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Getting Emotional About Writing

In Really Bad Powerpoint, Seth Godin suggests a better way to use Microsoft PowerPoint. While I disagree with one of his conclusions (“No more than six words on a slide. EVER”—I don’t like any rule that makes me do math when I’m supposed to be writing) his core point cannot be repeated often enough. As Seth puts it:

Communication is the transfer of emotion.

His focus is PowerPoint, but his message is universal:

You can wreck a communication process with lousy logic or unsupported facts, but you can’t complete it without emotion. Logic is not enough.

And this truth goes far beyond sales, to politics, the law, and even science.

Getting emotional in writing scares many of us. Why? Too much emotion (except for enthusiasm for the boss/product/company) usually gets us into trouble. An angry memo or email can get us fired. Besides, many of us were taught in school by means of blood-red corrections to eliminate emotion from our writing—an unfortunate result of the belief that we can somehow separate our logical being from our emotional being.

But we can’t.

And we shouldn’t try. Instead we need to recognize that everything we write has emotional content for both the writer and reader. Even if we think we’re being completely unemotional (which is different than being objective!) emotion exists. First, writers have feelings about the topic and the intended readers. Not accounting for how we feel about our topic and readers will allow fear, awe, boredom, disrespect, and more to show. And readers have feelings about the topic and the writer. Not accounting for these feelings almost guarantees our writing will have the wrong impact or none at all. Even if we think we’re just listing facts, emotions help us decide which facts to include, their order, and sometimes how we phrase them. And if we’re communicating facts that readers don’t want to read, we need to understand how easy it is for readers to dismiss them—or dismiss the writer—rather than acknowledge them.

All this doesn’t mean that everything we write should drip with emotion. That doesn’t work for most readers in most situations. In fact, we often—due to responsibility or strategy—need to generate a feeling (professional disagreement) different than what we actually feel (outrage). But we do need to acknowledge all the emotion so we can then craft a communication that achieves the desired effect.

The Biz of Buzzwords

Buzzword has become, well, a buzzword. It used to mean a trendy word, especially “a vogue term in a particular profession, field of study, popular culture, etc.” Buzzwords were generally useful until they stopped generating the right kind of buzz. But according to the Wikipedia entry, buzzwords now border on being evil.

And according to “Kill the IT buzzwords,” a buzzword can be a word that has “become worn out or stretched out of shape,” that doesn’t have one clear meaning, that I’m tired of, or that I don’t like. (Hmmm, buzzword fits all these definitions.)

But these are not always good reasons to eliminate a word from our writing. Some of the words listed in “Kill the IT buzzwords” will not (and should not) go away anytime soon. SOA, virtualization, and compliance, for example, are all still of increasing importance. The terms need to be defined or given context in most discussions, but we aren’t going to stop using them simply because they now enjoy high frequency and some people are tired of them—or because a complex technology can be approached in multiple ways leading to multiple definitions. Their frequency is a measure of relevance, not a buzz index.

Contrast this with Web 2.0, which was created to generate buzz around an evolving set of technologies and has never had a clear definition. Still, it worked very well to attract and focus attention, and it is only recently that exhaustion with the label has set in (though not for all)—now that most of us in the industry understand the technologies and are more interested in real services and who will benefit and make money from them. Web 2.0 will eventually disappear, as will other 2.0s and 3.0s, and I’m hoping there won’t be any 4.0s (except for my kids’ GPAs).

Avoid clichés most of the time (raising the bar, bottom line). Resist the temptation to make up words—but not always (bad: learnability, not as bad: coopetition, good: email). And look for alternatives to tired words and phrases (user-friendly, industry/market-leading). But I refuse to listen to every complaint about word choice and compile an endless list of words I can’t use. My goal is to communicate, and to do that I’ll focus on what my readers know and will understand. Sometimes that just might be a buzzword.

Better Blogging

Thanks to Steve Rubel for posting these links to articles on how to improve our blogs. Definitely worth sharing again. 

