Work

The way words sound is critical to their effectiveness. How they are arranged is also critical. Language is musical; sentences are rhythmic. We don’t usually think in these terms though. But poets know it. Rappers know it. And writers of prose, if they’re good, they know it too.

I’m currently reading Seth Godin’s latest book, Linchpin, and it’s clear he knows it. You’ll see longer, sometimes clausal sentences followed by one or two short, punctuation-like sentences. Writers often do this. (I just did it there.) It’s like a joke: set up followed by a quick punchline. Doing this emphasizes your key point. Hopefully, it makes it memorable.

Words acquire their music by an arrangement of consonants and vowels and accents, some hard (“eat”) and some soft (“where”). A word itself has a certain rhythm, a beat or combination of them, and in a sentence can help create a more complex rhythm as it sits side by side with other words and their rhythm(s).

It all combines to create the music of words.

French is an interesting language (sometimes called one of the romance languages). We associate it with softness, I think, and even elegance – especially when we don’t actually speak it. We don’t understand the meaning but we hear how it sounds and the sound alone carries a meaning, though it’s often wrongly interpreted.

For example, let’s suppose a restaurant is opening. We’re going to call the restaurant, La merde de chien. Now, if we don’t speak French and are utterly unfamiliar with it, we don’t know what that means. But it sounds as if it might be elegant. Knowing nothing about the restaurant, we might assume it’s a fine dining establishment. Maybe it specializes in French cuisine.

We just don’t know but we do know that La merde de chien sounds as if it could be a top drawer place. There are so many soft sounds in La merde de chien. We might picture soft lighting. We might imagine a piano or a string quartet playing quietly in a corner.

We would imagine something altogether different if we knew it meant Dog Poop.

If we know what La merde de chien means it will strike us that the sound and the meaning are at cross-purposes. (I’m assuming an English speaking person’s perspective here.) Sometimes that is the effect we want. It’s an effect I wanted here. I wanted sound and meaning to disagree as a way to illustrate how the sound of words works.

The words we choose are guided by our purpose. What do we want them to do? What message are they meant to convey? This should determine the words we choose – not simply for their dictionary meaning but also for how the sound of the words also conveys the meaning.

Two more examples … Why do we usually call them PCs and not personal computers? Because personal computer is six syllables with really only one hard sound (the u in computer). It’s a bit soft and clunky. PC is two syllables, both accented and rolls off the tongue with ease. It has a catchier rhythm, like a jingle or pop song.

Why call a Macintosh a Mac? Why Mac and not Tosh? Mac is one syllable, one beat. Tosh is also one syllable, one beat but Mac ends with a hard sound, Tosh with a soft sound. Macintosh has a better rhythm than personal computer but, like Tosh, ends softly. Mac doesn’t. It is hard and it sounds like what Apple would like us to think about their computers: tough and efficient and effective. It’s a period. All those other words are commas.

A final, perfect example of the music of words, is Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. If you read the text you’ll hear how, while called a speech, it is really a poem. And a poem is really just a fancy word for song.

Why would Lincoln say, “Four score and seven years ago …” and not simply, “Eighty-seven years ago …?” Why would he conclude with the repetition of, “… government of the people, by the people, for the people …?”

It was for the music of it. It was for the sound. When sound and meaning intersect and are one, words resonate. They stick in the mind and they’re remembered.

They work like all get out.

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Search engines aren’t the only ones looking for keywords. We are too. In a sense, we are search engines as we look for what we’re trying to find or we meander over the web hoping to stumble on something interesting.

When we look, we look for words and phrases.

I‘m thinking of email newsletter subject lines in particular. From what I see coming into my inbox, the majority die on the vine because they have poorly composed, poorly thought through subject lines. In other words, they likely go straight to the trash folder without ever being opened.

The point of a subject line is to get someone to open the newsletter. If most people are like me, and I believe they are, they get loads of emails, including spam, and therefore just glance at what is unread in their inbox. They only see a few keywords, usually those at the very beginning – the first three, maybe five. And what do they see?

• Now available at …
• Great ways to save…
• What’s New this week…
• Company Name newsletter for…

None of these would get me to open an email. They are all so generic it’s unlikely I would continue on to see if the subject line redeemed itself with something interesting. The last one really makes me crazy.

Anyone that gets email knows the From field comes first and it clearly displays your name.

If I was to send out a newsletter, or any email, people would see Writelife in the From field. Why on earth would I then begin a subject line with, “Writelife presents a unique …?” Why include the name at all? The shorter a subject line, the better. Every word counts. This is one case where repetition is definitely not a good idea.

How should a subject line read?

