Blog - it's dead good
Communicating about mental health – inspired by #commschat
Unusually for me I joined in a Twitter chat last night (15 July). I say unusually as I’m quite strict about my working hours and my screen time, because I feel it’s important for my mental wellbeing and work/life balance. It was #commschat, a weekly Twitter chat on a...
What the *ux* is UX
Do you keep seeing UX everywhere and wondering what the *UX* it is? Yep me too. So I did some research. There isn’t a single recognised definition of UX but it stands for user experience and is about making things better for the user. In...
Getting the best results through constructive feedback (in copywriting and dog training)
Most dog owners know that one of the principles of basic canine training is rewarding good behaviour and correcting undesirable (bad) behaviour. If you aren’t clear with your dog about what is right and wrong he/she won’t have a clue what to do. Waiting patiently for...
Informed consent
Some months ago I heard about a company that places reps in maternity wards of some hospitals and said reps approach new mums offering up a bag full of freebies and a free bedside photo shoot. Say what? I was genuinely taken aback and assumed this was a new thing, but...
Money back guaranteed
I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about litter picks. I think it’s totally the wrong message to send out i.e. ‘we’ll pick up after you”. No. Change the record. Change the message. I wouldn’t dream of dropping litter and I think part of that is the way I was brought up, but...
Me, on newsletters
I’m a big fan of email newsletters. I think they are a great way for companies to keep in touch with customers and prospects. Sophisticated, and often free, mailing platforms provide you with data on what readers like, and maybe don’t like, and if they are opening,...
On words – the good, the bad and the ugly
I love words, I really do. I don’t do this just because I wasn’t any good at anything else! I like words in books and songs. I like words in other languages and sometimes I like making words up. For example, levabevamevamemonade. Which is of course lemonade. It’s an...
Letting art (copy) fly
TL;DR A good brief plus a good copywriter = great work I was half listening to Mumford and Sons being interviewed on Radio 2 the other night on Jo Whiley and Simon Mayo’s Drive Time and I had to fully listen when they started talking about the creative process and...
Bullshit sensitivity
I’ve seen leveraging twice this morning in a trade journal, a UK media related journal. Leverage is in the bullshit list no? It’s in mine. It doesn’t sound right and it doesn’t read right. Why utilise it when you could use a ton of other words? See what I did there....
All about tyops
I saw an online ad today for an upcoming event. A charity do, for a worthy cause, with a celeb host. The host’s name was spelled wrong. My finger hovered over telling them and quickly hovered away. “Don’t be that person” my inner pedant voice said. Experience tells me...