Another post in my series to help consultants improve your business English. I know that these take time to read, and more time to use in your writing. But do practice. Your writing will be easier to read, easier to understand, and ultimately more effective.
That is, if you want to influence your next prospect. Otherwise, by all means, skip.
Time and a place.
Ok. My views on Bullet Points in Presentations? They don’t belong! However, in documents and in blog posts, bullet points & numbered lists are imperative for clarity. Where people go wrong is with consistency in two areas:
1. Grammar.
Mixing tenses (past, present, future), voices (active, passive), and moods (imperative, indicative) confuses your writing. This is usually a dead give away that you’ve copied content from elsewhere.
If you’re listing instructions, common in technical writing, then use the Imperative mood. E.g.:
Select the text.
Copy, then paste this into the form.
Press the [OK] button.
If you’re describing benefits, then the Indicative mood can work. e.g.:
Engaging ACME Consulting will allow [Client] to:
Achieve business goals within 2 months
Use internal resources on the project
Minimise development infrastructure costs
Note: When using bullets, put as much of the common part of the sentence in the main clause. In the previous example you could use each bullet point as part of the initial sentence. A common mistake is to begin each bullet with the same word, e.g. “To”, or phrase, e.g. “Allow [Client] to”
Apart from a waste of words, and slowing down reading, this quickly becomes annoying.
2. Punctuation and Structure.
Other common mistakes include:
Numbering inconsistency. Ensure that the numbering scheme you use (Roman Numerals, Decimals, brackets, full stops etc.) is consistent throughout the entire document. This principle applies equally to bullet types in bulleted lists.
Tabbing inconsistency. Again, ensure that the tab spaces are consistent for every list.
Finally my favourite, punctuation! Without even worrying about grammatical correctness (chances are if you’re unsure about the correctness of punctuation, so are your readers) just go for consistency. If you don’t punctuate the end of bullet points, then don’t. If you use comma’s on all points and a full stop on the last, then do this in every list.
It seems crazy that something as small as a comma or colon would affect readability, but it does. Unconsciously your reader notes something amiss, which slows down their comprehension.
Your Turn.
Time for you to take your latest report or proposal and edit your lists. See if you can achieve numbering, tabbing, punctuation, and grammar consistency throughout your document.
Despite all of our hopes for technology over the last couple of decades, the paperless office remains a dream. Whether we like it or not, this means that most, if not all, of our business communication will be through some form of document.
As a consultant your job entails convincing clients. Either to buy services, or to implement a solution. Often both.
So as we move forward, expect more posts to help us lift our game here. In the meantime though, here are some well researched and collated tips to jumpstart your persuasive English.
Note: None of the “wrong” examples are grammatically incorrect per se. These tips will simply help you write more compelling, easier to read English.
Tip 1. – Active Voice.
For some reason as soon as people write a “business” document, they start using Passive Voice. It just sounds more formal. However, for compelling copy, this sucks for two reasons:
Passive sentences are more difficult to read. This is because we have to transpose subjects and objects, and often comprehend the tense as well.
Passive sentences are longer. Thicker proposals are not more persuasive. If you can knock 3 words off a 10 word sentence throughout your document, you’ve shaved 30% off the overall length.
Example
Passive: The system will be implemented by ACME Consulting after the development has been completed. (14 words)
Active: ACME Consulting will implement the system upon completing development. (9 words)
Tip 2. – Short sentences.
This goes hand in hand with the previous tip. There are 3 sub-tips to help here.
Split complex sentences into shorter ones. Try not to have a subordinate clause if you can help it (check for “and”, “but”, “which” and other conjunctions). Definitely don’t have more than one subordinate clause per sentence. Complex sentences introduce ambiguity, as you often have more than one subject.
Remove redundant words like “that.”
Remove superfluous adjectives (like that one ) and adverbs. Replace the unadorned verbs with more descriptive words.
Example:
Complex: In general when notified by a customer of an issue, ACME will attempt to provide a response as soon as possible and within one hour within the parameters of the support tier. (32 words, 1 sentence, 2 subordinate clauses)
Simple: ACME will generally respond as soon as possible to a customer issue. We attempt to respond within one hour dependent on support tier parameters. (24 words, 2 sentences)
Redundant words: The team will typically work to 10 day sprints with the workload for each iteration being derived from a product backlog. (21 words)
Simple: The team will work to 10 day iterations on tasks contained in a product backlog. (15 words)
Superfluous adjectives and adverbs: The man ran very quickly to get away from the extremely large alien. (13 words)
Simple: The man sprinted to escape the massive alien. (8 words)
Tip 3 – Consistent Tenses.
The final tip for today’s post. It is very easy to see when a team cobbles a document together. Especially when they cut and paste content from other documents. The giveaway is inconsistent text, both in voice (Active, Passive) and in tense (past, present, future).
As soon as you use a different tense (or voice), the reader has to “reset” their comprehension. With complex documents, often written by many people, this rapidly becomes tedious.
So stick to a single tense within your document unless there is an appropriate reason to change tenses. E.g. you refer to a past event.
