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.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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.
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.
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.
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