Uncategorized

Also published at Huffington Post. In part 1 and part 2 of this series, I talked about the power of choosing a good angle. Now, we'll look at how to put that angle to use, via what I call The One Point Rule: In any one communication, you can only make one point. Count on people forgetting everything else. That's because our minds throw away almost all new information -- by … [Read more...] about How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 3: The One Point Rule

Also published at Huffington Post. Last time, I introduced the power of a good angle for both speeding and improving your writing. Today I'll go into more detail on how choose that angle. The most important question to ask yourself is the simplest: "What the heck am I actually trying to say?" As, it happens, this also is one of the hardest questions. That's because: You … [Read more...] about How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 2: Know What the Heck You Mean

Also published at Huffington Post. Compared to our pre-digital forebears, we're expected to produce torrents of writing: emails, text messages, blog posts, social media, presentations. That's because publishing all that stuff is easier than ever. The trouble is, the actual writing isn't -- especially if you care about quality. "Easy reading is damn hard writing," as Nathaniel … [Read more...] about Creating Content Driving You Crazy? Here’s How to Write Both Fast and Well (Pt 1)

Also published at Huffington Post: In a meeting of nonprofit leaders the other day, I heard an executive praise some recent work done by his staff as "amazing" and "incredible".I hear this kind of thing so often that, normally, it hardly registers -- it's become the equivalent of someone saying "thank you".But this time it hit me: it is the equivalent of saying "thank you". … [Read more...] about That’ll Do, Pig: If You Care About Excellence, Stop Over-Praising

Here's a great new tool for us creatives - Palettab - available as a Chrome extension. It works like this: Everytime you open a new tab in Chrome,  a new combination of color palette and fonts appears in the browser window. If you see a color you like, simply click, and the hex number is copied to your clipboard. All the fonts are available via Google fonts. Simple to … [Read more...] about Inspiration on the Fly