Your turn.
Ok time for some quick homework. Grab one or your pieces of collateral of at least 200 words, and edit it 3 times. First check for passive/active voice. Then re-read it and shorten sentences as much as you can whilst retaining the meaning. Finally, check your tenses.
You’ll be tempted to try and fix all the problems on the first edit. Withstand this temptation. Do not edit any less than 3 times. I guarantee your document will be much shorter; much easier to read; hence, far more compelling.
Challenge: See if you can reduce the 200 words to 60, whilst retaining the meaning.
As you know, recently I upgraded to an iPhone 4, and sold my iPhone 3Gs. Well, I sent an email to said customer today, just to check that he was still happy. (Just one of our friendly services)
On a more serious note, the video brings out two important points in any communication.
The concept of building rapport. You don’t get to walk hand in hand with the wench, until you share something in common with her. I love the line “Stop thinking like a lovesick fool. Think like a pirate.”
The understanding that: “You are not your customer,” or, “It’s not about what you think is right, that counts.” The most important thing to do in any conversation, is to get into the mind of your audience. How do they think? What are their fears? What do they need? What do they want? Feel it with them (empathy) and you’re one step closer to getting your message across.
The crew at Channel42 got to work on a couple of new genre’s of moviemaking over the last week or so. First I put together a light-hearted parody of “Man vs Wild” shot with a couple of friends and our kids whilst camping a couple of week-ends ago.
I shot these on the iPhone4, in HD, and decided to enter them into Australia’s inaugural Mobile Screenfest Competition. The guidelines state the movie has to be shot on a mobile phone, and between 30 secs and 4 mins 30.
Then, on Thursday at the Northside Coffee Morning, I had opportunity to capture some of Tony Hollingsworth talking about his “Black Dog Ride.” This is a charity motorbike ride, 6,000 kms to the Red Centre of Australia, to raise funds and awareness of depression.
Our family has lived with depression for 7 years, and I decided to shoot a mini-documentary as support for Tony. Again everything was shot on the iPhone4, and edited to the short 4:30 for the competition. I figure if we do well in the competition, this can only add interest in Tony’s cause. However, I will edit a longer version of the interview over the next week or so for Tony’s blog.
You can view the 2 Aussie vs Wild episodes on our camping Vimeo Album, and here’s: Discussing Depression!
In this transparent and vulnerable video, a young 20 year old, Em and her dad, me, share their 7 year journey with depression.
All to support Tony Hollingsworth as he rides to raise awareness for depression in the Black Dog Ride to the Red Centre in Sep 2010.
Every aspect of the movie was shot on the Apple iPhone4 in 720p HD
How about you? Are you struggling to cope? I’d recommend you talk with someone (I’m certainly happy to chat).
In my experience, I had no idea at all, that my then 13 year old daughter was depressed, until the day I was called to Westmead Kids as she’d taken an overdose. Certainly teen depression doesn’t exhibit in the same way as adult depression. But it is an illness, not a weakness. Again, I’d be happy to talk and recommend the professionals that helped our family.
I love it when technology works. When my mum, in her 60’s, can share her epic drive through Africa with over 200 people; and just chat to her grandkids every day as if she’s in the room.
From a young age I’ve been entranced by technology that works. Technology that enables. Technology that brings people together across time and space. In fact of all of the technologies I’ve studied, supported, designed, and implemented, it’s those that connect people that have enthralled me.
I’m old enough to remember our first TV, our first colour TV, and remember being gobsmacked by our first (top-loader) VCR. Imagine being able to pause Magnum P.I.
Touch-tone, then mobile telephones. Hand-held scanners. Modems. Ethernet. ISDN. Video Conferencing. Digital cameras. Messaging systems. PDA’s. The Internet. ICQ. Instant Messaging. Wi-Fi. ADSL. Smartphones. Webcams. VOIP. Social Media. I feel like I was born into exactly the right age, as I’ve worked with all of these (and their underlying) technologies. And loved every problem-solving, solution designing, people enabling second!
When sales people can submit an order whilst having coffee with their client. When a family can share a birthday dinner in real-time across oceans. That’s when I appreciate the true power of technology.
It’s also why I get frustrated when it doesn’t work.
Office Communicator? Rock solid. I use this tool daily to have full-screen, Hi-Def video conferences with my work colleagues. Need to collaborate on a document, no problem, just share my second monitor. It really does enable us to work without the need for corporate offices. It just works. In working, it changes the way we can work!
Office Live Meeting on the other hand. Where do I start? Suffice to say, std operating procedure in organisations is to get to a meeting 15 mins early to set up Live Meeting. Even so, I have yet to see a Live Meeting start on time, with everyone connected. More often than not, half the participants are struggling to connect, or to get the video working, or the audio, or their presentation. Nightmare. Frustrating.
When it does work, invariably on a high-speed network, it’s great. Multi-party video, audio, screen sharing. But not once have I had a seamless experience, no matter the technical experience of the attendees. I mean, I can get it to work, but that’s pointless if people on the other end of the line cannot!! Even if it’s just one person. Especially if they’re not technical.