Good Blog Writing Style: Can’t emphasize tip number one enough: “Use descriptive headlines.” Readers are taking their time to look for information of value. Unless your prestige guarantees your readers go will go along with you, give them some hint as to why they should make the journey. Read the rant against the Official Google Blog that inspired the article. It includes the following explanation of why being clever works—sometimes, as well as a postscript discussing a follow-up with Google.

“Honestly, I love a witty headline. I never ever ever ever want Good Morning Silicon Valley to give me a headline that explicitly tells me what a story is about (nor do they intend to). But GMSV’s headlines work because they know their audience is aware of the stories they are commenting on. The headlines make sense in that context.”

10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog: Great tips that we don’t follow often enough. “Conversation” is why we’re here, and we should encourage it at every opportunity.

Do you have some other blog writing tips to share? Other suggestions for generating comments? Please let us know.

 

Another SaaS Salvo

Not convinced by Gartner’s SaaS (software as a service) prediction? Not sure a web-based application can compete with those running on a desktop? Check out ajaxWrite from Michael Robertson (MP3.com, Linspire—born as Lindows). ajaxWrite is not yet full featured, but it’s a fast, usable MS Word alternative that reads and writes Word files—and Robertson promises more MS Office alternatives soon. Here’s a review by Michael Arrington on Techcrunch.

Cool Tools: Hitting the Boards

With the mind-boggling (or is it mind-numbing?) proliferation of blogs, vlogs, flogs, blawgs, splogs, plogs, et cetera, we who are in the business of tracking and listening to conversations have been presented with a number of pretty good (and not so pretty) tracking tools.  Some of my favorites, and those used most often by the Research Dept. here at Eastwick, include Technorati (natch), Feedster (when it’s humming), and PubSub. Google's blog search tool is also assuming a larger role in our arsenal.

But an often-overlooked venue, one that’s been with us for many years and is still very relevant to LOTS of people, is the message board.  Now, thanks to BoardTracker.com we can search message boards and other forums with relative ease.   As of five minutes ago, BoardTracker claimed to be tracking 16,149,892 threads in 26,016 forums.  Not every community has jumped on the blogging/wiki train yet, so having a useful way to monitor these conversations is great.  It gets me thinking, though, with all the innovations in social media, will Web 2.0’s forgotten step-brother—the message board—be on its way out?

Into the Fold

Here's a nice new take on an increasingly important idea.  Fold provides heavy computer users with a start page that incorporates most everything they need, including favorites links, feeds, etc.  Similar to MyYahoo, but a bit more Web 2.0-y.   I've been experimenting with different start pages to better manage my professional and personal computing life, and I am going to give this service a shot.

Digital Home DIY

Still more on DIY…

2006 may indeed be the year of  "Do It Yourself” – even when it comes to the home. We’ve all read about the digital home and the digital living room, Wi-Fi, IPTV, convergence and triple play, etc. There’s also talk about new distribution channels for entertainment content – directly to the home.

Check out CNET’s guide to the DIY Digital Home, complete with a clickable project list room-by-room.

The Healthline Launch

This morning, our client Healthline unveiled a new approach to enabling consumers to find, understand and manage their healthcare online.  They've got the first search engine purpose-built for the consumer healthcare market.  You can read about it on Reuters, CBSNews.com (with podcast), Erick Schonfeld's Business 2.0 blog,  The San Jose Mercruy News, Silicon Beat, eWeek, and SearchEngine Watch, where Chris Sherman has identified Healthline as "one of the best, easiest to use health information sources I've yet found on the web."  Check it out....

New Social Media Tool -- FilmLoop

This is worth watching ... especially if you like Flickr.  Software sits on your desktop and enables you to easily create and edit loops of images that travel across the screens of anyone in your "loop."   You can also search the network for other loops.  Intriguing prospects for marketing.  Not available yet, but soon in beta (you can put yourself on the waiting list).  Company was co-founded by Prescott Lee, formerly of eCircles (which went to Classmates).

