“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” Those words by Michelangelo have always resonated with me, because great writing is as much about what you leave out as it is about what you keep. It’s
Read more >

I spend a good part of my time training business people to write. But by far the most rewarding part of my job is working with leaders in the C-suite to polish their written communication. As leaders, executives are tasked with influencing, inspiring and rallying their teams. Their ability to do this depends on their
Read more >

When you’re putting together a marketing or public relations campaign, don’t forget to invest in proper photography – of your people and your products. Human beings are visual creatures, and it has never been more important to present your brand well from a visual perspective. But please – and yes, I actually am begging here
Read more >

If a journalist is writing a news story about your company, don’t even bother to ask to see it. If they’re doing a feature, however – a profile on one of your people, for example – they might be kind enough to let you see it before it goes to production. Here’s how to behave.
Read more >

There’s a crucial mistake in many content strategies and I see it all the time. One topic seems to get the most engagement, so brands or individuals bang on about that endlessly, or constantly try to shoehorn unrelated topics into being relevant to that topic. It may get you a great deal of engagement –
Read more >

I am often involved in writing companies’ origin stories and narratives, but the most recent one came with an odd request – to obscure some names and details and couch them in more generic terms. I found this odd for two reasons. First, some of the details are readily available on the company’s website, and
Read more >

One of the most common things I do when I’m reviewing a piece of copy – whether it’s a proposal, report, media release or any other piece of content – is to cut out the first paragraph entirely. People are so focused on having a good introduction that they over-introduce, and the writing starts to
Read more >

Pee Arrs, gather round. You’re not going to like this, but it has to be said. Putting your client’s product and/or service in the introductory paragraph is what has that grumpy hack hitting “delete” faster than a politician authorising a tender for a family member. Products and services aren’t news. And if they are, they
Read more >

Most of what I do is invisible. You won’t find it if you google me; it doesn’t bear my name. And so most people don’t have a clue what I really do. I started my working life as a journalist, first on newspapers and then on magazines, and went freelance more than two decades ago.
Read more >

I review a great many speeches, reports, media releases and statements, and strategy documents straight from the C-suite at large companies, and the same problem keeps cropping up. Basically, people are too close to the subject at hand, and can’t always see the assumptions they’re making. A CEO’s speech I reviewed recently, for example, contained
Read more >