Why breaking up with a brand needn’t be hard to do
I’m just not that into you. You try to let them down easily, but many brands are in denial. You stop returning their calls, they continue to email. Somehow you feel differently about the brand that once you couldn’t wait to tell your friends and family about. Many brands as desperate for attention and want to maintain a relationship at any cost. But what are you getting out of it? There should be something in the relationship for both sides. Use these top tips to get rid of the brands that...
Why the Yearbook is book of the year: top tips for writing your round up of 2014
2013 was all about the corporate Yearbook. Each year comes with its own set of trends. Creating content for Myspace (2008) came and went, whilst the 2009 website landing page is here to stay. As, I suspect, is the yearbook, a publication a business will create purely for an internal audience sharing the highlights of the year with employees. Unlike the annual report there’s no statutory obligation; although they don’t need to a business may want to publish a yearbook to celebrate success and...
Why your website needs to be open all hours ahead of Small Business Saturday
Shop local and support Small Business Saturday (7 Dec), you may find hidden gems. Or you may be unlucky and find the shop in darkness with a closed sign on the door. Ahead of the day – the first one in the UK - I’m putting in a request for market traders and independent retailers to meet shoppers half way. Prepare for one of the busiest shopping days by checking that your website has the correct opening hours. Many businesses will be opening for longer but will we be aware of their efforts to...
If you won’t read, we can’t share: the one about X Factor, poo and Book Week Scotland
The last person to raise a hand when the English teacher asks for a volunteer to read aloud is always the budding writer. It’s often left to their classmates, the ones who dream of being singers, dancers and actors. Appearing on Desert Island Discs the award-winning author and Children’s Laureate, Malorie Blackman talked about her reluctance to read out her own work at a writing group. Eventually after many weeks, she was told to ‘either poo or get off the pot’, in other words, to share her...
Useless magazine parts: the contents pages
Contents pages are the magazine equivalent of the appendix, a part that we no longer need. Evolution from print to digital has made this part of a publication redundant. It’s easier to navigate a digital title from the thumbnail grid showing all the pages laid out in an overview. When we can dip in and start anywhere we no longer need to rely on a couple of pages at the front to find our way around. In my mind the content section no longer has a function. This thought causes me distress,...
The eternal life of this blog post
I’m so vain. I’m going to print this off and store it in a lead-lined box. I can only anticipate the delight of future historians who will discover its preserved remains – reputations will be made, careers built, all on the back of a blog post circa 2013. You see we can’t assume that those who create content will preserve it – I wrote this blog, but if I took it down tomorrow it simply wouldn’t exist. Are you preserving your web pages, podcasts and video streams for future generations? Will...
Can your CV complete the Great Escape?
The bonuses have been paid, the pay rises agreed, and the natives are getting restless. After the great Easter getaway comes the Great Escape. Putting a spring in the step, for many job hunters is the prospect of a pepped-up CV. Of all the copywriting projects I most enjoy, CV writing comes top for satisfaction. And bottom for making a living from writing. Helping write, or more often rewrite, is my charitable service – lawyers do pro bono to overturn death row sentences, I charge a pittance...
Why you can steal my soul, but don’t quote me
In which Gill Booles finds that people are free and easy with their image, but if you try and quote them they turn a little peculiar. Indians believed that photographing could steal a person’s soul. Today, almost no thought is given to ask for permission to take our image. We’re constantly captured. In fact that’s what’s being encouraged, always be capturing – take photos, video the speaker, and share on social media. You sign up for a morning networking group, and there you are tagged on...
Why The Shallows rewards deep reading
Gill Booles reviews The Shallows by Nicholas Carr for All Media Scotland. Reproduced – you need to be signed up to read the original Remember the Tomorrow People ? Well, it seems the next stage of human evolution is more likely to be the Pancake People – spread wide and thin as we connect with a vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button. That’s if you’re still reading, because that hyperlink may have had you behaving like a lab rat pressing a lever, clicking backwards...
So, I’m going to start my sentences like this. So what?
So, I’m unbuttoning my uptight grammar says Gill Booles So split infinitives? I can take ‘em or leave ‘em. Depends if anybody’s looking or likely to mind. I can construct sentences with or without. It’s all about context. Depending on what company I keep I can loosen the collar, and let my words relax a bit. Be a bit more chatty. I’m also not adverse to bending the rules. After all language isn’t set in stone. So, when did starting a sentence in this way become as normal as a Come Dine Me...