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Clients of mine often share insecurities in their writing that pertain to grammar and find that their writing is ruled by primary school instructions, “not to start a sentence with ‘and,’ ‘but’ or ‘because.’ ” Another similar injunction is to place commas in places in the sentence where you would pause to breathe, if you were to read your text out loud. Some say further that they use hyphens only “when it feels right.” These “rules” have become what grammar and usage expert Bryan Garner calls “superstitions.” And as an editor, I work to rid my clients of them.

Earlier in my catalog of blog postings, I referred to and followed the writings of “grammar girl,” Mignon Fogarty, since her style and explanations tend to be straightforward (especially for a non-academic client). But I am increasingly finding that questions on usage and style need to be answered in Bryan Garner’s Garner’s Modern American Usage (GM) and in the Chicago Manual of Style (CM; even if you don’t have the very latest edition of the latter). The latter has been highly recommended by many editors, including Michelle Boulton of Michelle Communications; and the two volumes are regularly endorsed (in workshops) by Ruth Wilson of the West Coast Editorial Associates. In response to these technologically advanced times, Garner features a regular email news feed on English usage that is clear and powerful. Continue reading “On Sourcebooks for Editing Grammar and Style . . .”

A case study tells the success story of a service (such as copywriting and/or editing), that describes how an organization solved a challenge by using it or them.

In many ways, it is a “before and after” story, as B2B copywriter Ed Gandia says. It could be from one to four pages in length and may resemble a newspaper or magazine’s “feature story,” with a compelling headline and a sequential series of subheadings that tell the story that the copy details.

The format will be something like “Company X has a problem with Y. They looked for a solution until they found Product Z. They bought and implemented it and since have enjoyed A, B and C Benefits.” As Casey Hibbard writes in Stories that Sell, a “traditional format” for the case study progresses from background to challenge, to solution and to results. The “feature- story format” that I referred to, above (which is closer to journalism) would begin with a strong lead sentence or opening paragraph, followed by descriptive subheads that move the piece along. Continue reading “Why your Professional Association Could Use a Case Study (“Success Story”) to Promote its Services . . . .”

“If you’re good, people will read it. If you’re not good, you’ll get better” (Seth Godin)

Marketing guru Seth Godin’s comment on blogging could be a mantra for my own work as a blogger, but also for the nature of art (in Godin’s broadest sense), as original work done in any field that “ships” to an audience, on whose acceptance its creator relies.

As I earlier referred to in my blog postings, I am changing the format of my blog to shorter, more pointed, copy (modelled in part on Godin’s own blog), that I’ll upload every two weeks. In particular, the blog will address clients and prospects, instead of addressing fellow freelancers and writers, or an unclear mix of all of these groups, as has occurred in previous postings. Remarkablogger Michael Martine, whom B2B specialist Ed Gandia refers to, comments that freelancers’ blogs should aim to generate leads, and not to generate followers, as in “pro-blogging standards.”

I start this posting with Seth Godin, since Godin continues to inspire me and to make me think about my prospects and leads, particularly in Linchpin: Are You Indispensable (hereafter LP) and, more recently, in The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? (hereafter ID). In both of these volumes, Godin challenges us to overcome our own inner-resistance to creating good, original art, that forces us to ask questions and demand action from ourselves, when we’re most afraid or intimidated to speak and act (cf. the concept of the primitive “lizard brain.”) This “remarkable” work is not to be confused with “perfection” or critical acclaim, both of which he sees as irrelevant to creating and disseminating art. Continue reading “Someone Who Inspires Me . . .”

In this week’s closing post on Seth Godin’s The Icarus Deception, I want to focus on his argument that the new criterion for art is “connectedness.” I think of an Alice Munro short story, where metaphor and diction connect (yoke together) the most apparently different people and things—not to deny difference, but to consider contrast, distinction, and paradox. The world economy (now that Industrialism is long-dead) demands that we create art that connects with others. But what does Godin really mean by that?

The Internet is a connection machine, he notes, and he says that “the connection economy rewards the leader, the initiator and the rebel” (13). The connection economy “enables endless choice and endless shelf space and puts a premium on attention and on trust, neither of which is endless” (13-14). And above all, a connection economy has “made competence not particularly valuable and has replaced it with an insatiable desire for things that are new, real and important” – “three elements that define art” (14).

Bridges that connect people are built by art. And this, according to Godin, is where we should be doing our creative work.

Assets that matter are “trust, permission, remarkability, leadership, stories that spread and humanity (connection, compassion, and humility)” (39). Suffering and trauma may well be involved, as stories are often about standing out and “not fitting in” or merely copying what has come before.

Godin argues that you cannot connect with a device or automaton. But you can connect with a person and acknowledge their dignity. The “safe place” is no longer where we got a good wage from the Industrialist, but where we look others in the eye and see them (57), with all of their complexity and difference.

If you want to go on creating, Godin says, you have to change the worldview that you bring to your work. You can’t stay in a comfort zone and overlook the reality that the safety zone has moved (15). Continue reading “Provocations on Art: Reading Seth Godin’s _The Icarus Deception_ Final Part . . . (Portfolio Penguin, 2012)”

My thinking about blogging has been evolving, as I read and learn new theory. So the next two posts will close this digest of marketing guru Seth Godin’s arguments on art. I have been blogging for the past year by pitching ideas widely, to fellow copywriters and other writers, as well as to prospects. Increasingly, this spring, I will be using the blog to engage better with clients and prospects, in content and tone. More on that to come, in future postings.

In my previous blog posting,  however, I reviewed marketing author Seth Godin’s challenge in The Icarus Deception, that since we are well past the Industrial Age, why are we still settling for so little in our art? Today I’ll look at what Godin prescribes—as another approach to art, in an economy of “connection.”

In the last decade, Godin writes, the door to the “connected economy” has been open.  The move is from an “industrial economy that cherishes compliance to a connected economy that prizes achievement” (22). From making stuff, we now try to make meaning, he says.

The challenge of the 21st Century’s economy isn’t to build more and better and faster and cheaper (after the capitalist Industrial model), but to optimize “this brief moment in time . . . when connection is easier to find and cherish than it will . . . be again. While some people are [still] polishing their systems and honing their spreadsheets, an ever-growing cadre of artists is busy creating work that’s worth connecting to.”

For some, even contemplating flying that high is terrifying, because we overestimate the risk or threat of creating new things and underestimate our ability to cope or grow with the challenges we meet.

The challenge of our 21^st C times is “to find a journey worthy of your heart and soul.” Continue reading “Provocations on Art: Reading Seth Godin’s _The Icarus Deception_ Part Three . . . (Portfolio Penguin, 2012)”