Business Week on the New Web

Wonderful special issue coming next week, with articles on the leaders of the new Web, Ajax, tagging (why markerters love it), the power of participatory sites (with very cool snapshots of companies like Pandora and Postsecret ), and blogging in education (a new interest of ours).  Main story quotes Ross Mayfield, CEO at Socialtext, an Eastwick partner and client:

"'The Web isn't so much a place anymore', explains Ross Mayfield, CEO of Palo Alto (Calif.)-based startup Socialtext Inc., which offers services to create collaborative Web sites called wikis. It's more of a doorway into services, from the user-written reference site Wikipedia to the community organizing service Meetup to the folksy classifieds site Craigslist. As Mayfield noted in a recent blog post, 'They Google (GOOG ), Flickr, blog, contribute to Wikipedia, Socialtext it, Meetup, post, subscribe, feed, annotate, and above all share. In other words, the Web is increasingly less about places and other nouns, but verbs'

Google Talk

Open a new chapter in the ongoing story about convergence.  Google has unveiled Google Talk, a text chat-plus VoIP application that, according to Wired, has the neither the features of the leading services in text chat, nor the capabilities of Skype.  Does it matter, with Google's massive share of the personal computing world?  We're going to try it ourselves, and get back to you.   

Wikis Rule the KM Roost?

This ran a couple of weeks ago, but worth rerunning here.  InformationWeek looks at the use of wikis in the corporate setting, and discusses its value in the KM ecosystem:

Content management systems will always have their place in the publishing world, but they've never been the best tools for business collaboration. A simple open-source app called the wiki may soon rule the knowledge management roost.

The article also discusses Eastwick client Socialtext.

Mossberg on Free Blogging

Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal conducted tests on three free blogging services -- Yahoo! 360, MSN Spaces, and Google's Blogger.   He gives MSN Spaces the top prize, for creating "the easiest way to create a blog -- regardless of technological know-how."

RSS via Moreover

Here's a way to get quick & easy feeds on any subject: go to Moreover and use the drop down menu to select from categories on art, business, sports, travel, etc. If you're a Bloglines subscriber you'll want to go here to access the folder of Moreover RSS feeds and add to your account to simplify the process.

See Your Research

See John Markoff's story in the New York Times, about Eastwick client Groxis. The Grokker tool, previously available only as a desktop software product, is now available in a free, Web-enabled version, powered by Yahoo!, with Yahoo! ad feeds.

Among other features, this is paving the way for a new approach -- collaborative search. For tools and tips on why and how to grok (it is best for deep search and research; don't think of it as simply search), we reccommed you check out the Grokker tour and community pages (both link from the home page). And be sure to check out the email function (you can send Grokker maps, a key aspect to its collaborative approach) and the "elevator pitch."

Walt Mossberg on RSS

This ran on Thursday. A very thorough guide for the uninitiated.

Do Press Releases Matter?

If you care about this topic, check out the debate between Andy Lark and Stephen O'Grady here. Our take: press releases do matter, but not in the way they might have years ago. With the efficient distribution of content on the Internet, the press release is useful as marketing content. Not nearly as credible as the news article -- or a blog post from a credible source -- but a well-written, well-distributed press release can help a company get the word out, improve search engine rankings, and generally build a presence on the Web. Is it the most effective vehicle? Not by a longshot. But it's just one of many tools, and one that is sometimes required (e.g., in situations where regulatory rules demand that the company follow standard practices in uniform disclosure).

Google Video Hosting

Sounds like a terrific free service. Says Google:

Whether you produce hundreds of titles a year or just a few, you can give your videos the recognition and visibility they deserve by promoting them on Google - for free. Signing up for the Google Video Upload Program will connect your work with users who are most likely to want to view them.

GMail Adds RSS Web Clips

Gmail is beta-testing what it calls "web clips" that are RSS feeds to select GMail accounts. Users will see the feeds above their mailbox and many speculate that the feeds will be generated via AdSense. Blogger co-founder, Evan "Evhead" Williams was the first to post on the subject.

Googling By Sattelite

... a sattelite view of Eastwick's environs in Redwood City, courtesy of Google Maps, which now incorporate technology from Keyhole, one of Google's recent acquisitions. 

