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I recently came across an article on the use of persuasion in branding, published by Branding Strategy Insider. Written by Paul Bailey (@paulmarkbailey), it makes an excellent case for the use of persuasion in branding strategy.

Mr. Bailey, a creative brand strategist, gets right to the point. He notes that “Persuasion is not the most fashionable of brand P-words right now — that honor goes to Purpose.” Your brand purpose could be, for example, improving wellness (my example, drawn from the current Weight Watchers rebranding effort.) And if done right, it can “encourage people to become interested and involved with a brand.”

Branding at its core

Mr. Bailey asks, “But is defining a purpose for your brand simply another way to persuade people that they should be interested in your brand, or want to join your brand ‘tribe’?”

Mr. Bailey might not put it this way, but his question gets to the core of what branding is all about. I believe that branding should clearly and persuasively present a brand’s purpose, whatever that purpose may be. These days, we hear a lot about influence and influencers, and Mr. Bailey reports a dialog he had with a peer who believes that branding strategists are driven by influence, not persuasion. He comments, “If we are being tasked by a brand owner . . .  to help them with a specific challenge for their brand, surely we have to accept that to seek to influence is not enough. We need to be increasing awareness and affiliation, but with the ultimate aim of encouraging desired actions – which fundamentally is persuading isn’t it?”

Not a dirty word

Like Mr. Bailey, I do not see persuasion as a dirty word in the context of branding, though ethics are involved. Certainly we would not want to persuade someone to do something wrong or self-injurious. And we should “believe that there is some value and benefit in the brand to people” before we make our attempt at persuasion.

Think about it. We persuade others—or at least try to—every day. Most of us have good intentions, so our persuasiveness is generally for a good cause, even if that good cause is ourselves. Most of the people we’re persuading are pretty smart about figuring out the purpose behind our words. So an attempt at persuasion is not necessarily beneath us or the influencers we recruit to speak for us.

Zsirosistvan — 123rf.com

Recent research published in the Harvard Business Review  indicates that learning something new can be the gateway to reducing stress. Professors Chen Zhang, Christopher G. Meyers, and David M. Mayer note that human beings under stress at work tend to engage in some pretty negative behaviors. Among other things, they may act unethically—being unpleasant to colleagues, for example— make lousy decisions, and exhibit other less-than-wonderful side effects of exhaustion and burnout.

Two unhelpful approaches

Typically, stressed-out workers take a couple of approaches to the problem. They try to ignore the problem and push on through. The classic “gut it out.” Or they “temporarily disconnect from work and get away from the stressful environment.” They might, for example, pay a visit to a nap room or hit the company gym.

Unfortunately, neither approach works all that well. The professors point out that we humans hit the wall when we try to press on. And when we take a pleasurable work break, we don’t really address the underlying problem, which is waiting for us when we get back to our desks.

Bummer.

A third, better way

Fortunately, workers who want to deal with the anxiety, poor performance, and bad behavior engendered by stress can shift their focus to learning something new, gathering new information, or looking for intellectual challenges.

How can learning something new help? Instrumentally, say the authors, it can provide information, knowledge, and skills that can help solve the immediate problem and make it possible to meet  challenges coming down the pike. Psychologically, it can help develop feelings of competence and the sense that we are capable of meeting our goals and achieving more. “This way, we can see ourselves as constantly improving and developing, rather than being stuck with fixed capabilities. These psychological resources enable us to build resilience in the face of stressors.?

What to do

The authors suggest a three-pronged approach. The first prong involves reframing a stress-inducing challenge as a “challenging but rewarding opportunity to learn.”

The second prong is to “work and learn with others.” That is, ask your colleagues for ideas. They may offer great insights or ask questions that get you started in a different direction.

Finally, look at learning as a different way to take a break from work. The authors say, “This might seem like a mere mental rebranding, but if a learning activity allows you to divert from the type of effort you use in regular work activities . . . it can replenish you psychologically.”

