Thoughts
Blog
Here’s my blog on strategy, work, words and communications.
If you enjoy it, get it first by signing up for Matterings, my fortnightly e-newsletter.
More insight, more personal.
A tale of two crises
This past month I’ve been privy to both Optus and Medibank’s crisis communications with customers.
Yep, I’m a customer of both.
Good strategy requires us to stop things.
Most companies allocate the same resources to the same business functions every year. They don’t change. Inertia reigns.
But failing to be flexible undermines their performance.
Keep it simple stupid.
By using plain English, we get our message across faster, help more people to understand it, and reduce the chance of misunderstanding or error.
It also makes you look clever. Seriously!
The gap between intentions and actions
Whether implementing a business strategy, getting fit, or saving for a big holiday, we’re full of good intentions.
So why do so many of us fail to turn our intentions into action?
Making it easier to understand government
𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝? “𝐇𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.” 𝐎𝐫, “𝐇𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐤.” 𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐛𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬.
To err is human, to forgive divine.
We all err at times in our writing. A typo here. A misspell there. A slide into the passive voice. A run-on sentence containing too many ideas.
Too many words.
I’m generally opposed to acronyms and abbreviations, but this made me laugh when I looked it up. It means too long, didn’t read.
Fact or fake news? I don’t need to be a great writer. Good enough is near enough.
… author Josh Bernoff wrote, “the fuzzy, terrible writing we slog through every day at work” costs American businesses nearly $400 billion every year.
ABBREVIATIONS alienate
But acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms are a hurdle to leap and get in the way of our readers. Every time we use them, we place an additional cognitive load on our audience.
Subscribe
I write regularly on strategy, work, words and communications. Subscribe to my newsletter to read it first.
Subscribe
We’ll only use your email address to send you (good quality) emails and you can unsubscribe any time.