Spaces Goes Live

MSN officially launched MSN Spaces today since the site came online about four months ago. In that short period of time Microsoft has registered almost 5 million bloggers.

But Will We Wear Them on Our Wrists?

New York Times reporter/blogger David Pogue posted today about cell phones replacing wrist watches. For many years, we've all had the option of trashing our watches in favor of cell phones, which can all tell time. But the recent threat may stem from the fact that cell phones today are almost always on and within reach.

How the Read the News

See John Gartner's article in Wired News on the virtues of RSS.

How to Podcast

From O'Reilly....

Depending on whether you already have one of those cheap microphones that the OEM dealers bundle with PCs, you can record a podcast without spending a dime. If you don't have a bundled microphone, the third-party equivalent costs between $8 and $15 at various electronics retailers.

Tagging, Search and the Wisdom of Crowds

Thanks to Steve Rubel for flagging. BusinessWeek has posted a great story on tagging, a technology that adds a "layer of social knowledge" to the world of search. The article provides a nice comparison of search and tagging, concluding that tagging may in fact add a much needed new dimension for organizing the ever-growing amount of content on the Web. The social dimension -- a big theme on this blog -- is becoming more and more relevant.

Search engines, for all their advances in recent years, have a glaring drawback: No matter how many pages they index or how quickly they bring back results, they can't put those results into context. They can find a specific word, but they can't figure out what the word means. An example: Look up the word "python" on Google, and the list of results throws together sites about the reptile, the programming language, even Monty Python. You have to sift through pages of irrevelant results to find what you want. To help avoid the confusion, Web sites often manually label their pages with category titles, a version of tags called metadata. But mass search engines, such as Google, don't use metadata because they can contain spam or misleading descriptions.

***

Tagging, however, lacks the algorithmic wizardry of search engines. But it lets people work together organically to create the context traditional search typically misses. Blogger Thomas Vander Wal coined the word "folksonomy," a combination of the words folk and taxonomy, to describe this joint work. It's like a grassroots Dewey Decimal Classification System for the Web. The essence: The combined work of people busily tagging content creates another way to make sense of the mountains of information online.

"Document History" App -- IBM

For the serious collaborator, here's an interesting application, available at the IBM site: "a tool for visualizing dynamic, evolving documents and the interactions of multiple collaborating authors."

History Flow Visualization Application is a tool for visualizing dynamic, evolving documents and the interactions of multiple collaborating authors. The application includes online help, as well as a plug-in for retrieving the history of a given page from any MoinMoin "wiki." ("Wikis" are Web sites that are freely editable by anyone who visits them.)

Word of Caution to Hopeful Pundits

Journalists have a love/hate relationship with "quote machines," as reported here (Romenesko commenting on an article in the American Journalism Review).

Reporters have favorite people they call repeatedly for informed and colorful commentary, "but once 'sources' are quoted often enough to become 'pundits,' journalists think of them as self-serving P.R. reps on the make," writes Mark Francis Cohen. Some news orgs have officially and unofficially blacklisted certain ubiquitous analysts. Cohen says mainstays of this likely-to-be-banned list include Larry Sabato, Norman Ornstein, Stephen Hess, Thomas Mann, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Stuart Rothenberg, and John Pike.

Google Doubles EMail Storage Size

This comes just a week after Yahoo! met Google's massive 1 gigabyte free storage allotment. Will Yahoo! go toe-to-toe? And what are we going to do with all that storage? A Yahoo! spokesperson told Michael Bazeley at Silicon Beat: "at a certain point beyond 1 gigabyte, it's just a number and becomes irrelevant to most free e-mail users. As an offline analogy: Going beyond a gigabyte for free is like adding a bucket of water into an ocean.''

A possible point of differentiation for either of the Internet giants: cool ways to use all that storage. Consider the buzz Apple has created around the Mac Mini and the iPod Shuffle -- what are these products for, and what will people actually do with them?

POSTSCRIPT: 

Steve Rubel notes that Gmail also release new features.  Read about them here.  And if you want a Gmail invite, let us know.

RSS Use on the Rise

...says Slashdot, as reported in Search Engine Journal.