 Ditch the cynicism

I believe it’s easy to get cynical about the value of learning something new, particularly if you’re under the gun to produce a quality product fast. But I wonder if taking a couple of extra hours to learn something that will help your performance might not be the best way to feel in better control of a trying situation and yourself.

Maksim Kabakou – 123rf.com

Sisterhood is the topic in Anne Welsh McNulty’s article “Don’t Underestimate the Power of Women Supporting Each Other at Work.”

Early in the article, she mentions making several attempts to ask a senior-level woman at a Big Eight (now Big Four) to go to lunch with her. The rejoinder? “Look, there’s only room for one female partner here. You and I are not going to be friends.” Ouch. And yet I bet many readers of this post have had similar experiences.

She notes that when she graduated from college in the ‘70s, she believed that women had “arrived” and viewed the lack of women at the top as a “pipeline” problem, not a cultural one.

Here are a few factoids from her article:

• Men are 46% more likely to have a higher-ranking advocate at the office.
• Senior-level women who support younger women are more likely to get negative performance reviews. (Is that because they’re perceived at trouble-makers?)
• White men make up 36% of entry-level corporate jobs and women 31%.
• White men make up 47% of the first rung above entry level and women 26%.
• At companies where women comprise 10% of senior leaders, nearly 50% of men think women are “well represented” in leadership.
• At the Big Four, 40% of employees are women but only 19% are audit partners.

Interesting, eh?

Ms. Welsh McNulty’s response to these inequities has been to host women-only lunches and to create open channels of communication. “Coming together as a group made people realize that their problems weren’t just specific to them, but in fact were collective obstacles … It reassured us that though our jobs were challenging, we were not alone.”

What to do?

Ms. McNulty wants us to speak up “vocally, loudly, and proudly” even though research shows that women are “penalized for trying to lift each other up.” I agree, though advocacy is not an easy task. Discrimination against women is so institutionalized in places as diverse as Hollywood and Silicon Valley that it’s still not a surprise to find Queen Bee syndrome among those who have made it to the top or close to and in women’s organizations that claim to support women.

I recently finished writing a short story in which one of the characters, a bright and ambitious young woman, decides to marry a man she doesn’t love. Her game plan is to  time gestation so she may never have to go back to work. An interesting approach but not one that will work for many of us. Developing smart and strategic orneriness seems like a better option.

Hannamariah — 123rf.com

Yes, first impressions do count. Science has come up with what people decide within seconds—or milliseconds—of meeting you. And you don’t even have to open your mouth.

Journalist Rachel Premack has detailed 11 things in her Business Insider article “Science says people decide these 11 things within seconds of meeting you.”

They decide your:

• Social status: Wear recognizably name-brand clothes. (A Dutch study mentions Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger) In this case, clothes don’t necessarily make the man—or woman. According to the authors of the study, wearing status clothes didn’t affect perceptions of attractiveness, kindness, and trustworthiness.
• Trustworthiness: People make this assessment in a tenth of a second. Taking more time doesn’t change the rating. Ms. Premack notes folks with “more feminine, baby-like, and happy” faces are seen as more trustworthy. So, if you look like Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, you need to compensate by smiling more, leaning into a conversation, making strong eye contact, and mirroring the other person’s body language.
• Intelligence: Looking your conversation partner in the eye is huge. It also helps if you wear thick glasses (thick, blocky-looking frames are a plus here). and speak expressively.
• Promiscuity: A Britain study revealed that women with visible tattoos are seen as less attractive, heavier drinkers, and looser sexually than un-inked women. This study didn’t look at men in roughly the same category, known in Britain as “lads.” I, for one, would be interested to see how male promiscuity is evaluated.
• Success: “If you want to look successful, get your suit tailored.” In one study, it took viewers only five seconds to rate men wearing tailored suits as successful. Not a big surprise, because tailored suits cost bucks, which successful people have. Perception of tailoring is a matter of taste, I guess. I absolutely hate the suits younger guys are wearing with their tight, high-waisted, single-button jackets and oddly shaped, short, ill-fitting trousers.

