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- What to Write When an Employee Dies
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- 6 Ways to Aim Your Arrow for the Heart
- 6 Ways to Become an Idea Machine
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Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’
What I love most about tweets and similar updates is how they impose limits on length. This forces social media participants to focus precisely on what they want to say, a skill more people should sharpen if they want to be heard in our 140-character world.
I honed my write-tight skills in the old days of type-settting, when I had to mentally calculate the space of every character. With headlines especially, I had to be mindful that the anorexic “i” counted for much less than the voluptuous “m.”
On top of writing economically and chopping agressively to fit a rationed space, I had to avoid widows and orphans, lonely words that would require accommodation on a too-precious extra line.
Yet instead of dulling my writing, these constraints usually sharpened it.
Web loosened, Twitter tightened
In freeing us this way, the web enabled busy people to go on and on rather than take the time to wield the editing knife.
Until Twitter. Suddenly long-winded people had to learn to summarize succinctly.
Actually, skilled writers had known this all along, from preparing executive summaries, abstracts, key messages, news leads, brand promises and other crystals of communication. Still, many of the people now expected to write more and more don’t take the time, or have the training, to peel off the layers to reveal their core point.
Overcome obstacles
Many people insist they don’t have the time. But it’s the best way to prevent readers from flitting off to the next information snack.
Fortunately, you can improve through practice. At the same time, you can strengthen your brain’s left-hemisphere capacity for symbolic thinking, with words as the symbols we use to order and convey our thoughts. Writing tightly will get easier. If you want to learn more, I recommend The Brain That Changes Itself by fellow Canadian Norman Doidge.
Other people hear the ghosts of their teachers telling them to present the setting or context before they get to the point. Today that advice bears as much relevance as the caution about ink spills when reloading your fountain pen.
Setting is essential to story structure, but few of you are writing novels. Even then, don’t forget that movies usually start with a dramatic scene to rivet attention then circle back or show the back story in other ways.
Show me the beef–or tofu
Context is often either too boring to hook readers or smacks too much of advertising to entice knowledge-hungry people to proceed to the feast. So wait to use it or consider dumping it if your potential readers already share your perspective or simply don’t care.
For example, a client once asked me to write a very brief web update about a bridge reopening. The bridge officials had released a bloated statement that droned on about their mission, history and stats, why the bridge had closed and more. But for the drivers who simply wanted to plan their trip, 140 characters were more than enough.
Write tight, then chop
In my book Write like you talk–only better, I recommend thinking through a precise version of what you want to say before you start writing, then removing most of what’s superfluous to focus on your core point when you rewrite.
I also provide tips on how to write tight in an earlier post called 5 ways to hook your readers.
Remember that you need to take the time to plan and tighten your communication and strengthen your brain’s left-hemisphere capacity for symbolic thinking, if you’re going to succeed in our 140-character world.
Duchess Wallis Simpon used to say that a woman could never be too thin or too rich. If she were still alive, I think she would add that she–or he–can never be too smart.
So write thin, but keep your ideas rich and clever.
Recently author C.C. Chapman told the crowd at Third Tuesday about how star Chris Brogan gets people to pay him good money to send them lists of blogging topic ideas.
I was aghast. Why are you blogging if you’re not an ideas person?
I have enough ideas to post every day, some several times. The trouble is finding the time to fit it in between writing activities that put food on the table.
I’m not faulting the people who pay for ideas. I may be full of ideas, but I often lack the discpline to fully implement them. Fortunately, the world is made up of different kinds of people who often work together, and pay each other, to get things done.
Ideas often strike when I’m not looking–when I’m reading a blog, talking to a friend, watching the sun set or relaxing. Serendipity.
So, in the spirit of kumbaya, let me give anyone who drops by six tips for coming up with ideas. No charge. To show you how this idea machine works, let me add examples based on my day.
1. Write about special occasions or seasonal events.
Way back when I did media relations for the provincial government, we used to send out pretty much the same news release every spring about propane barbecue safety. Every media outlet that had audience members with propane barbecues would run it.
For the past few years, my posts about holidays greetings at Christmas have been among my most popular. Today, for a special occasion hook, I could have written about Ground Hog Day. But this cultural myth inspired no original ideas. Neither did the big snow storm.
Remember that if you’re pitching something to an editor, on or offline, to think way far in advance. Just like the stores are now hauling in leprachauns and bunnies, you should be thinking about propane barbecue safety, preparing your garden for planting or any other spring-related content now.
2. Reflect on your professional life.
I’m often stimulated by what I’m working on for clients. I rarely identify them, so I am free to state my opinion rather than cheer lead. Today I’ve been writing an article about structural changes to sharpen a client’s customer focus. I could write a post about how to put your customers first. Or, inspired by a presentation I’m creating for an upcoming speaking gig, I could advise on how to tell your story through other people’s photos.
3. React to your personal life.
My teens would die of embarrassment if I was too specific about them in my posts. But they provoke strong thoughts and feelings that can lead to sizzling ideas. I’ also apply insights from my aging parents. Today I could have combined my Dad with events in Egypt, which brings us to my next point.
4. Respond to what’s going on in the world.
I could write about how persuading Hosni Mubarak to leave Egypt is like getting my father to move out of the family home. This would lead back to how people need to remain open to change, so you don’t fear assasination, snow shoveling or blocked ideas.
