donuts in the parking lot, he crashes into the building – there were several possibilities. But here, somewhat paraphrased, is what the storyteller writes:

“Needless to say,” the kid drove the truck right through the front of our brick building.

Needless to say? No! That was very important to say. That – driving the truck through the front of the building – was the main event of the story. Without that salient detail, the story isn’t even a story.

The storyteller went on to relate some other small details and then very quickly followed up with “Needless to say, that event was a major learning experience for me as a leader” – or something along those lines.

So let’s be real for a moment. Why am I so bothered by this? It’s a very funny story despite the inclusion of this very clichéd phrase, “needless to say.” It really is harmless, isn’t it? Yes, I suppose so, but here’s the thing:

Most young writers mimic things they hear around them. Our conversation is filled with trite clichés and meaningless filler. All these useless words seem to find their way into student writing, and when you see enough of it, you go a little crazy. But of all the meaningless, useless clichés, “needless to say” has got to be one of, if not the worst. If you don’t need to say it, why say it, why put it on paper? Moreover, what you are saying or writing usually does need to be said or written. After all, the story isn’t as obvious to your listeners and readers as it is to you, the person to whom it happened.

The point of this little rant, then, is think about the words you are using, at least when you write. Your writing will be cleaner, clearer, and needless to say, your teachers and bosses will thank you for filling your writing with meaningful words and not meaningless blather.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

The Importance of Writing

“Why is writing important?” This is an intelligent and very practical question that I often hear from students. They want to know why they should spend the considerable time and effort it takes to write well. One answer is that writing is an important skill set to master because it can convey ideas in a lasting way. There are several important elements to that last sentence: first, writing is a skill set, not a singular skill; second, writing is used to convey ideas; and finally, writing endures over time.

Writing is a skill set
One of the difficulties teachers have in talking about writing is our use of the simple word writing to convey what is actually a complex activity. By using the word writing, we invite confusion with the act of putting pen or pencil to paper or fingers to the keyboard and forming letters into words. These are the physical motions of writing, but they are not the substance of it. A quick side note here: Members of the media have recently taken to criticizing one another by referring to those journalists who do not do the true work of journalism as typists. This seems a fitting distinction for writers to make as well. Are you doing the work of writing, or are you merely typing?

I’m not sure what the solution to this particular semantic problem is. I’m not suggesting we stop using the word writing to indicate what we do or are trying to teach. I do think, however, that we need to be more aware of the pitfalls of the word and strive to articulate and understand the skill set of writing. Which brings us back to the original claim that writing is a set of skills not a singular skill. So what are these skills?

There are many of them, actually: planning the writing project, organizing your ideas, crafting your sentences for maximum clarity and appeal, proofing your writing to ensure it doesn’t contain grammatical errors that might obscure your meaning or make your work look sloppy.

The most important skill, by far, though, is thinking. Writing begins with thinking or analysis. In fact, writing can be an aid to the act of thinking. The two acts are intertwined. Though not all thinking is done in writing, all good writing involves thinking. If you don’t know the subject matter you’re writing about, you have nothing meaningful to say about it. If you don’t know the reason you’re writing, you won’t know what to say about the subject. If you don’t know the audience for whom you’re writing, you won’t know how to phrase your writing. In short, if you’re writing without thinking, you’re definitely just typing.

Writing Conveys Ideas
Thus we return to the second assertion we made a moment ago, that writing is used to convey ideas: writing is communication. Communication is critical to our survival. Without communication, progress stops cold. When we cannot share our ideas and observations with one another, we are doomed, not only to a cold and lonely emotional and intellectual existence, but we are further doomed to a world in which learning – survival itself – is confined only to our own experience of what we can observe. You don’t think learning is a matter of survival? How could you survive if you never learned what foods you can eat or which are poison to you or how to gather the proper foods? Without learning, you’re toast. And without communication, you’d have to learn everything by trial and error. You think school is tough? In the world without communication, one error may be all you get.

“Yes,” says the observant student, “but we can share ideas by talking, so why is writing so important?”

Writing Endures
This intelligent question brings us to our third assertion that writing is lasting: writing endures. There is a corollary to this assertion as well. Not only does writing endure, but because it endures, it also propagates. Through speech alone, our world continues to be limited, though certainly expanded from a world in which only observation can teach us anything, but writing can be transmitted to other people in other places all over the world.

Speech can travel only so far and lasts but a moment. Once the spoken word has faded away, only memory can ensure that the thoughts communicated with speech are transferred. Now many cultures have used oral history to pass down the wisdom of the culture. However, those cultures tend to remain rather insular by comparison to cultures that can spread their word in writing.

So what?
“OK,” says the savvy student, “writing is a skill set that lets me convey my ideas in a way that lasts. So what? I still don’t get why it’s so important. Why should I care about grammar and thesis statements and all that stuff my English teachers are trying to get me to do? What’s so important about that? My friends don’t care if my e-mails and text messages are grammatically correct or have thesis statements, why should I?”

To you, I say, you’re probably right. Most of your friends probably don’t care about those things. They are willing to spend the time to figure out what you meant to say even if you weren’t clear about it. And you may not care whether they understand what you mean. So, perhaps what you’re e-mailing about isn’t so important that it needs to be very clear and grammatically correct. Perhaps it is not so intellectually deep as to require a great deal of organization or a focus like a thesis statement. So for those types of written communications, don’t sweat the details.

Demonstrating your value
However, there are other situations – like school or in the business world – and other audiences – like teachers and business professionals – for whom those things will matter. And they will matter, not because the people involved are being pedantic or trying to make your life difficult. Those things will matter because the subject matter is important or complex enough to require real skill to effectively articulate what you are trying to communicate. Or because time is of the essence for your reader. Or simply because paying attention to the details of good writing shows that you have the kind of discipline and professionalism that are prized in your career field.

The bottom line is this: your friends value you for a variety of reasons, but in the professional world your value is tied to your brain.

You are only valuable to your employer to the extent that you can solve problems and produce results. Your ability to think is your most valuable asset, and you will often be asked to convey your ideas in writing. If those ideas don’t make sense, if they are not clearly presented, your bosses will move on. They don’t have the time to try to figure out what you meant to say, and they are unlikely to trust that you can produce the kind of results they want if your writing shows that you don’t pay attention to detail and don’t care about the quality of your work.

Your ability to think and to clearly convey your thoughts is very important. Since writing is the single most durable and transmittable way to convey your thoughts, writing well becomes a very important skill set for you to possess. As for your teachers, their job is to help you develop those skills. They demand success from you because they know that someday your livelihood will depend on it.

Next week, I hope to post the first of our interviews with actual business professionals. In many ways, that should be a good introduction to the practical importance of writing. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to leave your comments and questions.