 Ms. Premack notes, “A lot of first impressions come from things we can’t control at all — our natural scent, how “baby-like” our faces are, and whether or not we need to wear glasses or are bald.”
Agreed. Yet, as pointed out earlier, our smiles are important, as is our ability to make eye contact. To this I add standing up straight, stashing your cell phone, and having a real conversation with someone.

Kataryna Bialasiewicz — 123rf.com

 

When you think about cultural bias at work, what comes to mind? In Silicon Valley, which is a huge melting pot, perhaps nothing at all. But in other more culturally homogeneous areas, perhaps quite a lot.

Burcu Subaşi, a post-doc researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands has come up with some interesting information, reported in “Research: People Share More Information with Colleagues of Similar Cultural Backgrounds.”

With two colleagues, Subaşi created 60 teams of three people: two Dutch and one Chinese or German member. To be successful, all team members needed to get information from each member of their team. What the researchers discovered was interesting. The team with German members shared information and, as a result, the German member did as well as the Dutch members, because information access was equal.

The conclusion? “ … minorities with the most cultural difference are often attributed a lower status and information is withheld from them. This withholding can cause those from ‘low status’ minority groups to underperform and never reach their full potential.”

What to do?

Subaşi and colleagues Dr. Wendy van Ginkel and Prof. Daan van Knippenberg make several recommendations. The first is third-party observation of team performance. This may make teams more accountable and cause them to assess a team member based on merit, rather than cultural stereotypes. Next, managers should encourage knowledge sharing and create an environment “where team members feel comfortable sharing new ideas, asking questions, and giving feedback to one another.” I add that there should be no such thing as dumb questions. Without doubt, some people may be faster than others, but we all have strengths and shaming, subtle or otherwise, should have no place at work. Third, managers should help team members—from the beginning—get to know each other’s areas of expertise, because the perception of expertise helps boost status.

Some of the most rewarding times I’ve had at work have been being part of a culturally diverse team. And I hasten to say that this holds particularly true of teams with female members. All of us bring something to the table, and women who don’t allow themselves to be drowned out bring a lot.

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Have you ever experienced writer’s block? If you write for a living, then the response is “Of course.” If you don’t write for a living but must write while earning your living and think of yourself as a reluctant writer, then the answer is “Of course.”

So what do you do when you really, really need to produce something by a deadline. (Which may be unrealistic or may be causing you heartburn because you procrastinated and hoped that somehow it would go away.)

Kristen Dunleavy (@KristenWritesIt), a senior content marketing manager at MovableInk, has great ideas for getting yourself going in her Ragan article “10 ideas to help writers get it in gear.”  As As my wont, I have chosen my five favorites.

1. “Challenge yourself to beat the clock.” This sounds a touch hokey at first, when, frankly, you’re just not enthused. But it works. In the work I do, my goal is always to deliver a piece a day in advance of the first-draft deadline. This gives everyone a break. The person I report to has extra time for reading and commenting, and I have extra time for any fixes necessary.
2. “Get out for some green.” Dunleavy and I and many others are on the same page here. In fact, I’ve done posts that recommend taking a nature break. If you’ve been sitting in front of your screen feeling frustrated and not getting anywhere, a brief walk is almost guaranteed to get you going again, and the 15 to 20 minutes it takes really doesn’t steal time away from the project.
3. “Recognize that you can get stuff done even when you don’t feel like it.” This, I believe, echoes advice from Jack London, who advised writers to go to their desks and sit there until they got something done. There must have been days that Mr. London didn’t feel like writing; he died of kidney failure at the age of 40. But he persisted, and so must we all who call ourselves writers.
4. “Give yourself permission to write badly (at first).” This is probably my favorite piece of advice. I tend to be a real perfectionist in my first draft—backing up a sentence or two to polish something I’ve already written. That makes it a lot harder to get a piece finished. It’s taken a long time to learn to resist the temptation to rework while work in process, but taking a walk or brushing the dog and then getting back at it is an enormous help.
5. “Try to enjoy the process.” In my opinion, achieving enjoyment can be a real challenge. But Ms. Dunleavy quotes editor and blogger Peter Turley (@PDTurley) who says “Enjoy the daily process of being a writer. If you can enjoy the process, then you’ve already achieved your goal. If you focus on the endpoint, you’ll quickly lose writing motivation.”

