Death by PowerPoint

I was at our state's capitol this week learning about the ins and outs of my role as a community college trustee. Let me tell you--though the information was terrific, the PowerPoint slides made me weep. Volumious paragraphs, tiny numbers on graphs and charts, twenty lines of text, long sentences, no graphics, and boring headers. Need I say more?

Do presenters really think people can read their content and understand? And, at a 100 feet!? Susan Stoen is the guru of PowerPoint. Take a gander at her interesting article on this subject on my Resources tab on our website.
She is also doing a webinar for us in February.

She can help you land the sale or promotion, persuade the powers-that-be to your point of view, or prevent people from nodding off during your presentation. Good luck!

The Perfect Storm

I’ve written about Teresa Romaneschi before (See my July posting). Teresa is one of our writing coaches who works exclusively with non-native English speakers.

Teresa alerted me to this website (Hint: Start at 6:00 of the report.).  The video presentation is stunning as it outlines the shifting demographics in our workplace. The economic repercussions nationally and globally is startling. One factoid: Over half of our future population will come from immigration.

Assisting your high potential employees to achieve success is an imperative. Check out Teresa’s webinar for us next week on this topic. Once you're at the calendar, click on January 20 to register.

Jargon, schmargon

I think you will get a kick out of a Letter to the Editor in this week's Forbes magazine. Writer Christopher Steiner put all the most common ones together in a hilarious paragraph. Here is a sampling: "That, of course, limits everyone's bandwidth when the troops really just want to drink from the high-level fire hose while the cement is still wet and the competition is still in the weeds."

Word Count! Redux

Words Count!
It seems that words do count! Several articles this past month caught my eye. You might enjoy reading them as well. Online bullying has gone to a new level. Facebook postings prompted three middle school students to be arrested. In the financial world the Vanguard Group did, according to a Seattle Times article, the “dumbest boo boo of the year”  by printing the wrong ticker symbol in a prospectus.

Last, an Associated Press article listed the 2009 words and phrases that should be banished. “Shovel ready” was at the top of the list as was “czar,” “sexting,” “tweet,” and “teachable moment.” Thirty-five words in all. Do you have any to add to the list?

Cost of poor writing blows me away

I am continually blown away at the cost of poor writing! Case in point: We are working with a very large school district in the mid-West. The group we’re working with is in charge of creating school site-visit reports. They have asked us to come in and help them reduce the time it takes to write these horrendous things, AND to increase the effectiveness of their words. Since the docs go all the way up the chain-of-command, it’s really, really important that they are well written.

So get this—they currently have two layers of writers: the original writer and then the person that rewrites the original writer’s words. AND, now they have hired a third layer of writers—these folks will review the other two writers' writing. Think of the cost! Consider: They have 20 site supervisors, 10 underlings who do the rewriting and now 5 more folks as editors.

What more can I say?!

Thumbs may hurt, but what about their reputation?

An article in the The Seattle Times this morning really caused me to chuckle. Jeannine Stein described how too much texting can cause back pain and severe musculoskeletal symptoms. I think I would worry more about my reputation!  We all know the slips and trips we make when writing with our thumbs. And, those of you with younger employees? You certainly understand the transition difficulties of moving from a "text" world to the business world.

Reduce Your Costs While You Develop Your Employees

Any of you on my mailing list know that I am promoting my webinars—those one-hour content-rich sessions—focusing on all things business writing. Webinars, as a learning vehicle, have some nifty plusses to them. You can reach wide and deep within the organization, it’s only a short time commitment, and usually contains great information at a reasonable price. All good things. BUT, and it’s a big BUT, what do you do after the session to retain the content?

Here are some ideas for you to consider:
1. Hold the webinar is one room. Everyone gathers there. This way camaraderie is created around learning

2. Have a buddy system—partner up to see if the content learned is translating into work product.

3. Bring up the webinar topics at meetings. This will serve as a reminder of information learned.