Slashdot commissioned a survey of readers of its RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) feed to determine just how its readers are using RSS technology now and detect future plans and platforms for accessing content via RSS. While most of the tech blog’s readers acquire their Slashdot RSS feed from the site directly, some RSS users rely on RSS aggregators, such as Yahoo! or Feedster, to streamline content and deliver only the information they request right to their desktop from a range of sources.

The Kindness of Strangers

A story in the New York Times tomorrow looks at one of the most interesting phenomena in the free VOIP movement: the preponderance of calls from strangers. And the funny thing is -- unlike unsolicited calls on land lines -- calls from strangers on services like Skype are often welcome.

"There's something confessional about this space," Mr. Barlow said about Skype. He was in Madrid for a conference, and I was in New York. "It's like a long over-the-ocean flight where the other guy starts telling you stuff that you're astonished to hear and you start talking about stuff you're astonished to say. The combination of anonymity and intimacy creates a special kind of environment."

Wikis Mean Business

Eastwick partner Socialtext is at PCForum today, where for the third consecutive year it is providing a wiki-based event space for attendees.  Earlier in the day, the company relaunched its product line to better serve its enterprise customer base.   But for the unitiated, we recommend a visit to this site, which provides a Wiki "101" crash course. 

Yahoo Gets Flickr

It's the latest acquisition for a company that's been steadily growing a long tail of Internet content. And it was the talk of the town in Scottsdale today, day one of PC Forum 2005.

Folksonomy

See Matt Hick's recent article on tagging in eWeek. He provides a clear summary on a new approach for helping people find and organize related content across different services on the Web. And he reports on one of the newest terms to emerge in the hyper-linguistic blogosphere:

Even the new term "Folksonomy" has emerged to describe the potential for user-defined tags to organically develop structure out of what might appear to be chaotic collections of information.

Sun Pod

CNET reports that Sun's Jonathan Schwartz will soon be podcasting. But will his voice equal the bite of his written word?

Podcasting Kit

Thanks to Robert Scoble for posting about this.  Carl Franklin at Pwop Productions has put together a podcasting kit with "high-quality gear that is also compact and affordable."  For less than $400 you can open your own Internet-based, time-shifted radio station.

360

Can Yahoo harness the power of its 165 million registered users to do what no company has done before -- successfully bridge the blogging market with the world of social networking? The Internet giant vows to do just that, starting March 29, with a service called Yahoo 360. One thing that might make this work: the deep wells of subject-specific content that Yahoo has aggregrated through the years. Content can help to create communities, and blogs -- especially group blogs -- can create an ever-expanding landscape for these communities. And don't forget the business model -- more landscape means more real estate (advertising).

Scholarly Tags

And speaking of lawyers, here's a tool tip for that crowd. David Weinberger posts about CitULike, a new tagging tool for scholars and other cite-happy writers.

It saves citation details and exports them in a couple of standard formats. It aggregates journal articles for your posting pleasure. It encourages long-ish descriptions and lets you assign stars.

The Ultimate Marketing Tchochke?

We regret not seeing the Wired article when it was published, but thanks to David Pogue for posting this yesterday. A Long Island library is loaning out iPod Shuffles, preloaded with audio books. Saves money for the library, and it's a cool use of a product that many have been doubting. The cheap-but-stylish container may find even better uses.

New Tag Feature

David Weinberger reports that Technorati will launch a new "tag aggregation" feature this week. Sounds like a nice add-on for serious bloggers -- corporate or independent -- who want to expand their capabilities to search and find related content on the Web. Says David:

When you search on a tag, you’ll be shown a list of “related” tags. The relationships are automatically discerned by the software, analyzing the other tags used by people tagging the same set of pages and photos. Dave Sifry let me play with a beta of it, and the suggested tags were generally quite relevant.

There are two types of relationships the “related” tags help with. First, they suggest slightly divergent topics so you can browse off the path you were heading down. Second, they help get over the problem that people use different words to flag the same ideas; the “related” tags can help you find more sources that are directly on the path you were heading down. So they help with both digression and focus.