iClarify | Simplify | Engage

A ring tone from your BlackBerry wakes you in the morning.  Before you drink coffee or get a shower, you’ve already checked your emails, tweeted your state of mind on Twitter, published your Facebook status, and you can’t wait to check your online chat to see if anyone replied to your late-night question. If this sounds familiar, the devices and social sites in your life have become your life. The idea of social networking was meant to draw you closer to people; instead it is drawing you into your hand-held device.  Staying in touch with friends is not easy in a busy world.  Sometimes you have time only to send a quick message.  Using the technology, you communicate, but how connected are you from a friendship standpoint?  You share many snippets of your life, thoughts and other distractions, but what do you get in return?  What emotional value are you getting when you receive a 140-character tweet from an acquaintance?  Do you have 602 Facebook friends you a

One of the things I've noticed over the years about working in Communications is the lack of understanding of what it is we do. It goes from zero idea of what 'working in communications' means to 'but what is it really that you do?' I suppose over time I have had to learn what it all means, too. I recall asking the difference between communications and marketing in a communications class at University of Ottawa. I'm not sure I can recall the answer, but I do recall the indignation of my fellow students who could not believe I'd ever consider the two the same function. There is much variety in the profession, and there is even more interpretations. I have heard or overhead people refer to Communications as the following: marketing media relations (some people believe media relations to be writing press releases. some of those people actually work in communications, too.) public relations (some people have difficulty explaining the differences betwee

There are two main kinds of Internal/Employee Communications: Strategic and Operational Organizations communicate for ongoing business operations but they also need to communicate big changes, important updates and new approaches. Organizations use strategic communications to communicate about: a new agenda--a new focus on digital platforms for communicating internally instead of paper memos a specific problem or issue to address--a need to tighten overtime rules to save money a new approach to the work they do--how they interact with customers  Example: Company Inc. has to communicate with employees about the need to tighten the rules on overtime activities during a tough period.  A strategy for this situation might recommend: emphasizing life-work balance as a priority, during this tough time encourage flexible work schedules, but urging employees not to work longer hours focus on the temporary nature of the adjustment remind employees that overtime is an ad

Communications is a function or expertise in an organization like Finance or Information Technology (IT) that serves internal clients throughout that workplace.  Communications takes care of getting messages to the right people at the right time through the right medium. So, for example, any written materials produced by an organization has likely been done by a communications professional: > written materials such as newsletters, emails, memos, announcements, web pages, social media posts, press releases, briefing notes, issues papers, etc...; > written materials for the purposes of supporting verbal interactions such as speeches, media lines, presentations (usually in PowerPoint) Depending on company size and whether or not the organization is in the private, public or non-profit sectors can have a major influence on the type of communications activities that happen, and the kinds of documents prepared. For example, in the public sector, media lines are an

You've spent all this time working to get your communications right--whether you're the client, the manager, or the communications officer--and suddenly you see an 'older' version when the director sends out his/her message or it shows up on the corporate website. Then you swear out loud and realize that the reason you're seeing one of the changes from several versions ago is because someone made a boo-boo and pulled up the wrong non-final version. This is going to happen. In Communications work, we see a lot of versions of numerous documents via email, especially, causing challenges for version control. For these very situations, I purposefully have the following file naming convention so people know they have the latest version.  I "time-stamp" them. That means when I did my 'save-as', I captured the date and time in the document's file name. I do it ever time. Always. And it has consistently saved my bacon. Also, by doing it th

Clear, simple & engaging. LOVE this landing page for a new literary journal looking for submissions from writers: Lunch Ticket .

The scenario: A project is delayed. Employees haven't heard any updates in about a month and the manager realizes he's 'got to get something out soon' because his boss has been asking what's going on. Manager:  I need a draft message for the project update. How soon can you get it to me? Communications Officer:  How about tomorrow? Manager:  I kind of need it today some time. Communications Officer:  How about today? Manager:  Okay good.  Communications Officer:  So the reason for the delay is other projects took priority but now it's time to return to this one, right? Manager:  "We can't tell them that."  Communications Officer:  Why not? Manager:  Well because it looks bad. I hear those words from a senior manager or executive and sigh. There are precious few things we truly "CAN'T" tell employees: private information about other employees financially-sensitive information the CEO's kid's cellpho

Public Sector Writing has it right!

The other day, a client told me to remove text from and internal/employee communications vehicle because it talked about some jobs that were cancelled. This information was also available online in their organization. The client felt that the comments were not positive and therefore would not be conducive to employee engagement. I find this attitude quite fascinating. What it tells me is that some of my clients believe that you cannot engage people unless all the messages are 'happy-happy/feel-good' messages. I disagree; in fact, if that is all you focus on sharing, employees will begin to distrust you when they start noticing that things in the organization are not as rosy as the messages sent to 'engage'. However, when a senior manager, executive or organization sends real messages from time to time that paint a more realistic portrait, or they admit some mistakes, these brave leaders gain lots of trust. For example: We really tried to keep this project on track,

Clarifying is not the same as explaining. Let me explain. No, wait: let me clarify that...which is it? When I hear the word 'explain', I envision multiple paragraphs of additional text that may not be necessary. Whereas the word 'clarify' evokes a beautiful landscape of writing where every word means something and no word can be left out. In the meantime, yes, 'clarify' and 'explain' are synonyms, which means they are similar, not exactly alike. In the context of writing well and writing to engage, I recommend clarity over too much explanation; perhaps that's a better way to put it. If anyone needs me to clarify that, let me know.

If you read Clare Lynch's article called: " 10 Ways to Protect Your Copy from A Verbose Exec ", you'll see the following sentence: "There's nothing worse than some verbose exec "improving" your finely crafted copy by inserting references to "delivering key learnings," "driving employee integration strategies," and "interfacing holistically with clients." If you're anything like me, you actually want to tackle rewriting those mucky terms she's highlighted. Let's start with the first one: delivering key learnings. The word 'learning' is a noun; that's not the problem. When you put an 's' on it, you are attempting to count an abstract concept like learning, and that causes confusion. Allow me to give you an example:  Merriam-Wester defines learning as: "knowledge or skill acquired by instruction or study." You do not typically count the number of knowledges you've acq

It's not often I see a video that exemplifies my philosophy of clarifying, simplifying and engaging employees; but my colleague Allison Jones at the City of Hamilton has done just that. Based on an idea she got from a City of New Market communications video called Glow , she put together a video that sends a clear, simple and engaging message to employees at Community Services : what they do makes a difference, one starfish at a time . Since the production, the City Manager decided to use it when he presented the Strategic Plan to Council to illustrate the good work the City does. See it for yourself .

As the legend goes, Winston Churchill once said, in response to someone telling him to not end sentences with a preposition: "It is something up with which we must put."

Clarity is number one for me. If the prose isn’t clear to the reader, then the writer has failed. Readers should not have to read sentences over again to understand their meaning. Novels, white papers, articles all need clarity. Simplicity is luxury and necessity in writing and harder to achieve than complexity. Keeping it simple and using plain language is not dumbing things down; it’s keeping things smart. Engagement is what everyone wants to achieve. When we have engagement, we get new clients, followers, readers, listeners, friends, relationships, accomplishments, successes and happiness. Novels, white papers and articles that engage, also sell, reach, inspire and captivate.    I do more than write; I clarify, I simplify and I engage.

I do more than write; I clarify, simplify and engage.