In last week’s post, I noted that good writers tend to be good thinkers. Working on your writing, however you do it, is part of the process of thinking better. And, of course, being exposed to your writing helps your readers see that. Yes, you should write for your own enjoyment, but you should never forget your audience.

Brian Jackson — 123rf.com

Have you run across unfortunate word choices lately? Have you seen word use that makes you cringe because it’s just out-and-out wrong? Or that makes you feel vaguely uneasy?

Marcia Yudkin, one of my favorite marketing gurus, certainly has. And would like to protect us all from them. I agree. It’s important to use words carefully. That doesn’t mean being prissy, but it does mean being precise.

In an August Marketing Minute, Ms. Yudkin notes the use of the word “cartel” to promote a writing and marketing course. Hmmm. Cartel has pretty negative connotations, as we all know.

So why do people use the wrong word? According to Ms. Yudkin, there are several reasons. One is that they are “uninformed.” Another is that they want to distinguish themselves by using an out-of-the-ordinary word. She points to folks who use “notorious” instead of “famous.” Calling someone notorious is not doing them a favor, and I’m surprised that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has not objected to being referred to as “Notorious RBG.” (Too busy, I guess.) Third, and perhaps most interesting is those folks who “ … feel that through the force of their intelligence and will, they can single-handedly overcome deep-seated associations in the language.”

I can tell a story on myself regarding this last point. For years, I’ve been waging a lonely campaign to bring “irregardless” back into common use. When I mention this to friends and colleagues, I get the eye roll and the derisive snorts. Clearly personal charm has not been enough to persuade others to jump on my bandwagon. And, truth to tell, I am not really serious about resuscitating irregardless. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I love the richness of language and got a touch overenthusiastic about the power of pungency and playfulness.

solarseven

 

Are you are a reluctant writer? Do you groan when you sit down at the keyboard, knowing that you need to knock something out fast? Do you feel unsure of your communication skills even when you “only” need to craft an email? Well, you’re not alone. Even professional communicators have days where their writing chops seem to be utter lacking.

Fortunately for us all, there is a ton of help out there. I recently came upon a short but potent guide from Ragan, “10 ways to improve your writing today.” If nothing else, the promise of instant gratification prompted me to read it, and I’m glad I did. By the way, it’s only about 2 pages long, so I recommend you click the link and have at it.

My five favorite tips

1. “Have a point.” Arguably, this may be the most important tip, because so many of us don’t necessarily know what we’re going to say when we start writing. We end up meandering, to the annoyance of our readers. The Ragan guide says, “Two related points in the same article or email are fine. Two disparate messages should be offered separately.”
2. “Look up words.” If you’re not sure of what a word means, look it up. I’m a big fan of dictionary.com. It’s fast and efficient and keeps you from looking foolish.
3. “Punctuate properly.” Yes, learning the basics of punctuation seems like a bore. But keeping a copy of “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves” or “Woe is I” is a great idea, and believe it or not, these books are funny as well as informative. Here, a big thank you to Miss Thompson, my 10^th grade English teacher, a stickler for proper punctuation and mistress of the diagrammed sentence.
4. “Match pronouns to their antecedents.” Sounds a bit fussy, doesn’t it? Yet it’s important to be clear about what a pronoun refers to. Ragan’s example: “Vera went over to Malvina’s house so they could work on her penmanship. Whose penmanship? Vera went over to Malvina’s house so they could work on Vera’s penmanship.”
5. “Cut it back.” As Ragan puts it, “Prune your writing as you would the dead branches of a shrub.” So often, we writers (reluctant or otherwise) are fighting a deadline. The words may pour out of us—or they may not—but we feel that we don’t have the luxury of time to review our work. If you’ve finished your piece at 3 pm and you need to deliver it by 4, take a walk around the block, clean the litter box, or have a cup of tea. You’ll be amazed how these simple activities will shift your perspective and make it easier to do some judicious cutting.