I would try to get the important words right at the start. For example, “Fix your PC…” or, “Secure your documents…” or, “Download Olympic performances …” I would also try to make my subject line as short as possible (although, admittedly, I often fail at this).

Keep in mind that many people get their email on their iPhone, Blackberry or other mobile device. In most cases, they’ll only see the first two or three words. “Great ways to …” isn’t going to get the job done.

In the case of a newsletter, the content and the audience determine the subject line. In many of the newsletters I’ve worked on (usually guided by marketing departments), the emphasis is on what they want people to read rather than on what their customers want to read. And it usually shows in the open rate.

You have to look at the newsletter content and find what would most interest your audience and determine how to best present that in a subject line. The subject line doesn’t sell; the subject line gets people into the store, so to speak. It encourages them to open the newsletter.

Let’s say I’m doing a newsletter based on my last few Writelife posts (not the best example because I’m not really selling anything). I might have a subject line like:

• Respect and work; what’s Seth Godin do?

(Note: obviously, subject lines don’t have links. These are included for anyone curious about see the actual posts.)

The line is short and in many cases the second part won’t be seen on a handheld device. But it does have keywords near the front. However, we could make it better if we look at the keywords, which are: respect, work, Seth Godin. Of those, which would garner the greatest interest? The subject line should be:

• What’s Seth Godin do?; respect and work

If you insist on including your company name (which I disagree with) at least have the good sense to put it at the end – after the important terms:

• What’s Seth Godin do?; respect and work | Writelife

Of course, this version risks having people think the second part relates to the first. These kinds of subject lines are a result of trying to do too much, say too much, reach too many people. You can’t be everything to everyone, so make some choices. To me, the best version of this reads this way:

• What’s Seth Godin do?

I’m not basing this on any data I have at hand. I’m sure there is data out there that either supports or refutes this approach. But my intuitive sense says this is the way to go. It’s definitely based on how I personally view emails and newsletters.

It should be noted that while I’ve been writing about email and subject lines the majority of this is applicable to blog post headlines, tweets on Twitter and most things web related. (And I’m guilty in not practicing what I preach.)

What do you think?

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Work is necessary in order to be complete. We tend to think of work only in terms of reward – an income – that allows us to fulfill other of life’s necessities and, if we can, enjoy our lives more fully with some of its luxuries. But work itself is a necessity and for that necessity to be truly met how we work is important.

A long time ago I read The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen. It masquerades as a nature/travel book but it’s really an account of a spiritual journey into the Himalayas with the faint hope of seeing the rarely seen snow leopard. One part of the book has always remained with me.

On their trek they have a Sherpa to help and guide them. In their group there is a British couple that continually treat the Sherpa with disrespect – with a kind of upper-crust disdain as if to say, “You don’t exist except to serve us.”

Yet the Sherpa continues along doing his work as if indifferent to his treatment. Finally, one day, Matthiessen asks him, “How can you be so indifferent? How can you respect these people?”

The Sherpa says, “I don’t. I respect the work.”

That made me think. The Sherpa separates the employment from the employer. I think regardless of the employer, regardless of the work, how he performs it says something about him. The employer and employment may be lousy but if he has agreed to do the work then how he performs it reflects on his character.

If the conditions of the employment are awful, he can look for other work, resign from the employment. To continue to do the work but do it poorly may make things difficult for the people or company employing him but they also undermine him.

Imagine an athlete, let’s say a hockey player. He has loads of talent. He’s in the upper echelon of players. His team, however, reaches a point that it has no chance of making the playoffs. As a whole, the team has performed as well as they might. What does he do? Does he continue to play at the top of his game, trying to help the team improve? Or does he slack off because there is no chance of winning and, “What’s the point? This team sucks. I want to get traded.”

He could probably get a trade in the real world. And in the real world I’m sure lots of teams would want him. But I think that would be a mistake. His performance on the team that is out of the playoffs says he only plays well under certain conditions. It says his interest in “the work” is only to the extent that he is rewarded for it with money and accolades. If you take those away, he’s a slug. He plays for himself, no one else. He certainly doesn’t play for the team.

He doesn’t respect the work and by extension he doesn’t really respect himself. It isn’t surprising that some of the best workers are those who have been out of work for a while. Take it away, and you quickly realize how important it is in defining who you are and the degree to which you have a sense of self-respect.

We tend to focus on jobs, as we should, but how we perform them, think about them and feel about them is just as important. More often than not, it defines who we are.

Related links:

• Mike Rowe on how we view work
• Why success can make for lousy work
• Work is not a dirty word (Broadcasting-Brain)

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Nothing is as easy as it appears – even talking.