On the other hand, I could stick with Egypt and talk about how seeing camels among the protesters reminds me about how you shouldn’t ride a big ugly word into a crowded post.
If you don’t follow politics, look for ideas in sports, movies, books or anything else beyond your immediate sphere.
5. Pretend you’re your favorite customer and answer your questions.
Or ask.
6. Empty your brain.
Make space for new ideas through yoga, meditation, retreats, vacations, reading, watching Oprah or just plain chilling.
Let the cream rise to the top
I know people who keep a note pad beside the bed in case they dream of or wake up with an idea. Others record their ideas throughout the day. But I find that I never have trouble remembering the best ones.
For me, the biggest challenge is to filter out the mundane. I talk about fresh ideas, maybe throw them out on Facebook or Twitter to see if I get a response. I play with them, write drafts, draw mind maps, break them into puzzle pieces and conduct other stress tests.
I have no problem with letting go of some, though sometimes ideas I thought I had discarded will swing back with a brighter flame.
The biggest problem with becoming an idea machine is turning off your brain. Often mymind will not slow down or turn off so I can sleep, zone out or pay attention to something or somebody else.
Never fear. If you’re the kind of person who needs help coming up with ideas, there’s little chance you’ll go to extremes.
Leave that to the idea machines.
I spent much of my weekend glued to the television, watching the amazing coverage of the G20 summit protests in Toronto. With multiple cameras and reporters zipping between action sites, displayed on split screens, I felt as close to the action as I wanted to be.
City Pulse news (CP24), a feisty neighborhood channel, was backed by its relatively new owner CTV, a large Canadian network. The result was an in-your-face local perspective, partly directed and supported by citizen journalists, backed by big-time resources.
I switched to the competition a few times, but saw mostly CBC anchors safely ensconced in their studio or regular programming on Global. CP24 was the accident I did not want to keep watching, but couldn’t resist.
News as spectacle
Let me admit I’m one of those people who is mesmerized by TV news theater like CNN’s Shock and Awe light show. Thanks goodness, I’m not a soccer fan, or I would have had to toggle between protests and World Cup matches.
As soon as I saw the first scuffle of protesters and police on Friday evening, I was hooked. I worried about my twenty-something nieces, two of the thousands of people planning to peacefully march for worthwhile causes.
When all hell broke loose on Saturday, with those sinister, masked Black Bloc anarchists, I was bounced from Anne and Stephanie in the studio to Farrah, Omar, Craig, Naomi, Lisa, Austin and a huge cast of reporters on the scenes.
Strumming while Toronto burns
Probably the most dramatic was on Saturday evening when one live screen showed a police car blazing, with no cops in sight, while another displayed hundreds of armored police arresting protesters at Queen’s Park. As was suggested later, our provincial capital, the officially sanctioned site for the peaceful protests, had been infiltrated by the bad guys who were trying to deflect attention with their fiery antics.
On Sunday, one of the protests came to within a couple miles of my home. But seeing as they were directed at the temporary detention center, ironically the former filming site for a cop drama, I didn’t worry about the angry hordes coming closer.
The coverage became more about arrests than free speech zest. Commercials and replays replaced much of the live action. So I was relieved to pry myself away from the television, to prepare for my G20 barbecue summit (tag line: make food, not protest).
I don’t want to go into the big questions of good versus bad protesters, police, free speech, the role of the G20 or the ego and wisdom of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. If I started writing about these, I probably would not stop until the Korean summit, where I will not have a ring-side seat.
How social media played
But I would like to add my two cents about social media. No doubt this was the most photographed and videoed summit ever. I saw more cameras than banners raised. Many of the participants were not even protesting. They came to witness and record history. Had it not been for the rain, citizen journalists might have outnumbered police.
Flickr is bursting with amateur photo and video, many better quality than the professional shots.
If the police did, as some of the hundreds arrested insisted, use unnecessarily force, they will be held accountable. Think of how the world would have remembered Black Sunday or Kent State if citizen video-journalism had been alive. Think of the grilling World Cup officials will get with that bad ref call caught on countless cameras.
On the other hand, most of the Twitter coverage was banal. The Twitter feed displayed on CP24 was mostly solid citizens thanking the police for protecting our city. Not much more from the locals I follow on Twitter.
I’m sure many CP24 elves were busy behind the scenes, sifting through and verifying the social media tidal wave, which they selectively featured.
Herd protesters and media
Of course texting, Twitter, Facebook et al were critical means of herding protesters and media to the next action site. But beyond that, I couldn’t see a profound impact.
Then just before I sank into sleep Sunday night, I couldn’t resist one last look. A university student was talking via cell phone to CP24, while the screen displayed a Facebook photo of him shaking hands with the prime minister.
Sammy explained how he’d just come down to take photos, but ended up corralled into what he called “a human box” by police no doubt eager to end the weekend’s mayhem but unwilling or unable to cart more bystanders to the overflowing detention center. His camera and phone were damaged by the heavy rain. Wet, tired and cranky, he just wanted to go home.
Ah ha. The peaceful protesters and the violent anarchists were expected. Sammy and his friends were the new news story.
This morning I was glad to see no one was seriously injured and our city survived mostly intact.
And I’m glad that I got to watch, from the safety of my couch, such a spectacular, yet authentic unfolding of history. Our peaceful city will never see anything like this again. Neither will our media coverage.