Good writers are typically good thinkers. If you see yourself as a good thinker but have some qualms about your writing, I recommend taking the time to improve your writing. It really will make a difference in your life.

Undrey

We writers—ahem, content creators—love precise word use. We tend to find ourselves irritated by the sloppy or silly and work hard to find, as the French would say, “le mot juste.”

To this end, I call your attention to a wonderful article from a few years back by Laura Hale Brockway. Entitled “32 alternatives to ‘a lot,’” it’s Ms. Brockway’s indictment of our tendency to use the term “a lot,” well, a lot when we want to describe an amount. A couple of her examples:

• “I try not to ask for a lot of help from the IT Department.”
• Our style guide does not appear to be used by a lot of people.” (Too true, alas.)
• There’s not a lot we can do about the CEO’s use of run-on sentences.

I must confess that I use “a lot” way too frequently. It is a convenient “grab ‘n go” expression, just waiting obligingly to be of service. But, as Ms. Brockway notes, “Its use in formal writing is lazy and colloquial. And as a quantifier, it’s meaningless. How much is ‘a lot,’ exactly?”

She suggests 32 alternatives, many of which I like a lot (woops). Consider, for example:

• A great deal
• enormously
• myriad
• plethora
• tons

Check out her article for the rest of the list and, of course, give your word power muscles a work out by adding to it.

While I’m at it, I’d like to take dead aim at “awesome,” which has completely lost its meaning and, in my opinion, has become so annoying as to be worth banning from use ever again. Undoubtedly, you have candidates for your own list, and I’d like to see them.

kotokomi

OK, so you’ve taken a smartphone photo or two, but you’re not really impressed with how they’ve come out. You want to do a better job, because reasons and opportunities to take a quick pic abound, both personally and professionally.

This article, “15 tips for improving your photos and videos” by Russell Working (@ByWorking) offers great ideas from professional photographers on how to take better pictures and videos. As a writer, I should probably be alarmed by shrinking attention spans and the resulting popularity of visual communication, but hey, you gotta move with the times. And besides, I believe that visuals and words have always complemented each other. Look at screenplays and infographics. But I digress.

Mr. Working presents 15 tips; I’m going to go for my five most favorite. For more good ideas, read his article, which is worth the five minutes it will take you.

1. Get up close. This advice came from Robert Capa, a renowned war photographer who stepped on a landmine and died. You’re not likely to run those risks, and I think there’s no denying that the closer you get, the more dramatic/effective your shots will be.
2. Fill the frame. This is great advice when you’re photographing a person, your CEO or 100-year-old Great Aunt Nellie, for example. One photographer advises not to put your subject’s head at the center of the frame, which, in my opinion, would be deer-in-the-headlights.
3. Leverage light. What this means is moving your subject near the light, though not into direct sunlight. You want to avoid those dull, murky-looking shots where your subject sort of gets lost. One photographer recommends putting a window at the back of the shot. (Just watch out for the halo effect, which famously earned former PM David Cameron a certain amount of mockery.)
4. Vary settings. People love novelty, so try both formal and informal settings. Informal settings humanize your subject, though I recommend avoid those fakey “human” shots such as the one of President Trump at the wheel of a huge truck.
5. Go for different angles. Shoot from above, shoot from below. One photographer points out that if you kneel or lie on the ground, “buildings will appear taller and more majestic.” If are above your subjects—say for a group photo—you “avoid unflattering squatting poses.”

I’m a terrible smartphone photographer, though I plan to improve. What I like about this form of photography is that it feels unintimidating. Smartphone cameras are better than ever, and people have taken some gorgeous pictures with them. I’ve come to realize that I’ll likely never buy that big expensive Pentax that my Uncle Ernie pulled out on every possible occasion. Fast, friendly, and accessible is the key here, and I think most of us are up for that.

Kitticha Polpaisal — 123rf.com