The first podcast in over six months! In this action-packed explosion of erudition Lee shares his experiences on a half-day workshop on Social Media, especially his view that business communicators suck at communicating. Allan agrees, noting that the two best ways to prepare for a presentation are to: 1. Don’t work out and shape your [...]
{ 0 comments }
Yes, those two scallywags have podcast again! In their 25th no-holds-barred chat, Allan and Lee ‘go to town’ on Tim O’Reilly’s proposed ‘Blogger Code of Conduct’. They also announce they are ‘advertising free’ (although if you want to throw a few pennies their way to pimp your product they won’t object). Along the way they [...]
{ 0 comments }
Welcome to another global eruption of erudition! In this action- and vitriol-packed episode: 00:39A word from our sponsors – GoToMeeting.com 01:58Your two intrepid intellects come clean that they are only into podcasting for the money (not so much “blogging for Benjamin’s” as Allan would say, as more “podcasting for Pounds”). From the advertising revenue they [...]
{ 3 comments }
Welcome It’s been a while — and we knew you missed us so we came back! In this cheeky chat we: Craftily reference a YouTube video of Aussie satire show CNNNN Let you know that GoToMeeting.com are our sponsors (and we think their product is great, too!) Chat about Allan’s recent ‘off the grid’ experience [...]
{ 0 comments }
Welcome! In this pre-Christmas, bumper edition of The Commscafe Chat you will find your two intrepid investigators of all things ‘Business Communication’ considering the following: On organisation versus creativity :::Lee admits he is slightly more disorganized than most — he couldn’t even organise a drink in a brewery; Allan finds no difference in his output [...]
{ 0 comments }
In this exciting episode in the long-running soap opera that is Lee and Allan‘s business life, Lee submits his PhD application and thanks Sallie Goetsch and Kami Huyse for their ideas; Lee will be researching the business PR opportunities of Second Life. Allan extends warm congrats from the both of us to Shel & Neville [...]
{ 2 comments }
In this week’s action-packed drama of global erudition, your favourite coffeeholics suffer an identity crisis.They also explain how they stop the earth from spinning off its axis and hurling itself into the sun, for which you may send expensive gifts and flowers in gratitude. In a move designed to infuriate the Cashflow Accountant in the [...]
{ 6 comments }
We know, we know… It’s been a long time between drinks. Our only excuse is pitiful — we have been frightfully busy. Pathetic, isn’t it?! But despite the long break, Lee and Allan are still full of venom, bile, spite and nasty poisonous stuff. Well, Allan is (for which he is on medication); Lee is [...]
{ 2 comments }
With Special Guest Star Donna Papacosta! Last Thursday, Allan had the pleasure of talking about social media at the annual Stibo Forum held by Stibo Graphic for its many customers. Never missing a chance to show off our command of the medium, Allan and I recorded Chat #18 directly from the Forum. In this chat, [...]
{ 0 comments }
Apologies to the legions of fans who have come to rely on the wit, wisdom and perspicacity of your two favourite chataholics over at the Cafe. Unfortunately, due to those annoying interruptions called ‘clients’, both Jenkins and Hopkins have been putting their noses to the grindstone and there’s blood and tissue everywhere. I am reliably [...]
{ 2 comments }
Subscribe to my business communication newsletter and receive a FREE version of my highly-regarded report, 'Master the Art and Science of Twitter for Business' (that sells for $79)
Statistics for this site are courtesy of StatCounter.com
Last month:
Visitors : 8,788
Daily av. : 283
Statistics for my site with
200+ articles on business communication
Last month:
Visitors : 14,999
Daily av. : 484
I recently picked up a copy of Bob Bly’s excellent ‘Super Productivity for Writers’ e-book and wanted to share with you some of his gems.
Here’s his seven common time wasters that he says writers (and I say everybody) should avoid:
1. Excessive blogging (more than 10 minutes per day) – unless that’s your job, of course!
2. Random web surfing (continuing to surf after you’ve found the information you need)
3. Attending meetings of writers groups, marketing clubs, etc. You can learn and network, but you lose half a day
4. Social or business lunches with other writers, editors, publishers, clients. A waste of time and you can lose nearly half a day
5. Volunteering for committees and similar activities. Every hour you spend on administrative nonsense is an hour you don’t write
6 .Sending or receiving jokes, photos, videos and other junk content via email (or my pet hate – Facebook requests to add time-sucking applications or join groups of no interest to me). Stop wasting other people’s time and yours
7 .Letting a ringing phone interrupt your writing. Get caller ID and call them back when you have finished (or better yet, set the phone’s ringing tone volume to ‘silent’ and get an answer machine to take the call for you)
Even though Bob is focusing his material on writers, of which he is a superb one, the advice found on page 22 of his book applies to all of us methinks.
As he points out on page 21, with an average lifespan of seventy- five years, we have only 27,375 days from the time we are born until the time we die. And since we’re asleep for a third of that time, we have only 18,250 days we’re actually awake and active.
How you spend this finite amount of time is mostly up to you. To maximise your productivity, income and output as a writer, writing must be a priority.
If you prefer to garden, that’s perfectly fine; but don’t complain that your colleague who spends those hours in front of the pc is getting more work done than you are. It’s your choice.
Wise words, indeed. Get a copy of this brilliant book and be careful out there…
I love Bob’s material – as I write I have 26 of his publications, each a worthy addition to my knowledge library.
Bob Bly is the man McGraw-Hill calls 'America's top copywriter.' Bob has written copy for more than 100 companies including Boardroom, Phillips, IBM, Medical Economics, AlliedSignal, and Lucent Technologies. He is the author of more than 60 books and a columnist for DM News and Early to Rise.
Making Social Media Work for Your Business - just published!
Social Media: The New Communication Landscape - for Ark Group
How to get started with podcasting in your organisation - for Melcrum Publishing
Contributing author to:
How to use social media to solve critical internal communication issues
How to communicate with hard-to-reach employees
- for Melcrum Publishing
How to use social media to engage employees - for Melcrum Publishing
These links open in new browser window
Tactical Transparency by Shel Holtz and John Havens.
A belter of a book and a 'must read' addition to any communicator's bedside reading table if they are serious about introducing social media into their communication plans. It includes a fabulous chapter on transparency and business (hint: you want to photocopy it and give it to your CEO!)
Qualitative Communication Research Methods by Thomas Lindlof and Bryan Taylor.
Not just a book for academics, it's chock-full of great ideas on how to effectively and efficiently research your employees, customers, the marketplace and other stakeholders
The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein.
A fabulous book that gives a clear, clean overview of what Twitter is and WHY you should be engaging with it. THEN it goes into depth with so many tips and ideas that they should have sold the book for twice the price!
Practical SEO Copywriting: a ‘must get’ book. My mate Glenn Murray has written a bottler of a new book on search engines and copywriting.
In a cunning twist of bizarre nomenclature, he’s titled it Practical SEO Copywriting. The cheeky little fox! It’s a DIY guide to writing online copy for both human readers AND for that 400kg gorilla we lovingly call ‘Google’.
The danger, Glenn quite rightly …err …writes is that focusing too much attention on all of the supposed SEO ‘tricks of the trade’ will make your copy all but unreadable by the human brain. You know, all that stuff bandied about by the so-called SEO (search engine optimisation) experts: keyword frequency, exact string versus individual words scattered across the page, page length, alt tags, header tags, and so on.
Not that this stuff isn’t important – it all is, and more besides – but Glenn argues persuasively that by far more important is the ability to write copy that people will actually want to read – and link to!