We’ve likely all encountered variations of this comedic scene: someone looks like one thing but their voice doesn’t fit our expectations. Let’s say there is a huge football lineman who towers over us yet his voice is high-pitched and squeaky. He may even have a lisp. So we laugh or chuckle.

It’s politically incorrect and socially inappropriate. Worse, it’s unkind. But it’s a natural response to the gap between expectations and reality. Comedy is all about setting up expectations then delivering the unexpected.

How we sound has always intrigued me. I’m always surprised when I meet someone who, should the conversation turn to the subject of radio, has a kind of dream of being on the radio. Seriously, there are a lot of them! I suppose it’s understandable but I know that there is a huge difference between the idealized, fantasy image of being a radio announcer and the reality.

To begin with, it’s one thing to talk it’s quite another to say something that is listenable. You can talk, but are you saying anything worth hearing (the content)? You can talk, but do you have bad habits like a chuckle, the same chuckle, preceding every pause? Do you have to script everything you say or can you talk off the cuff and be sensible? Can you talk and naturally work in all the announcements you’re required to: weather, ads, promos?

Here’s an example: I have a moderately listenable voice. But if I were on the radio and had to talk off the cuff it would all be gibberish punctuated by the odd profanity because, unfortunately, you have to actually think about what you’re saying and my brain works slowly. It’s sad but it’s true. It also goes off on unanticipated tangents.

When you talk, do you sound like yourself or do you sound like a completely different person? Some people, I found, sounded like “announcers.” We use to have a term for that – “Ronnie Radio.” (In other words, there are announcers and there are people who trying to imitate what they think announcers sound like.)

Let’s say you are reading something, a news story or an ad or an introduction – do you sound like you’re reading or can you sound natural, as if you aren’t reading?

Some people have the skills and talent required to be on the radio. Still, they fall into a couple of types. There are some people who are great announcers but no matter what the situation, always sound like announcers. For example, if you have an ad that requires a character voice, let say the average Joe talking about his car, they can’t do it. Put in different terms, they can be a narrator in a film but they can’t be one of the film’s characters because they can’t act. They do one thing, do it very well, but that is it.

And some people can do those character voices but couldn’t be an announcer to save their life. A few can do both.

All this voice business, by the way, doesn’t even touch on all the other requirements, such as public appearances, community involvement and radio station functions they may have. (Maybe they have to also sell ads, or manage the music, or produce commercials.)

On the outside, being a radio voice appears easy and fun. It can certainly be the latter, fun, and for some it can be both. But talking on the radio involves a lot more than talking on the radio.

That is why it is something I never tried. Years ago, when I first started in radio, I saw what was involved and gauged it against what my skills were and my personality was and it was clear to me that it would not be something I’d do even remotely well.

And so I write.

(Yes, today was a bit of a tangent.)

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What if bits and bytes smelled? And what if they smelled bad? And what if they had the capacity to carry viruses – no, not the email kind but biological n’er-do-wells?

Somewhere out in that vast and ill-defined world we call “digital space,” there’s a lot – and I mean a lot – of refuse. Imagine it having a physical nature, something that took up physical space like old toasters or meat that has gone bad. What if it had rats?

I don’t think I’d care for it.

I call it “The Great Digital Landfill” because that is really what much of the Internet is, just as it is much of what we keep on our computers – used and effectively worthless docs, pics, emails, programs and who knows what all else. There is no pressing need to clear any of it up because there is so much capacity (or so we suppose, if and when we think of it).

But what if it smelled bad? What if digital material had “best before” dates and, once the a date was passed, whatever that item might be it would begin to stink out the joint? I think we would likely put our minds to “cleaning up” with a bit more alacrity.

A very quick Google search reveals that “digital landfill” is not an uncommon term. Some of the material found is about the electronic trash we create and some is … well, a little odd (not unusual on the web). There are actually two aspects to this:

• The trashed hardware (cell phones, laptops etc.)
• The trashed content (emails, docs, pics etc.)

The first of those, hardware, is the serious one because it actually is physical and it is a very real problem. I believe I’ve seen documentaries or news reports of entire islands in Southeast Asia completely buried under technological trash, but hopefully that is just a nightmare I had due to spicy food prior to bed.

The second one, the digital content that has expired and is no longer useful, is just clutter. I sometimes wonder how search engines plough through it all. On our personal computers, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has done a search and been discouraged to find page after page of results.

I’ve even found documents on my laptop that I couldn’t remember if I had written them or someone else had.

Imagine, however, this scene. Arnold, a student, has just been called to a meeting with Professor Axel. It goes like this:

“I’ve been going over your work, Arnold, and I have a question. Did you write this?”

