business builder communications
Content rules in
communicating,
even in digital era
by Lola Fredrickson
Remember the Wendy’s commercials that asked, “Where’s the beef?” In this digital age — brimming with easy technology tools to manage Web content, training materials and other business documents — that question seems more pertinent than ever.
Many are confusing the technology management tools with the “beef,” the actual content that the technology is intended to manage or make easier to create and distribute.
Consider a new developmental tool for Web-based training (WBT), which allows the user to pull video files, sound files, graphics, charts, text files, and other elements out of a directory and drop them into place. It’s called “drag-and-drop” development and it allows someone to assemble a one-hour WBT course in about five minutes.
What it doesn’t do is create the “beef.” It assumes all the real work — such as writing, editing, recording, and otherwise developing the videos, audio files, text files and other elements that form the real content of the training — has already been done.
The development tool simply provides a fast way to organize the stuff that really matters to the learner — the instructional content. And while the technology marketing hype won’t mention this, it is the quality of the content that will determine the success of your Web sites, e-mails, articles and documents.
So before getting swept away by the cool tech tools, make sure you have effective content. If you’re a manager responsible for the production of these materials, don’t confuse an employee’s ability to manipulate software with the ability to create effective content. If you’re the person actually creating the content, consider these important communication principles:
Plan before you start writing.
Any writing task has several stages. The quality of your preparation will directly affect the quality of your end product.
Think about your audience and what you want to tell them. Then determine what and how much information they need. Defining audience, purpose and scope is a critical first step in your planning.
Decide how your material will be organized. Create a cluster diagram to let you sift through material to define scope. Look at your diagram and see how you want to organize the material you’ve selected — by steps in a process, chronologically or by priority, for example.
Next, gather material for your first draft, and do any necessary research.
Draft, revise, review, edit and proofread.
Drafting your document is simply getting your initial thoughts down on paper. No one should see this so don’t worry about minutiae — just get something written. After that, you can revise as many times as you like.
Each time you revise, do so for a specific issue — correct grammar, logical flow, level of detail, use of graphics.
Reviewing involves getting comments from other people. You want to hear from technical experts about the accuracy of what you have drafted. You may need a legal review to meet compliance issues. Have someone else edit for you. It’s hard to see the mistakes in your own work. Lastly, proof everything you write.
Don’t do a brain dump.
A common mistake is to start writing down everything known about a topic without consideration of the specifics needed. If I’m going to write a procedure for issuing payroll checks, I don’t need to describe how the entire payroll system works.
Remember that our job as writers is to make life easy for the reader. We must do the sorting, ranking and limiting of information.
Be concise.
Go back through your text and eliminate unnecessary words and thoughts. Use simple words that communicate clearly. Everyone in the workplace has more than enough to read. If you want your message to get attention, make it as brief as possible.
Use tables, charts and graphics wherever they can communicate more clearly and effectively. And, especially if you are writing for the Web, go through your material and try to cut 50 percent of what you have written.
Use navigational aids and white space to enhance readability.
Navigational aids are devices such as headings, labels, indices, links and tabs that will allow readers to quickly glance through text and find exactly what they need. White space lets you position text so the readers’ eyes can scan effectively: use it. Find examples you like and copy them.
Remember basics of grammar, spelling and punctuation.
I’ve listed this last because it’s what people usually think of first when writing. The rules are important and the reader expects that you will follow them, but first you must have something compelling to say, understand who wants to hear it and be able to summarize it in a concise way that respects the time limitations of your audience.
[contact] Lola Fredrickson is CEO of Fredrickson Communications, a Minneapolis technical writing and training company founded in 1985: 612.339.7970; lola@fredcomm.com; www.fredricksoncommunications.com
