It’s fairly safe to say that no one knows how to write humor. The great modern humor essayists – Dave Barry, P. J. O’Rourke, and the late Lewis Grizzard and Erma Bombeck, among many others –do it naturally, instinctively knowing just what turn of phrase and clever irony readers will find funny, but they probably couldn’t even begin to explain how they do it. People who are not great humor writers, obviously, don’t know either.
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02 02 2016
Rethinking the Social Media Landscape
For over a decade, entrepreneurs have struggled to fully harness the continually expanding influence of social media. According to recent polls, about 28 percent of all online activity is dedicated to social media consumption, so it should come as no surprise that 93 percent of marketers use social media for business. The importance of social media presence is taken as a given, basically granted as your first topic in Marketing 101.
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In an increasingly digital business landscape, failing to have an online presence can make or break a company’s monetary momentum.
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22 12 2015
Explaining New Media to My Dad
More than a few times over the past year, in the midst of going down an Internet rabbit hole, I’ve wondered what my dad would make of all this. A world of information at my fingertips; searches that beget endless questions. He still had dial-up when he died. The pixelated outer space sound would ping through his small condo while he would wait to check the messages in his AOL account.
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Q: Can you describe the difference between “ignorance” and “stupidity”? I often wonder about the distinction when reading your posts.
A: The Language Ninja is literally and figuratively sputtering with rage at your insult disguised as a query. She concedes, however, that it is elegantly framed. Well met!
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There was a time, in the not-too-distant past, when technical writing as a profession held a comfortable, well-established place in the development of products and software. At least, among mature organizations who understood the value that a technical writer brings to the process. Particularly in the software industry, technical writers could count on a fairly predictable routine that coincided with a development cycle that (usually) provided ample time to write 500-page user manuals, plus the online help topics.
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Somewhere in the mid-1950s, a revolution in advertising took place. While previous business models relied primarily on supply side economics, the new age of advertising saw opportunities to generate demand through innovative marketing practices. The behavioral sciences slowly started to work their way into advertising agencies and businesses began to devote substantial portions of their budgets to product promotion.
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Exposure, attention and the inevitable backlash associated with social media in a digital age is now a never-ending public obsession.
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03 11 2015
Timing Your Social Media Posts
As they say, timing is everything. The second hand of an increasingly anachronistic analog clock ticks through each moment of our lives and stops for no one. There are the occasions where we wish we could will time to move faster and just as many that leave us wondering in dismay where it all went.
