It’s Back-to-School and we’re doing a ten-part series on lifelong learning. This week the focus is on the importance of writing. The summary is below.
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We’ve kicked off our series with 3 R’s we learned in school – Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic. Last time we talked about how to get more out of Reading. That brings us to wRiting.
Let’s go to the Professor’s Whiteboard for 4 ways writing helps you succeed…
Listen to this post! Click a player to hear George & Mary-Lynn on The BIGG Success Show Podcast (Duration 4:33)
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Here I sit all broken-hearted; tried to write, but can’t get started.
If you’re a blogger, do you ever feel that way?
You sit down to write. You feel ready. You know you have stuff in your brain that wants to come out. But it just won’t.
We’ve felt that way too many times to count. How do you rid yourself of the mental constipation we all occasionally experience as bloggers?
We’ll start with prevention. That’s the best cure after all! Here are four areas to check.
We saw the results of a fascinating study over at Medical News Today. The researchers tested how the directions about a task affect the perception of the task itself. They started by trying to motivate college students to exercise.
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They gave the students directions on how to implement an exercise program. Half of the students got directions in an easy-to-read Arial font. The other half received the same directions in a Brush font (think paint brush), which is difficult to read.
Then the researchers asked these students:
The “Arial” group thought that it would take less time and be easier than the “Brush” group, who also was less likely to make it a part of their daily ritual.
It’s amazing how something as simple as the font we choose could make so much difference. Just to be sure their results weren’t skewed by the students’ preconceived notions about exercise, the researchers performed a similar experiment with a recipe for sushi.
The outcome was similar. They concluded that if instructions are easier to read, people respond positively.
We need to think about the directions we give to make sure they’re not discouraging our people. We don’t want to make a simple task sound complicated by our directions. Since people equate the ease of a given task to the ease of the directions about that task, we need to think about our:
Look at the following two sentences:
You’ll save money if you buy gas today.
Buying gas today could be economically advantageous.
Which one conveys the message better to you? Which words do you like? Which structure if preferable?
We often make the mistake of thinking “fancy” words said in our passive voice make us sound smarter or more professional. Usually it’s the opposite. We’re deemed smart when we connect with the audience we’re trying to reach.
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Next time, we’ll discuss how to be a good winner (or loser). Until then, here’s to your bigg success!
Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00257-110408.mp3
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(Image by rore_d)
By Bigg Success Staff
08-07-08
Career Builders
One great way to build team spirit is to get everyone involved in sharing their knowledge. We’re familiar with user-generated content, in the form of wikis and comments. Why not create an e-mail newsletter that allows anyone on your team to contribute?
Daniel Hintzhsche, a Technical Editor in Microsoft’s Office User Assistance group, had such an idea. He writes about how he started his department’s internal newsletter.
It’s a great post, ripe with tips on how a newsletter could help your organization, how to get newsletter started, tools you can use to create and distribute your newsletter, and how to encourage contributions.
Just be careful – Daniel suggested this idea and now he is Editor-in-Chief. Now that’s taking one for the team!
3 Hear today’s lesson and laugh on The Bigg Success Show. ]
We visited with Ron Holohan today on The Bigg Success Show. Ron is a Certified Project Management Professional and is currently the Director of Program Management at Shure in Chicago. Ron also hosts a weekly project management internet radio show called The pm411.org Project Management Podcast, which has consistently been one of the top four project management shows on iTunes.
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We all know that project management can be a stickler. So we asked Ron to share two tips with us to create more effective project status reports.
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The first tip is to focus only on the exceptions. What I mean by that is that you don’t want to throw everything in the kitchen sink into your status reports. No one wants to read all that. They want to be able to look at your status report and pull out just the information they need. So focus on the exceptions – those issues that have changed since your previous report. Your audience only gets the information they need so your status report is short and concise.
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I think that’s a bigg one. It seems that you often see status reports that look like a “mind dump.” You see all the activity that’s happened since the last report. You get bored with it so you’re not able to help them. might call it stubborn.
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That’s right. If someone wants to go back, they can always look at one of your previous reports for more information.
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Cut the fat … get to the meat. What’s another tip?
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Another tip is to make your report as easy as possible to read. This is the same kind of ideas as Tip #1. You want to allow your audience to easily scan for details that interest them the most. One way to do that is by using something called “Stoplight Reporting” – you communicate progress by using different colors. A bullet point in green may mean this item is going according to plan. Yellow means that particular item needs to be watched. Red means action is required because that item is starting to go off track. You can actually use blue as well to indicate that particular item has been resolved or completed.
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Can you put a “Don’t Walk” in there?
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That would be nice! Use short bullet points. You don’t want to write a paragraph; this isn’t going to win you a Pulitzer Prize. You’re just trying to convey simple facts to your audience. Also, use tables where you can. They’re great for listing things like milestones, budget information, or product material cost.
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What’s interesting about this to me is that some people are good with words or numbers, but other people are very visual. So you’re giving your report in a way that allows your audience to consume it the way they prefer.
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I prefer stick figures!
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It’s a great system that you’ve outlined with the different colors. You instantly can see what’s going on. Now I assume what you talk about are the “yellows” and the “reds”.
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That’s right. So if I was reading the report, my eyes would naturally look for those yellow and red bullets that need my attention the most.
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Ron’s freebie!
Ron has a free status report template available for you, complete with a Stoplight along with other great templates.
Thanks Ron for sharing your fantastic tips with us!
