I recently edited an article submitted to a publication I work for that had great potential to be extremely relevant to the publication’s audience. Trouble is, the writers had not considered who they were writing for. In addition, the piece was full of blanket statements, presented as fact, with not a shred of evidence to
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One of the most abused and overused words in business is “impact”. First, it has been “verbed” – it’s supposed to be a noun, but the usage has now changed, so however grumpy you are about its verbing, you might as well accept it. Second, almost everything is described as “impactful” – to the extent
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South Africa is a diverse and multicultural country, with 11 official languages and many more spoken by its citizens. Despite this linguistic diversity, however, many workplaces are still monolingual, and have failed to appreciate the benefits of multilingualism. Now, I’m a practical woman. I realise that English is the language most companies use to communicate,
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As the year rounds up and you’re reporting back to various people, are you already thinking about the next presentation you have to give? Wondering if you should dump a few things into PowerPoint or Keynote? Step away from those applications right now! Presentations are speeches, first and foremost. And the place to start is
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We often think of communication as something that a specialised department does in the company, but the fact of the matter is that good and bad communication not only affect us every day in our day-to-day job, but also affect the way other people perceive us. So, whether you are an individual or a business
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When your company makes a mistake, and a customer is on the receiving end, you generally have three choices: 1. You can acknowledge the mistake and course correct. 2. You can ignore it and hope the situation goes away. 3. You can downplay it with a lukewarm apology and hope that will suffice. It should
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So, you got a quote from a content or copy writer, and now you’re thinking about asking your secretary – or some other non-writing staff member – to do the work instead. I mean, their grammar and spelling is good, right? They should be able to do the job. Hold it right there. They might
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I’ve spent the last 25 years or so writing, editing and proofreading others’ writing, and even training writers – so I’ve had plenty of time to think about what makes some writers amazing. Yes, there are good writers – they can put together a piece of copy that’s tight, well-written, and easy to read. But
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Look, I know I’m hugely biased, but I do think that what a colleague once called a “retrofitted journalist” is someone you should seriously consider hiring for your content writing needs. Don’t believe me? Check out this list of reasons: They treat deadlines as sacrosanct. They love to write. They are consummate storytellers – storytelling
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There are many reasons it’s worth thinking about putting a writer on retainer – they can really save you time and effort, and add a great deal of value to your working day. Writers are one a penny, it seems, so how do you find one that will work for you? Ideally you want someone
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