Says a lot about what’s happened this decade.
(Photo: Brett Jordan)
Where you need to be to get your customers talking about you
As part of the article writing services we offer at thinkit creative, here is a brand-new piece we’ve prepared for Engage Selling Solutions, based on the sales presentations of Colleen Francis.
Finding new ways to connect what you sell with those who are ready to buy is a constant challenge in sales. Even if you’re already hitting your sales targets, a good salesperson is always looking for ways to close more business in less time. More
Great writing never goes out of style
Yesterday, I participated in a great discussion on LinkedIn: in an age in which communicating is becoming less formal due to the growth of social media, do traditional writing skills matter as much as they used to?
You bet they do.
Whether you’re a manager communicating to staff, or an account executive working with clients, there’s more to what you do than simply getting a point across.
Great communication is the mastery of the art of persuasion. The rise of social media means you have more tools at your disposal to ply those skills, but rules still apply.
An email message, a tweet or a blog post is easily hobbled by poor style and typos. Those kinds of mistakes mean you’ll have to work a lot harder to reach and connect with people.
People judge what they read. It’s that simple.
Granted, I’m biased as a writer by trade, but speaking strictly as a business owner, I’d much rather make a small investment in ensuring my message is concise and error-free (and that can be as simple as just taking a few extra minutes to review your work), rather than spinning my wheels wondering why a message isn’t getting any traction.
Great writing doesn’t just define you, it also defines your message.
Why I don’t use Evernote anymore
Having a portable database is a really important part of my workflow as a writer. My research hat is always on, but it used to be hard for me to keep my research notes, bookmarks, text and PDF files well-managed and synced over several Macs in the office fleet. I used Evernote for a while but switched to Yojimbo.
Here’s why. Evernote is great until you decide you want to export your data to another database. That’s when problems arise. Even though Evernote talks a good game about being export-friendly, you’re faced with having all of your rich-text file notes being converted to html.
[Update] Apparently there is some kind of workaround to this, but it’s curious that this issue has yet to be addressed fully by the app’s developers.
Bottom line: it’s your data. It is a mistake to take all your hard work that’s gone into filling your knowledge bucket and compromising with it a proprietary system tries hard to lock you in.
The secret behind the rise of Singapore and Hong Kong as world centres
Just finished reading Stewart Fraser’s Global Financial Centres report 2010 (PDF), which looks at what attracts people to locate in various international financial centres across the world.
My attention is particularly drawn to Asia, where Hong Kong and Singapore continue to cement their third- and fourth-place rankings as world financial centres (click on chart at the bottom of this article to view full sized). Not only are they credited for having rebounded faster from the recession than their counterparts in London and New York, they also get better marks (Singapore in particular) for the quality of the people they have on-hand.
Look a little deeper and you can see what’s behind that: a steadfast focus on innovation and education.
The old maxim is true: money goes where it’s most welcome, but it applies to people, too. Smart people go where they’re given the budget and resources to take great ideas and do amazing things with them.
(Chart: Global Financial Centres report 2010)
