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I challenged myself last week. I was doing a Poem for a client. Her son was graduating from High School and as the Writing Editor they asked me to do a poem about their sports minded and very talented son.

Well, I happily obliged since I do these all the time, thinking it wouldn’t take long at all. When I do these I ask the parents to send me the info on their child, their bio, if you will, and activities..much like reading a resume..an outline of YOU. Anyway, I got four pages from the Mother and 3 more pages from the Father! I had also requested some action pictures, and I received 8 pictures in my email. Lesson learned by me…be more specific! But in another way, that was the challenge I had too! I was able to fit ALL the info sent to me into the poem, and also had it all rhyme! I picked two out of all the pictures and watermarked them and it came out great!

The point I’m trying to make here however, is that you have to be concise when giving out details, instructions, descriptions, information, directions and suggestions. 

Here is an example of details:

“Please send me information on your son, and since he is good at basketball, provide me some history along with that.”

Now there is really nothing wrong with this request above, but you will get JUST what you asked for.  Pictures and basketball history.  But what didn’t you get?

Next request: 

Thanks for the basketball history and pictures.  Now could I ask you to please send me other interesting facts about him to show the “whole person?”  Was he a leader in school, how were his grades; did he have any honors awarded him? Who is his mentor?  Does he have a favorite sports idol?  Does he enjoy any other activities?  Was he in a school play? Who are his friend?  Does he have a girlfriend?  Who are his grandparents? Where does he want to go to college?

As you can see, the difference between the two requests for information are quite different.  But which one will tell me most about the person?  Which will be the best for what I am writing about him?  Obviously, if it is a sports article for the newspaper, along with stats, the first one would be best.  But for this graduation bio, I need to ask the right questions to get the right answers and the “whole” picture of the subject.

Remember, if you receive too much info from someone, you can trim it down or cut it out.  But if you don’t get enough, it takes more time and wasted effort to go after more.    Now your an investigative reporter!

I don’t know what all the hullabaloo is about considering video games and kids. Do Parents let their kids go to x rated movies? No. Do Parents allow kids to Drink before legal age? No. Do Parents allow kids to do drugs, especially when THEY themselves may have done it back in the sixties? No. Why? In the sixties, it was a generational thing; And, now they have learned. It is a traditional thing to find something bad in every good new thing invented..that’s known as being progressive; or is it the other way around..we find something good in newly invented things and that is being progressive…that’s it.

We have high tech kids born today. Do you know any child, say 3-4 years of age today, who does not already know more at that age than you did? Or possibly, even when you were 5-6? Is it because the parents ate the proper foods and now have created robotic techie kids? Don’t think so… Are we worried that traditions will break with the (not so new anymore) technology? Too late. Traditions as we knew them have been challenged..but there is a little consolation in that fact that some important ones remain; Santa isn’t analoged or digital when he visits the kids each Christmas yet.

So, why does playing video games HAVE to be an issue. It is a matter of parental control, that’s the long and short of it. Always was that, and always will be. That is one formula in life that won’t change…ever, even though some parents may exercise it more than others. Parental Control.

O.k. for the sake of argument, let’s say that little Johnny does find his way to a game that is not age appropriate and has violence in it. I believe the animation found in the games, still wins on the basis of keeping it a fairytale; where in real life, on the news, you can find missing and murdered children; kids abused and used as sex slaves; drug rings and gang activity.

If the video games stop, and the shows become more kid friendly, will it stop the gangs and killings and shootings? I think not. Aggression has been around for a long, long time. It’s shown in relationships through abuse and ignorance in how to deal with it.

Perhaps the more powerful stigma, as a result of kids playing these games, could be illustrated by seeing the aggression children feel, for any reason, being cornered by venting it through gaming channels and role playing. Parental Control should be the issue here, not the gaming our techie kids and their generation adhere too. If for any reason, it’s not good for them, they’ll learn…don’t you think parents?

As one of the host’s of a talk show, “The Puddle People Hour” on Blog Talk Radio, it became apparent to me after interviewing several authors, that there becomes a necessary criterion predominant in all of them.  That criterion is based on the writer’s intent to write for pleasure, passion, business or money.

For instance, if one writes for pleasure, it often portrays an author of children’s books where they can become child-like through their characters and illustrate in the simplest of form, their love for writing through the eyes of a child.On the other hand, if an author writes for business, there is absolutely no criterion that allows the freedom of childhood thinking; in fact, the writing must be of the highest degree of professionalism and preciseness.   The author needs only to know the elements of good grammar and practical application.