“Umm … yes! Yes, I did.”

“When?”

Arnold’s eyes dart side to side. “The weekend. Saturday night! Yes. And I finished it up Sunday morning.”

Professor Axel frowns. “That’s strange. Your submission has a very distinctive odor. An unpleasant one.”

“I … I … I hadn’t noticed.”

“Really? That’s strange too … since it’s stinking to high heaven! This damn thing is at least three years old!”

Poor Arnold. Caught cheating because digital material goes bad and stinks.

Yes, I think our attitudes toward all those emails in our Gmail accounts, all our stored documents, abandoned blogs, not to mention all that discarded hardware, would definitely alter if technology and the content we produced with it would just smell bad after a certain period of time.

Maybe that’s the challenge? Maybe we need to make technology that stinks.

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When you encounter something for the first time you have no reference point. The thing you encounter establishes itself as the reference point. Anything similar encountered afterward, although “new,” is seen in relation to that first thing, the reference point.

For example, the first dog you see becomes a reference point for “dog.” If it’s a boxer, that’s your idea of dog. If you later encounter a springer spaniel or a wolf or coyote – anything canine – you have that first dog as a reference point.

I thought about this as I read an interview with CBC’s Terry O’Reilly. (It’s an interview done by Mark Dykeman at Broadcasting Brain.) There is a passing reference in it about when he began in advertising: “Edited radio by razor blade …”

I worked in radio too and did a lot of work editing that way. The reason it resonated with me is that it triggered the idea of analog vs. digital. I worked with sound back when everything was analog. That established my reference point. When digital came along, I found it awkward (and still do). However, had I started from the beginning with digital – had that been my reference point – I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t feel awkward to me but just the way to work with sound. What happens when you encounter something where you have a reference point is that you go back to it trying to understand the new thing in terms of the original.

I’m not sure this would be true of anyone else but for me the difference between analog and digital is the difference between thinking of sound as something aural (analog) as opposed to visual (digital). Editing in analog, I was always tuned into the rhythms and the beat and edited based on that. Similar to a DJ in a club using vinyl discs and cuing them to beats, often I would edit that way: cuing the vinyl, hitting “Record” on a beat as I let the disc spin. (It may have been called a slip cue).

With digital, while listening to the music for beats and off beats, it is more about seeing the visual representation – the graph of the audio – and identifying visually where those beats and off beats are. I work with digital audio rarely so it is quite likely I simply don’t know enough about working with it. My point is really this: the analog experience affects my digital experience of audio.

I think this notion of an established reference point as opposed to no reference point is an important one since it can affect a great many things, including products and services. As an example, when word processing programs first started coming out, as a growing number of people started using them, you could do almost anything creating those programs because there were no similar word processing programs that had established themselves as reference points. Now, however, when Microsoft makes changes to a program like Word, they often encounter a hue and cry and it’s because most people aren’t starting from square one. They have experienced word processing and have reference points – expectations of how they work, where functions are and so on.

I think when you are bringing out something new, you have to consider just how “new” it is. Speaking very broadly, you can say everything has some reference point. But some things are more new than others. You have to know what that “new” thing resonates with, whether expectations exist of what it should do and either address those in the development or through  how you communicate with your target audience (or both).

And that is the tangent my mind took after reading the interview. It’s a worthwhile interview to read though my post here is unrelated except to the extent it sparked my rambling.

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If you don’t mind, I would like to make a few requests of you. While I don’t wish to appear dogmatic and inflexible, and if I may be blunt, you are of absolutely no use or merit to me should you decline my requests. So if I may, here they are:

- A little less rancour please. From everyone, including myself.

- A little more dignity and honour in politics, if you don’t mind. A dash of ethics would be nice too.

- A bit less complaining and a bit more listening.

- An end date on the Lady Gaga thing? I don’t begrudge her some success and, yes, the tunes are toe tappers, but really …

- You know, not only do I not mind the snow and cold, I kind of like it. After all, I live in Canada and if I really disliked it I could probably go elsewhere. But could you turn that damn fan off? The wind is killing me.

- Could you somehow filter out all the complaints about social networks as well as all the noise about how they’ve changed the world and ain’t it wonderful?

- On a similar note, could you put a stop to the claims, made whenever something new gains some traction, that this or that is dead?

- I would be extremely pleased and grateful if you could feed everyone, clothe everyone, house everyone, educate everyone and generally be a bit more thoughtful of everyone, everywhere. Listen — if you want to be distinguished in the great panoply of years, that’s the way to go. Ain’t no one seen that before!

