This blog is an expanded version of a post I put up on Facebook after wrestling with some software for a tooth-grinding hour or so. Hands up who has had that experience....?

What adventures in language were accomplished this week?

Well, not so much accomplished but experienced. I have been writing some spreadsheets and cutting a video promo for a client this week. This has involved using some software in a more focussed way. Most modern programmes let you get started at a basic level by pointing and clicking and off you go. But if you want to do something that is not in the top twenty standard activities, then some digging around may be required; pointing and clicking then starts to look a little bit like my 3-year old nephew dragging his finger across the TV screen and getting very frustrated because the TV does not respond like an iPad. Prod the screen and nothing happens. Or worse, point and click and something you don't want to do happens, catastrophically.  

This week, I really wanted to get the best out of some software - after all, most of these packages are crammed so full of features that an average laptop has a thousand times more computing power than every mainframe that was used to put a man on the moon. So, to maximise the potential of what I could achieve, I went looking for the instructions. As we all know, these no longer come in the box - if there was even a box for them to come in. 

Has anyone else noticed that instruction manuals for nearly everything seem to be written by people who already know how something works and who therefore assume that everyone else knows all the basics of the product already? I am a big Apple fan but I have to say that the good people over there are as guilty as the folk at Ikea of creating instructions that need a separate subset of instructions to make them usable. To be clear, I am good at assembling stuff and I hardly break a sweat when asked to put together a table called Tostig or a bookshelf called Brønk. I am both good at this stuff and remarkably patient - so it's probably true that if I can't understand the manual, there may well be a problem with the manual. 

So this week, I have decided that life is too short to read the manual on Numbers (the Apple version of Excel) because the authors are clearly expert accountants and brilliant software engineers, not small business owners who need things to be explained from the beginning. Or, because the authors assume that no-one is ever actually going to read the manual, they just leave stuff out - and the bit they leave out is exactly the bit that you have scoured the manual looking for. 

So, I am on a mission: if you know someone who wants a manual written by a copywriter who would like to help to reduce the numbers of stress-related strokes and myocardial infarcts ('heart attacks' to those of us who haven't read 'How to be a doctor' manual), then I could very well be that writer. Clarity is everything in writing. Great fiction writers make sure that the reader can see the scene and never get lost. Great copywriters working on a manual make sure that the customer knows that Part A is the chair leg and Hardware Item E is the 4cm bolt that goes with the nut, Hardware Item F which will probably require the washer, Hardware Item G.  

Right now, I am thinking of three magic words that can reduce blood pressure and bring joy to the world. No, on this occasion, not 'I love you'. The words I have in mind are, 'I get it!', swiftly followed by 'That was easy.'

So please be on the look out for referrals for me in Sydney, Australia-wide or throughout the English-speaking world to write a manual - a great way for me to chase up a lead of this nature is for you to contact me if you are ready to tear your hair out trying to read an incomprehensible manual. Let me know and I'll call the manufacturer.

Have a great week!
 

There has been a gap in this blog for a very good reason. Last Friday, 21st September, was the deadline for delivering a screenplay to Screen NSW, the government funding body that supports film-making in this State. 
In record time for a script that I have written on my own, a feature length screenplay was produced in less than 3 weeks. This involved late nights and early mornings and a lot of what is known in Hollywood as sitzfleisch - literally, sitting flesh, or the ability to keep the rear on the chair and the eye on the prize.
Now, I am back to copywriting, straight into some web copy and a business plan for clients. 
The more I write, the more I love writing.  

Famous last words!  Oh, how often have we heard or used that phrase?! So, I wax lyrical on the ease and need to blog and just like the doctor who looks so ill because he fails to do any exercise and smokes cheroots between patients, I have been so busy having meetings with other people about blogging for them that this is only my second post here. But, as easily as I sit here and tap out these words, there is a solution. I love to write and making time to do it is a pleasure. 
 
So what can be learnt from my little lapse? Dedicating time in your business day to blog can be a challenge - which is exactly why hiring a writer to blog for you is such a good idea.  Yes, I know, of course I would say that, but it really does turn out to be true.

An interesting experience from this weekend: I am helping a business coach to create some video footage. He is a friend more than a client, so he is using me as his guinea pig in the videos.  One of the points he made is relevant to us all in business: if you don't know why you do what you do, if you don't have a Purpose for your business, in his view, you really don't have a business. 

So, what makes you get out of bed in the morning - apart from the need to stretch the legs and pay the bills? You can bet that Sir Richard Branson, Lord Dyson (the man who reinvented the vacuum cleaner and those brilliant Blade hand dryers), the inventor of TED.com, the head of the International Red Cross and pretty much every other person whose brands we know, like and trust understand why they get up and go to work. So, with the coach's help, I asked myself, why do I jump at the chance to write for people?  

If I do this job just to earn money so that I can have the time to write the films I love to write and the novels that are sloshing around in note form yet to hit the page, I could end up dragging myself to the keyboard when I am asked to apply my mind to a business report or a brochure or, for that matter, a blog for a client. The Purpose I discovered for my business is this: the English language is little short of a miracle and I have had an ongoing love affair with its complexity and subtlety and nuance and all its opportunities for wit for as long as I can remember. So, the Purpose of my business is to make my clients' business communications an expression of the love I have for the English language, to use it with honesty, accuracy, elegance and the occasional dollop of grace.

Does that sound like it makes sense?  

Whatever we do with love, we do better, so my Statement of Purpose is all about making sure that I do my very best for you.   

 

Good afternoon, blogospherites and welcome to my brand new blog!  In Sydney, it is an overcast Sunday with a distinct chill in the air. An ideal time to be at the desk, blogging, pondering the ways of the world and wondering how I might entertain and inform my new audience. So here is a question worth asking: Why do so many smart business people blog? 

There are a couple of distinct reasons that clever business people commit their thoughts to the internet.  Both of the reasons are practical - but one of the reasons can be made to be much more than just that. That second reason is hardly revolutionary or even counter-cultural, but it does appear to flow against the dominant direction of where our culture is being pushed. What I am driving at here is, has anyone else noticed that free market economics is the dominant argument used everywhere? And most of the people I know have started to spot a trend towards self-interest - some companies seem to be digging every dollar out of every deal and giving very little back either to society or even their customer base. Before you switch off, this is not a political blog. I am actually going to talk about marketing. So, let's see if I can get to the point! 

Again, I promise you this is not about politics. Let me prove that to you by telling you the First Reason for businesses to blog: it is because it helps Google and the other Search Engines to find you. And if they find you easily and your content is relevant, you rise in the rankings, which is vital. So blogging is a matter of enlightened self-interest.

Now, that overused phrase leads me to the Second Reason to blog.  The enlightened bit. It is also the bit that sounds like I am banging on about politics, but this Second Reason is also in your best interests and those of your business. The Second Reason is to give your readers something of value. We certainly hope those readers include past, present and future customers. By giving them something of value - some information, a ‘How To’, a money-saving piece of advice or whatever else you can give away -, you show yourself to be the sort of person that others can like and trust.  And what does all the research say about who we buy from?  People we know, like and trust. So give people something in the content of your blog and you will gain.  Digging every dollar out of every deal is like totally clearing a field of potatoes and eating the lot.  Leave a percentage behind and guess what, they sprout up into new plants, making more spuds for you to harvest later.  Blogs can be thought of as gifts to your customers - so consider what you would like to give and I'd love to write the blogs for you. 

Click here for the Special Offers page to see how easily you can get a blog up and running. 


I’ll expand on this theme in the next post. For now, enjoy the Closing Ceremony of the London Olympics!