Now a writer that wants to make money, should probably not give up a day job to write, unless he/she is hired on at a specified salary position, such as a magazine or newspaper, etc.,  Freelance writing COULD be lucrative, but essentially, unless you’re on the top ten New York Best Seller List, there is a good chance your writing could be buried among several million other writers work, wishing and hoping to be discovered. 

However, you can also find the most purposeful and passionate writing from these same authors…why?   Most of their writing is on life experiences which includes family, so the attachments are even more important to their characters.  Who can’t be passionate when they are speaking of family?  Yet, the sincerity that comes from their writing, their characters and their chosen genre can be found in almost all their books.  If this type of writer had to write a business letter, more than likely, the letter would be straightforward, kind, yet firm in the intent…just as if they were talking to a member of their family.  In other words, no matter what genre you write in, no matter what the underlying reason for your writing is, the Pleasure, Passion, Business or even the Motive of money, can combine together based on the authors intent and willingness to make it happen; which is why you will find so many genre crossing authors.  Many of the authors interviewed for children’s books were also Romance novelist.  Now, would that mean that the author’s creative imagination could possess a fantasy characteristic that can be utilized both for children or adult writing?  Most likely, this is why they can be successful in both genres. 

This is the bottom line, I think.  You must be writing for pleasure or you wouldn’t be writing.  Your passion seeps through either because you base your writing on life experiences, family or love in your life, no matter what genre you’re working with.  Business writing is the “sleeping” creativeness of your brain, which will stand tall and be politically correct in everything you write so it is in the best interest of your company or business.  As for Money, well, it’s ALL part of the Pleasure, Passion and Business genres isn’t it?  And yet, it seems also to be the most obsolete of them all!! 

You might have heard of Blog Talk Radio…or maybe your a newcomer to the concept.  It’s a great marketing tool, discussion group, networking place, teaching tool, music savy listeners place, and just a great place to talk the talk.

Not to be confused with the infamous Neil Boortz, syndicated radio talk show host, where people either love him or hate him.  He is an outspoken commentator, and author of the book on The Flat Tax,  along with Representative John Linder, in Georgia.  But I digress!  This Blog Talk Radio is for people like us….infamous too, but in our own little world of business, and going about living our lives to the best of our ability and finding a good place to talk about it.

I am a Co-host of a show geared toward Parents and Kids.  We interview author of books, tell stories, teach crafts and the other creater and Co-Host from “The Puddle People Hour” Pam Sargent, will even sing a song occasionally.  It’s a great place for non-profits to talk about their work.  A couple of weeks ago, we discussed teaching signing for the deaf.  This last show, we did a show on Spring Break and discussed things to do and provided many safety tips in lieu of all that is happening to our teens and young adults these days.  The show was well received and the discussion pertinent.

Blog Talk Radio will probably never be a huge money maker place to sell your wares, however, some people do have stores on there…little craft type stores, or music.  But it is a good place to help provide a service, for instance, the Real Estate Market could give ideas and tips on the market.  Interview guests.  Talk to home buyers and sellars. 

Another show on Blog Talk Radio, is a mother/daughter act that just talk about Mom/Daughter stuff.  They laugh, debate and take calls from listeners…it’s a cute show.

Then the music lovers have found the perfect place to listen to hip hop, be bop, or cha cha cha, to whatever they want to hear; they also discuss different topics like bands, concerts, whatever.  It also has some spiritual programming that lends itself to those who wish to discuss their faith or spiritual needs.

Check it out.  It is going to be as popular as blogging very soon…especially when people get wind that they can rest their fingers from pecking on a blogging site and start shooting off their mouth in a talking blog….in good taste of course!

Ok…I’m not going to use this forum to write about the great debate that is going on all over the country these days.  I’m not even going to quote, what “he said”, or “she said.”   Because in all actuality, I am not sure either one of them REALLY ”said” whatever it is they are saying they said!   Did you stay with me on that one?

O.k. The Writers just came off a pretty long strike, right?  Reruns were being aired, there were no new series episodes, and even the comedians had to write their own jokes; ( funny thing, I thought what they said was ALWAYS their own material!  O.k., so I’m a gullable Comedian Viewer!! At least I still laughed at the appropriate time…if it’s funny!!)  So the writers write the jokes and the comedians make us laugh as he delivers them.

