What is your personal impact on the planet? Or that of your company? Any idea? Probably not. Whilst we are surrounded by messaging on climate change and stories of human-induced climate catastrophe in the form of news pieces, telly programmes and films, and awareness...
Opening up; throwing (sh*t) down
We absolutely can change heavily entrenched behaviour – the last 12 months have proven that
Keep it simple stupid (KISS)
Some copywriters have a niche. Mine is plain English. That’s it. Some copywriters have a passion for certain sectors or topics. My passion is plain English. That’s it. Verbose copy is so difficult to read. It must be a nightmare to write! You have to keep re-reading...
The vaccine(s) and the comms challenges
Personally, I don’t think having misgivings and/or questions about a relatively new vaccine are baseless. It’s a massive exercise to get everyone on board and that means not just appealing to the anti-vaxxers.
Reading the room
I do like the phrase 'reading the room'. Sometimes I can’t put my finger on why some words and phrases sound just perfect and others grate. What does reading the room mean though? And what does it mean to you? Reading the room to me is about understanding the mood –...
Consistently inconsistent messaging
I’m not for one minute saying that plain English would have meant we are not in the mess we are in now. I am saying that people would have found it easier to stick to the rules if there was universal understanding of the rules. People can only follow what they understand.
Nudge is not the enemy
Yes, we are still in the midst of a pandemic with a vile virus that will be around for some time. The death toll is staggering, but...but the changes in behaviour in the UK at least (I can only speak for the UK, as it’s where I live) have also been staggering. Right...
Stop the spread – of misinformation
I know I bang on about plain English, direct communications and making things simple but this situation we are in now – a global public health pandemic – reinforces this five hundredfold.
Tricky times – to email or not to email
We really are in unprecedented and utterly bewildering times. It’s fast-moving and there are people that need to be kept informed across the board about a whole host of issues – some, clearly more important than others.
Evolving language
A couple of days ago I read a piece about teachers banning slang in classrooms and jumped on a quote in the piece from linguistics expert Ian Cushing, a lecturer in education at Brunel University London who said, "There's no incorrect or correct way of using...