How to Write Badly

April 24, 2009

As I write this, I cautiously check each phrase to ensure that it cannot be shortened.  I double-check my P’s (periods) and Q’s (question marks) to be sure they are properly placed.  I look over my shoulder to see if the ghosts of William Strunk and E.B. White are watching as I type, eager to interrupt and correct my grammar.  I think back to my college years when their “Elements of Style” was required reading in my beginning journalism class.

Today, those of us who blog, Twitter, and text message can learn from their admonitions:  use the active voice; omit needless words; put statements in positive form; use definite, specific, concrete language, and so forth.  Ah, if only. Read more

• Try Different — Seth Godin

  The usual mantra is to 'try harder'. Trying harder is impossible when you're already trying as hard as you can.

  But you can always try different.

  Years ago, I was creating trivia questions for a product we built for Prodigy. We had a 99% accuracy rate in doing the questions. Which was great, except there were 1800 questions in a batch, which meant 18 wrong each time, which was totally and completely unacceptable. These were honest mistakes, made by smart people working as hard as they could.

  No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't do better than 99%. So we switched our system completely and did it in a totally different way. Same number of people, same number of hours, 100% accuracy.

  If it's not working, harder might not be the answer.

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