Anyway, the writers stopped production for TV…some even for movies, or documentary’s, and in the soaps, well they didn’t even need scripts what with all the bedroom scenes.  Actions speak louder than words, right?

What I want to know is what about the Political Speech Writers?

When we hear that a speech is a carbon copy of someone else’s, well, aren’t they all?  Didn’t speechwriters write the speeches??  The candidates didn’t write them, so it was a copy of  the speechwriters speech, right?

And if “silly season” has started, like a candidate said the other day during an interview, well, who is being silly the candidate or his speechwriter?  Do you think that candidate’s speechwriters sit and have a practice debate over what they wrote in order for it to be authentic?

Here is the main idea with speechmakers and speakwriters. The speechwriters are there to help the candidates support their ideas.  One such speechwriter, was quoted as saying,

“Always write something you believe for someone you believe in, especially if that someone is yourself “.  Bet you can’t guess what speechwriter said that, and who he writes for…a certain President whose speeches have not been applauded for a long, long time now.  Do you wonder what would have happened if the President had written the speeches himself?  Would it have made a difference in how our country is doing?  If it’s the speechwriters who write the speeches,  perhaps THEY should have been elected..it’s their words that are being sold.  Just something to think about..and cry about…and think about.

You found the perfect job. Your resume is perfecto, having slaved over it for hours on end. It is both modern and up-to-date. It does NOT have your main objective on the top, since that is passee; meaning, old…or a great analogy might best describe it as “a suit of rather antique appearance”. No one put’s the objective in any more. You objective is not to get hired so you can steal from the company. Your objective is not to be a secret conspirator for another company. You wouldn’t admit it certainly, if it were. So obviously, the objective is to get the job.

So your resume looks good. Spelling is correct; yes. Format is proper; yes. You didn’t tell any fibs that could someday have you fired, even if you get the job; no. It looks good whether you put it online or send it in the mail; yes. Great, then let’s move on to the cover letter.

Oh! No! The Writing Editor screams, continuing to peruse the cover letter and reads, and reads, and reads some more, shaking her head the entire time, as she reads even more! Get the idea?

“I don’t want all that information!” she sighs, as her shoulders droop in helpless abandoned. She tears the cover letter up, and tosses out the resume. “I don’t have time to teach someone this again!” she murmers to herself.

What she really means, is that the HR agent will do the same thing, toss aside, or tear up the cover letter and resume. Buried. Gone forever..and you didn’t even know it. What a waste!

Here’s the issue. You should NOT write a redundant cover letter. This means a cover letter that repeats everything your resume outlines. Human Resource people don’t have time to read it AND your resume. The middle managers certainly won’t have time to muddle through all the applicants, even if the resume makes it to them. And the final approval contact will never even see it.

A resume tells hiring agents WHAT you do, and the experience you have. You also tell them about your education and the titles you have held in the job market.

A cover letter tells people WHO you are. You are introducing yourself, and enticing them to read more about you, the person. It is written so well, they even want to know more about your work ethic and your background, so they will then continue reading and, yes, you got it, they will READ your resume!

Now there are some differentiations among cover letters. You may write a different one applying for an internship, than you would for a College Graduate Cover Letter. There are also Referral Cover Letters; Cold Contact Cover Letters; Classified Ad Response Cover Letter, and an Email Cover Letter, and so on.

Specify in that first paragraph what type of cover letter you are writing.

For example, a referral cover letter might read; “Jeff Hewitt, your contributing columnist for The Herald Newspaper, and former colleague of mine, suggested I contact you regarding the copywriter position, available in the Home and Garden section of the newspaper.

Another example; the new College Graduate who is looking for employment right out of school. This type of cover letter definitely has to portray you as the key person for the position. So you would immediately state your highly visible success in school.

For instance, “As the Valdictorian of my graduating class at Mercer University, I feel my leadership abilities, coupled with my exemplary internship recommendations, prove me a viable candidate for the Public Relations position at Kelley Advertising.”

In that one introductory paragraph, you have already told them you were Valdictorian, (top student); a degreed student; possess leadership abilities and can provide internship experience in Public Relations.

The Human Relations agent will see the best of you immediately, as a possible candidate for the position and will go on to read you resume to see what else you have to offer.

