Cleo Parker shot me a note about After the Deadline… looks like an awesome tool for writing better.  You can use it for free, and if you have a web service you can incorporate it there, for free.  I think we’ll need to add this into JibberJobber

Here’s what Cleo wrote:

While I was writing the summary, I used a cool tool I learned about in my local  WordPress Meetup, After the Deadline.  You may be familiar with it as it’s a grammar checker plugin available for WordPress and I see you’ve got a WP blog. But outside of a blog, you can use their online demo to check grammar and spelling in anything you cut and paste into the space.   It’s called After the Deadline, great resource for anyone who wants their writing to look as good as possible. http://www.afterthedeadline.com/

Thanks for the tip, Cleo!

I just saw a link to a Harvard Business Review article by Jerry Weissman titled In Presentations, Kill Your Darlings.

I’ve talked a lot about being “concise,” but I’m not sure people know what that means.

So, here’s another way of saying it: GIVE THE SAME MESSAGE, BUT MAKE IT SHORTER.

In the spirit of keeping short, I’ll end with this: go read the post.  This applies to anyone who communicates (written, oral, body language, etc. :p).

Monday I gave feedback to Brad Merrill about HOW he let others know about his blog… today I want to write about a blog post (his second post).

Brad titled the post What is Ethical Behavior?  It’s a good question which really came out after the Enron thing… as an accountant Brad should have some good thoughts.

First Thought

It is toooooooooo loooooooooooooooong.

This post has 1,535 words and would print of on almost four full pages!

I couldn’t read it.  It’s simply too long.

Here’s an idea, though: take this four page post and break it up into three or four posts.

Call it a series and make it easier to read for ME.

The beauty of this idea is it is now easier to write for Brad.  Why?  If he takes one “post” and breaks it down, he now has one to two weeks of blog posts already written!

Let me say this another way – if he spent an hour on that post, and then thought about spending an hour on every post, and wrote two to three times a week, he’d spend quite a bit of time writing blog posts.  Okay sometimes, but sometimes that hour just isn’t available.

What if he took this one hour and had all the writing for one or two weeks done?

That is more sustainable, over the long haul.

Second Thought

Give me more personal stuff.  The first page (above the fold) has two references to dictionary definitions… I have to scroll down before I see if there’s some Brad Merrill personality.

Instead of starting off with a page of sources, I would have liked to see him launch into a story from his past rich work history:

• I was consulting a client when _______
• I remember being faced with an ethical dilemma when my boss _______
• My first major ethical conundrum came when my client _______

Wouldn’t a line like that be more interesting?  I’d want to read what an accountant has faced … not the bean counting boring stuff, but some conflict, how it was handled, what he had to think through, etc.

My point is, make it personal.  I want to read about BRAD MERRILL, not what the dictionary says.

So these are my thoughts as Brad Merrill starts his blogging journey.  Really, he has a great start… I’m excited to see him mature and evolve as a blogger

My friend Brad Merrill took the plunge and started a blog.

It has the potential to be an awesome personal branding tool for himself, and I applaud what he’s doing.

This is the first of two posts where I’m going to give feedback (with his permission) on his nascent strategy.  Today I’ll talk about how he let me (and hundreds of others) know about the blog.

It’s important to let others know you have a blog… not just once but frequently.  Be careful how you do it, however, because no one wants an email each time you write a new blog post (unless they opt in to a newsletter, or something like that).

Here’s Brad’s message I got last night:

There are a few things I like about this email, and perhaps a line or two I don’t care for.  Instead of critiquing the entire thing, I want to focus on TWO things:

The Length.

The length of this message is PERFECT.  If it were any longer I’d get lost, or not read it, or save it for later, or something like that.  If it were shorter I might feel like he’s just spamming me and a million others with “read my blog!”  It is sincere, concise, and very focuses.

The Question in Yellow.

This jumped out at me the most.  At first I thought “COOL, a professional blog” (as opposed to a personal blog).

But then, when I read the question “if you have some things you would like to (to) see me write about,” tell me.

That’s when I thought “where’s the focus?”

Indeed, reading through the email again I realized I had no idea what the theme, or topics, of the blog are. Is it a personal blog? Is it a professional blog?  What exactly does Brad do, or think about?