Skype on the other hand? Well, my mum uses that. And my daughters. No setup time, just click the green button. Need to add my brother from NYC into the conversation? No problem.
Oh – and it’s free. And it allows you to call people overseas on their phones for next to nothing. For people to call you, when you’re travelling, for the cost of a local call. In fact to give yourself a foreign phone number allowing people to call your mobile from the other end of the world, without even the need for a computer. It just works.
I love it when technology works. It’s why all of the collaborating I do for usergroups, and with my family, uses Skype. I have pushed the Live Meeting barrow for too long. But it just. Doesn’t. Work.
What technology do you have to use that frustrates you?
Andrew Coates is an inspired Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Australia, who’s been using this water analogy to describe “the Microsoft platform” for some years. It’s a fantastic analogy, because water is something we all use everyday, the plumbing of which we now take for granted, at least in the developed world.
The platform is moving out of the company computer room, or data centre, and into what is now called, the Cloud!! Great big Utility like Datacentres, run by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and about 41 other vendors.
Of course, we’ve had computing as a service since the bureaux days of AOL and Compuserve days in the ‘80’s! (actually CompuServe was founded in 1969) And I was fortunate enough to lead the team which built Australia’s first Hosted Email and Office Application Service Provider Data Centre back in 2000! Then CWO a-Services (CWO = Cable & Wireless Optus).
But vendors would have us believe that “Cloud Computing” is something entirely new.
Nevertheless, I’ve seen Andrew deliver this analogy many times. Today I notice that he’s had it made into an animation. It’s short at 2 min 55, and very sweet. Succinctly explains why computing is moving (back) into the Cloud, and the opportunities for developers, businesses, and individuals to innovate.
Ah, Social Networking. You have to love it. All of the “experts” that suddenly abound. Of course, we’ve been forming relationships for millennia. Yet, many people still struggle with fundamentals of initiating, and deepening relationships.
The Johari Window
Back in 1955, two psychologists, Joseph Lundt and Harry Ingham, used a model to describe individuals in the context of relationships. This provides 4 windows to our attributes, capabilities, behaviours. They named it after the 1st two initials of their first names. The JoHari window. (no, I don’t know about the “ri”)
Looking from the outside then, there are behaviours and qualities I know about myself, and others I don’t. Then there are behaviours and characteristics others know about me, and again some they don’t.
The important thing to note is that only by revealing the hidden areas, can you build relationships with people in any context.
So only by disclosing your facade, and learning about your Blind Spots, can others build trust in you. Only by giving feedback on other’s blind spots, and learning about their facades, can you build trust in them.
What about you?
Do you feel you that Social Media helps or hinders in illuminating the hidden?
Will knowing this model help you?
Are you a transparent person (i.e. large Arena, small Facade) or a Private person?
With everyone? Many? Some? A few?
Are there advantages to being transparent?
What are the disadvantages?
As parents, spouses, managers, consultants, should we consciously think about our Johari Window?
I’d love to hear your thoughts – please comment on the blog.
I just watched this short TED talk, a demo really, of the new functionality Microsoft have built into Bing maps. The technology is cool, and the results really practical. Well deserving of the standing ovation.
To learn more about how you can develop solutions on top of Bing maps, especially here in Australia, check out John O’Brien and Bronwen Zande’s session: Mash in and Mash up with Bing Maps Silverlight at ReMIX10
I decided to read this book after watching Dan Pink give his TED Talk on the same subject. “What Science knows about motivation that Business doesn’t”
Like “Outliers,” this book systematically debunks myths we base our lives, not to mention our businesses, on. Rather than success(ful people) Dan tackles the subject of motivation. We all work or have worked for companies that have penalties for not adhering to policies, and incentives to drive performance. I.e. we all use the “carrot and stick” or extrinsic approach to motivating people.
Yet, as study after study show, extrinsic motivators rarely motivate us. When they do, it’s rarely sustainable. How many people hate their work, their boss, their company. How many just tolerate their work, living in the And for those that love their work, how many are truly motivated to do what they do by the bonuses or fear of repercussions?
So if extrinsic motivators aren’t the most effective way to motivate people, exactly what are the “intrinsic” motivators which are? Dan proposes 3 – Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.
People work best when they have autonomy over where they work, when they work, with whom they work, and how they get the job done.
Individuals want to master their work. Here Dan references both “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, as well as the 10,000 hour rule in Outliers, among other studies.
Finally, the best activities are those where we serve a purpose greater than ourselves.
What I loved most about the book, and which separates it from other business books of this sort, is that it doesn’t end with the “what,” but has an entire chapter on “how” to implement the learnings. There are great practical suggestions for parents, managers, business owners, and individuals.
Rog42’s Rating Index (RRI)
Category
Readability
*****
Novel Learning
*****
Influence of Change
*****
Overall RRI
*****
Buy, Borrow, or Ignore List?
“Buy” – This is definitely a must buy book. Don’t only pop it on your reading list, but drive it to the top of the list. Then implement what you learn.
) and adverbs. Replace the unadorned verbs with more descriptive words. 