Bottom line? The Writing Editor wants the WHO on the front page, and the WHAT on the second page. The Writing Editor wants YOU to get that job! Follow that lead and you will soon have the Where?, and When? on your resume as well! Happy Cover Letter Writing.

As a writer/reporter, there is a pet peeve I have, which has bugged me since my early days of publishing, and having my own website. The pet peeve I am referring to, is regarding surfing the web, and communication with your audience. You will find that many techie’s, professionals, markets and yes, even clients, forget that their audience may NOT be computer savvy. How horrible!But nonetheless, true. We forget that many people may be coming to the computer strictly for information and not understand the computer lingo. Think about this a minute.

A student, though in the process of learning the computer, needs to look up some homework. Do you really think he knows what “link” or RSS feed means? He will use the simplest method to get the info he needs…so it may not be yours, if you always insist on being a computer “geek” as opposed to making sure that you hit as many audiences as you intended.

Another case in point. In a shopping cart website, there were so many beautiful things displayed by the artist and without a doubt, she can capture the audience’s attention with her artwork. In illustrating her artwork however, she took an icon and dressed it up with artwork and presented it for sale to her clients. Well, it was done beautifully. However, what if the person that went to her site to shop, didn’t know what that icon was, (everyone computer savvy would know) and though she might need and even want it, she didn’t know that’s what she wanted or needed. Get it?

Here’s another example. A friend of mine hired a pro to design and maintain a website. When doing the website, the pro would talk to the client in simple (maybe to you or I) computer tech language, i.e, html; css; even easy terms like blogs. Now this is great, except for one thing…We just ASSUME that the client knows these terms, when in fact, they know nothing of those terms; thus he/she may be made to feel dumb, which is something you don’t want a client to feel who is paying YOU to know the terms, not them.

There are many reasons, people may hire you. It could be for your expertise; it could be for your artistic ability; it could be because your rates are better..or, it could be because they know what you are talking about! Learn to use one sentence explanations on your websites for pertinent information that you want your audience to know…especially if your selling a product or service. Just remember, that your audience is not always going to be computer savvy geeks..that’s why they come to you! So, jump out of your mainframe, grab them by the hands and walk them through it simply…and smile as you do it. You will find they come back to you or your site, often!

B2B means Business to Business.   It is a term commonly used to explain electronic commerce transactions between businesseses.  Business and individual Consumers would be B2C and Business between Government, would be B2G.

It’s not a rigid acronym however.  It can be used as an adjective to describe the activity, like marketing or sales and ecommerce between two businesses.

For simplicity’s sake, in this blog we will be discussing the B2B of Marketing Communications

In B2B Marketing Communications businesses use different tactics beyond direct sales in promoting their products or services.

Supporting the Marketers Sales Efforts and increasing profit is the main reason for B2B Marketing.

B2B Marketing Communications include serveral target markets in the Public Relations Community.  Things like, advertising, public relations, direct mail, trade show support, branding as well as interactive services such as designing websites and providing search engine optimization, all provide the necessary tactics to promote the B2B principals.

The Business Marketing Association organization serves B2B Marketing Professionals.  It provides certification programs, research services, conferences, industry awards and training programs.

The Methods used to utilize the B2B concept is catagorized in a structured manner beginning with the Positioning Statement.  This statement clarifies what you do, how you do it and demonstrates how you can do it better than your competitiors.

Developing your messages is essential in conveying your strong points of what you do and the benefits it provides to your customers.  A second message may illustrate supporting arguments, facts or figures.

Building a Campaign Plan  You are building an investment and a comprehensive plan to target your resources and where the best returns will be delivered; and you will provide the infrastructure to support each state of the marketing process.

Briefing an Agency  - It is important to provide a brief for an agency.  You need to emphasize what your focus is, what is important to your campaign, and have it serve as a checklist of the important facts.  This brief would contain:

• Your Objectives
• Target Market
• Target Audience
• Product
• Campaign Description
• Product Positioning
• Graphical Considerations
• Corporate Guidelines and any other Supporting Documents.

Measuring Results – When the results of the campaign are measured, the true value is indicative of tying the marketing campaign back to business results.  Measure the objectives against the impact and demonstrate it either by Cost per Acquisition, Cost per Lead or changes in customer perception.

Then decide, is this to “B or not to B?”  And go from there!  Happy “B2B” to those of you reading this!  Feel free to send this article, Blog2Blog.

Let’s keep moving right along in our new blog dictionary, providing research of the word, “Geek”.