The ball’s in your court now, 2010.

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I have a recurring wish and that is for an editor. Since it’s the Christmas season, I’ll say it’s my Christmas wish. I’d like an editor. That’s what I want – my own personal editor.

My definition of editor is someone who goes over what I’ve written, corrects or points out the typos, grammatical mistakes and the spelling mistakes. He or she would also be the person who understands what I’m trying to do or say in my writing, how I write and knows when those mistakes of grammar are intended and when they are just bonehead mistakes. They do more, too.

They look at what I’ve written and say things like, “This is rubbish. Toss it and write something else,” or, “This is awful. Not a bad idea, but really bad writing. Did you bother to think this through?”

They know when to have fun and when to be serious. They monitor and say things like, “It’s time for you to shut up. You’re talking (posting) too much.” This is because they monitor everything and, because they do, pick up when the line of excess has been crossed or is about to be, hopefully before anyone else does.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a real editor. For the most part, the editor is me and I think I do a lousy job. I also think the reason for that is laziness – though there is some merit in saying it’s being too busy. I know others have schedules they’ve set up for themselves, processes they go through prior to publishing online and all kinds of other little checks and balances, all of which they’ve created and put in place for themselves.

I’m not like that. I need those things imposed from an external source – in other words, someone else. I’m one of those people who, no matter how many times he tries to, can’t sustain discipline when it is self-imposed. I’ve had assignments in the past where when I ask for a deadline I’m told, “No rush. When you can get to it.” I tell those people to give me a date, even if it is arbitrary. I tell them that if they don’t, it won’t get done.

It’s another reason I want an editor. I want someone setting time frames and setting up constraints. That is how I work best.

Strangely enough, one of the times I most want an editor is when I’m at my best. When I’ve written something really good, be it a blog post, an article, a piece of fiction or web copy, I want other eyes that see with the same standards I have. I’ve found the better my writing is the less sure I am that it is good.

It seems good. I like it. But maybe I’m kidding myself and it’s rubbish. I can’t tell and the more I debate it with myself the more uncertain I become  and the more picky I get and the more I “tweak.”

The word ‘standards’ may not be the best to use. While it is correct, strictly speaking, it doesn’t include in its meaning the sense of aspiration. I want an editor that can see what the writing aspires to be and can say, while in terms of standards it fits the bill, it either falls short or achieves what it aspires to be.

Anyone know who that person is? Got an email address? I can’t pay them anything so I’d like them to work for free and be at my beck and call. It’s my Christmas wish.

Would someone get on that please?

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We all have ideas about what working from home would be like and most of them reflect the upside of it, or at least what we imagine the upside to be. I think most would be roughly accurate so I won’t list them here.

There are a few caveats, however. I always think of three in particular. To tell you the truth, all three can be summed up in one word: people. In no particular order:

Structure

Without the presence of other people, and without a standard office environment, it’s much more difficult to impose discipline on yourself in terms of how you structure your day. Of course, to many this is not a problem. It’s part of their character. They’re naturally organized people.

It’s not the case for everyone, however. If you’re like me, you’re all over the place. You may create structure, follow a discipline and keep to it for quite a while, but eventually it goes out the window … for any of a number of reasons, the main one being it’s not a part of who you are. You need the presence of others, the interaction with others to follow a structure.

No people

And that suggests the second caveat – beware of the absence of other people. We’re social animals (no matter how anti-social you may imagine yourself to be). Without fairly frequent interaction with other people, you just plain get weird. Think Howard Hughes.

People again

Having said the above, the last caveat is people: too much of them, in a sense. Working from home, many people think of you as being always “free.” At first, you may even indulge this because it’s kind of nice being able to take some time out in the day to hang with others. But it quickly sours as you realize you’re not getting work done, or doing it late at night to catch up on the time you lost during the day.

People know you work from home, and they don’t naturally interrupt up you during the day when you’re working, but … It just doesn’t look or feel like a work environment so it somehow doesn’t quite connect. It feels casual and leisurely. It doesn’t feel like work.

It may be that dealing with the first caveat might help with the third on my list. If you can impose a disciple (up at a certain time, at the job at a certain time, dressed a certain way) you may deal with third. The idea of working at home might communicate better to others if you dress with a degree of work formality so when you answer the door, for example, you’re wearing a tie as opposed to pajamas.

As for the second one, that one in the middle about no people, what I do is simply go downtown a few times a week with my computer and work for a few hours in restaurant. After a while, you meet people and have casual conversations. More importantly, it puts you in an environment where there are other people. You don’t feel quite so reclusive.

Not everyone can do this, of course, but if you can it’s worth considering.

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