Closely related to reputation, credibility is at the heart of business success. Even if you havae a great product or service, if you have no credibility, you don’t have much. This issue came to mind when I received a newsletter from a potential supplier recently. It contained a statistic that I made me stop and…
[In The Pyramid Principle, Part 1, we discussed author Barbara Minto’s theory of business writing as outlined in her book, The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking and Problem Solving. Specifically, we looked at how good writing is dependent not only on style, but also on ensuring a logical structure and order. That is…
From briefing notes and memos to reports, presentations and proposals, for most of us, writing is an essential part of our business lives. What distinguishes a clear, dynamic report or a persuasive, well-written proposal from a muddy mess? The answer, according to business consultant and writer Barbara Minto, is in the pyramid. In her book,…
It’s simple, really. If you give reporters something relevant, interesting and new, they will be interested. That was the advice of four top journalists participating on a conference call during which we discussed the topic of being heard in an increasingly information-heavy world. The journalists on the call included Lisa Belkin, contributing writer for the…
Today, we are going to talk about punctuation. But not just any punctuation. We aren’t going to talk about the little “helpers” we learned about in grade school. Commas, periods, question marks, apostrophes, slashes (the solidus) and exclamation points fall into this category. As do the ones most still haven’t quite mastered such as the…
How important is good writing? After all, this is the Internet age where everything is fast, fast, fast—who cares whether or not U R a gr8 writer, right? I’ll tell you who. Your customers. The folks who pay your bills. They want to understand you and they want to understand your products and services. And…