In the 1991 edition of Webster’s dictionary, it claimed Geek as being “the name of a carnival man whose act involved biting the head off a live chicken or snake.” It also stated that the first time it was used in the English language was in 1916 describing a Wells Fargo Messenger. The quote read, “A new Wells agent struck our town the other week, and say, – you never saw a more enthusiastic Geek!”

But according to the most authoritative source of information, the Oxford English Dictionary claims that the word came from a German word, “Geck”, which was used to describe a fool, a simpleton and also cited that William Shakespeare used the word in several of his plays.

Modern day translates the word Geek as merely an updated form of the word, “nerd”, but is described as less pejorative in tone. Meaning, it just sounds nicer.

“Geek” has become more popular in the modern day, because descriptively, it is one who not only became obsessed with their computer, but also achieved a high level of expertise in their field.

However, the connotation remains, that a geek is a negative thing…something we don’t want to be!
“But wait,” you ask yourself, “why should I be a Geek”? I mean ewwww!! Geeks don’t have friends; Geeks have no personality and lack social graces; Geeks are boys who are not jocks, or girls who will never favor the cheerleading circuit. However, the contradiction might imagine Einstein was a Geek, as was Beethoven, and perhaps even some hero’s like Rocky, or Star Track heroes. So, is Geek a good word or an unkind one?

A very clever professor, at the university where he teaches, proposed a speech to new inbound students, suggesting a new meaning of the word Geek. He challenged the dictionary enthusiasts of the world to adopt a more profound acceptable description of the word. His definition was meant to reach thousands of students and educators around the world.

His suggestion of the word GEEK:

Genuine Enthusiast for Education and Knowledge.

The professor told his students that there are Music Geeks, Literature Geeks, and Psychology Geeks; there are Geeks of Business, Geeks of Education, and Geeks of the Arts. But the most important message he gave, was that today’s Geeks were the creators in society, not just the consumers. So he felt Geek was a good word.

Well, that does sound promising and very optimistic. That’s taking a word and making something positive out of it. But I don’t know many words that we could do that with…but let’s think about that for a moment.

We could take for instance, the word devil. Now that meaning is practically written out for us…
d (= damning), evil. That would be one meaning, or it could mean,

Don’t Eliminate Verbiage In Language; or you too could be considered a Geek!

Maybe we should stick with the definition that describes us “Geeks” as oddballs, who eat chicken and beef, (but not snakes) and certainly without the heads!

Being a lover of words, I was just wondering where the word “blog” was initiated, since technically, we don’t have grammatically correct slang words; I would have to analyze the term very carefully before commenting. I would probably surmise that “B” stands for business…and then there is, of course, the obvious “log”. Business Log…hmm, that might make sense. A bit logical I would think. So, being a writer, I decided to research this infamous word, to see how close I came.

Remember how we used to take the romantic sounding words from other countries,like Latin or Greek, and come up with the English version of it?  Now, we are a much savvier techie, alluding to the computer generated version of the English language, which actually is acceptable in the era of high-technology.  Here are some samples I found in my research:

(Ahem: Disclaimer: Any grammatical errors in these quotes are the sole ownership of the writers who submitted them and not those of yours truly).  

“It’s short for Web log, a log (journal) published on the Web. somebody thought it would be cool to start with weblog and take away the we”
________________________________________
“It is a contraction of “web log”, ie a journal… slur it together, “weblog”, drop it to just ‘blog.”
________________________________________
“WeB log….weB LOG…the words combined making Blog. It means a place on the web where you can log or keep track, make note of things.”
________________________________________
“a blog is something like an online diary where everyone is able to see it if they go to your blog..”
________________________________________
“True, BLOGs came from Web log, however they have evolved into something very different today.”
”Weblogs before were basically pages where owners put in their favorite links and reviewed them. After some time it evolved into an online journal, which is the most common understanding of blogs today. it means WEB LOG”
________________________________________
“Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site. If it is website, it displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings.”

“Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although many focus on photograph (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting)”

Ah! Ha!  So, it was not derived from a business standpoint at all, and my analysis was incorrect! Well, not totally. Let’s just say I was half right and leave it at that…so, maybe for business we could say, B2BBlog!   There you have it, a new term!  Be sure to let me know what YOUR B2BBlog is about!  Oh yes, if you don’t know what B2B means, why not make it your Google word for the day!