Active Voice

New hPDA calendar templates for the first half of 2009 are now available on the Active Voice Downloads page. Just click on “See the Templates” –> “Organization and Lists.”

The popular 2009 calendar iPhone wallpapers are now available too.

Active Voice offers wallpapers and hPDA templates as free .png and scalable-vector .pdf graphics that you can download to your desktop and use in your favorite planner. They are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Noncommercial - Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

If, as Ernest Hemingway once told a reporter, the one essential tool of a good writer is “a built-in, shock-proof crap detector,” then Bob Hoffman, CEO of Hoffman/Lewis advertising in San Francisco and St. Louis, possesses one of the most finely-calibrated, jewel-movement, brass-cased crap detectors in service today.

Hoffman’s blog, The Ad Contrarian, covers today’s advertising scene. He offers cogent advice based on over 30 years of experience in the ad business. He doesn’t suffer fools, gladly or otherwise, and doesn’t mind saying why not. Hoffman believes that advertising “has one simple purpose: to find something interesting to say that will make someone buy your stuff.”

Hoffman’s free book, The Ad Contrarian: Getting Beyond the Fleeting Trends, False Goals, and Dreadful Jargon of Contemporary Advertising, is the distilled essence of that principle, both in format and in content. Here’s a quick review that I hope will convince you to order your own copy and read it in a single sitting, and then go apply his insights in your own writing.

Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t mean to keep writing about solecisms, but as long as writers keep creating them, I feel obligated.

From “That story you read in the publication you just purchased may be bought and paid for,” by by Jonathan Trenn, on the Marketing Conversation blog:

“10% of senior marketers have developed implicit agreements with editors or reporters to get favorable coverage. That’s about 1 in 10.”

We can’t be sure, though.

From “Apollo 13: a triumph over adversity,” by Patrick West, Spiked Online, October 17, 2008:

“There is something enduring about the tale of Apollo 13, the third lunar landing mission that failed to make it to the moon in April 1970.”

Well, you know what they say: fourth time’s a charm.

From “McCain’s paths to the White House,” by John Zogby, on BBC News:

“Florida is more unique, with a mix of deep South culture, Hispanic and African-American minorities, retirees and young transplants seeking opportunity and sunshine.”

“More unique?” isn’t that like saying “more pregnant?”

Recently, in preparation for an interview for a magazine article, I visited the website of the interviewee’s organization to get some background information. In particular, I wanted to make sure I understood the organization’s mission; it’s a useful reference point for framing interview questions.

Unfortunately, the mission statement that I found on the “About Us” page didn’t tell me a thing about their mission. It was one of those focus-grouped slogans full of vague buzzwords that promised to deliver intangible things in response to undefined needs. The site design was very clean and professional, but what, exactly, did they do?

I found myself mentally cringing at the thought of getting more of the same during the interview. I was in need of choice quotes and piercing insights, not abstractions wrapped in vapor.

However, to my relief and even pleasure, the interview turned out to be one of the best I’ve had in a long time. The interviewee used sharp, lucid, and concise language to convey information and offer insights. Not only did I get my choice quotes, by the end of the interview I knew what the article would look like — hook, lede, and sinker. Writers live for interviews like that.

Afterward, once I had finished cleaning up my notes, I found myself pondering the power of clarity. Had their website been my only point of contact with the organization, I would have walked away with a very different opinion about their capabilities. What makes for a good slogan?

Read the rest of this entry »

Summer’s over — and that means campus commutes, after-school activities, and last-minute runs to the office supply store. If you’re about to start college, become a taxi driver for your kids, or take a cross-country business trip, my newest Hipster PDA template, the gas mileage tracker, was made for you.

Based on a design that’s been extensively tested in the field, the gas mileage tracker is a handy form to keep in your back-pocket or briefcase hPDA. Plus, the template’s intuitive design is easy to understand and use in the field.

Read the rest of this entry »

Regular readers know that my freelance writing business is completely “on the rings.” From creation to disposal, almost every printed document I work with ends up in a Rollabind or Circa notebook. I have Circa notebooks for administrative documents, project files, and permanent archives. For admin files, I use punched poly folders. For project files, I use Jotz Refillable Notebooks.

But for the permanent records — as defined in my PaperJamming schedules — I decided to do something different. I transferred permanent records to their own Rollabind notebooks once they were no longer needed in the admin or project folders, which I stored in plastic file boxes. While this method worked fine, it lacked a certain elegance — that sense of modular panache which Rollabind and Circa users have come to expect from these systems.

What I wanted, in other words, was a Circa-fied approach to hanging folders.

Read the rest of this entry »

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) released a report earlier this month urging state CIOs to develop statewide electronic records preservation policies and work with agencies to implement them.

Because official state records are increasingly “born digital” and may never see print during their working life, NASCIO recognizes that effective e-records management is about more than just storage — it’s about “organizing government records so that they are locatable, retrievable, and stored in accordance with state records retention schedules.”

Why CIOs?

Read the rest of this entry »

Successful proposals demonstrate your skills and capabilities to prospective clients. But superior proposals convey more than just facts and figures — they also demonstrate that you are listening to them.

The people reading your proposal want to know not only whether you can complete their work on time and on budget, but also whether they think you’ll work well with their team. Whether you can ask and answer questions. Whether you really understand what they want to get out of this project.

Somehow, your proposal has to convey this message along with the staffing charts and budget tables.

Sure, you could just salt the text with trite phrases such as “we listen to our customers.” But with a little bit of good writing, you can turn your entire proposal into an example of your responsiveness. Here are some proven tips for putting that into practice:

Read the rest of this entry »