If Brad could help me understand this, even if it’s just a reminder (some people know, but a reminder doesn’t hurt), he would have used this email as a branding tool, and helped reinforce his personal brand to his contacts (whether they clicked over to the blog or not).

At a minimum he could have said:

I am going to write about ______ and ______.  My last post talks about ethical behavior.

To take it up a notch he could have said something like:

As a professional accountant I see a lot of interesting things.  I’ll write posts about my expertise (sales and use tax and financial accounting) and keep it interesting with stories and examples. I will probably write about my passions, including watch collecting) and try to always tie the posts back to business ideas. Whether you are an accountant or just interested in business, I hope to have relevant content for you.  If you have any ideas or questions, please let me know, as I begin this journey.

In the first email he reinforces his brand.  In the second email he drills down a bit more so people understand more of his breadth and depth… even if they don’t become blog readers they will know what some of his specialties and passions are.

“Where’s the focus” was my first thought, the second thought was: missed branding opportunity.

Next post I’ll critique his second blog post.

I came across an article in the online San Francisco Chronicle titled 20 habits of highly effective job seekers.  This was written based on Ford Myers stuff… I have met Ford a few times at conferences and we’ve communicated outside of that.  Nice guy.

I didn’t read his article (too long for my attention span), but I skimmed it to see if he mentioned JibberJobber again (that would have been cool!).  He didn’t

I was interested in the 60+ comments the article got, though… they were… scathing!  Hardly anything good from those comments!  From accusations of being self-serving to “utter twaddle,” from BS to ”worst article I ever read in my life…”

I’ve felt for a long time that getting comments from a newpaper article compared to comments on a blog is night and day… I don’t know who is reading and commenting on the regular articles but if you read it too long you’ll lose all faith in humanity.  These people are mean, and cruel, and unforgiving.

And, they can provide an opportunity for growth as a blogger.

From the feedback I see in Ford’s article I see a grand opportunity to tighten the writing and message.  Instead of 20 points, how about go with Covey’s example and do 7 habits?

Instead of calling these “strategies,” maybe they should be called mindsets (many have to do with attitude), or tactics?

How about drilling down on some of them and going into more depth, instead of just presenting them at a high level?

As blogs become more commonplace, and bloggers get their material in more traditional media, you better:

1. Be ready for scathing, hateful, unintelligent comments and feedback (and a few nasty stalkers),
2. Figure out how to improve the quality of your writing (grammar, spelling, word choice, etc.),
3. Ensure the message is high quality,
4. Figure out how to not be self-promotional… or not overdo it.

What do you think?  Do bloggers need to step up (especially when not writing on their own blog)?

My heavens, every time I hear this I cringe.

“I wrote a blog…”

No, you didn’t, you newbie!  You wrote a BLOG POST.

You don’t write an envelope, do you?  NO.  You write a letter.

“Hold on, I’m writing an envelope to grandma!”

Get it?

Blog vs. blog post.

If you blog, learn the difference.

(now, someone find me a ladder so I can get off the soapbox :p)

There are probably a million ideas on how to write, and how to write a blog post, and how to write a freaking awesome blog post.

I’ll share just one… since it’s on my mind. I don’t remember where I heard this but it made a ton of sense to me.  Before I share it I want to say why I think it is brilliant.

One reason I write is to develop a community. One measure of community is the discussion.  A way to gauge the discussion is by the comments.  A “comments” metric is “Number of comments.”

I think blogs that have comments show they have (a) readers and (b) a community.

So, how do you write a blog post that gets comments (perhaps that should have been the title of this post, which really should become a series)?

WRITE ONLY 80% OF THE POST.

Let your readers finish the other 20% in the comments.

Think about that – if you write enough of the post, but leave it open for discussion, as opposed to making a super-tight conclusion, you don’t give your readers much to comment about.

When I heard this I thought it was absolutely brilliant.  It takes skill to write that 80% and not sound aloof… and I think by nature we want to complete things, but if you want to generate discussion and create community, make sure you don’t say all that should be said.

I’m wrapping it up here – tell me in the comments what YOU think a FREAKING AWESOME blog post entails