…unless you’re absolutely sure about them

1. Use Latin if you’re writing in English

I’ve just been reading a blog post by one of my favourite bloggers.

He’s witty, intelligent and often makes me laugh out loud. His writes things I can’t find anywhere else (the Holy Grail of blogs) which is why he’s always on my must-read list.

And one of the things I really like is that his spelling is impeccable. Or at least, it used to be.  Because his latest post contains a glaring error.

Homo sapien.

It brought me to a juddering halt. In my mind’s ear, I could hear Mr Watson drumming his thin, bony fingers on the blackboard.

“Sapien, Mr Walsh?” he’d intone. “Sapien? Be so kind as to tell the class what part of speech that is.”

Just thinking about it sends a chill down my spine.

And more so because sapien isn’t any part of speech. It’s just a common-or-garden mistake. I can see how he got there, though. If homo sapiens means ‘men’, then you just knock off the ’s’ to mean ‘man’, right?

If only life were that simple.

This blogger used the Latin term because he wanted to appear just a touch cleverer, more educated and…more superior?

It didn’t work.

[Note for Latin lovers - or even lovers of Latin: homo sapiens is singular; the plural, never used, would be homines sapientes. Thanks, Mr Watson.]

2. Make fun of people (unless it’s yourself)

Oh dear. Hell’s Pizza has done it again.

I’ve written about the New Zealand pizza chain before. They like a walk on the wild side when it comes to marketing.

They’re the ones that created a pizza called ‘Lust’ that shipped with a free condom. And they ran an advert with Hitler with his arm outstretched with the line ‘It is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell’. (Jewish groups were outraged and the ad was withdrawn.)

Well last week, they crossed the line again.

This time, it was a Halloween promotion that had three dancing skeletons: Sir Edmund Hillary (the first man to climb Everest), the actor Heath Ledger, and the Queen Mother.

Hillary’s family said it was “in very poor taste.” (The campaign, not the pizza, you understand.) It too has been withdrawn.

Rachael Allison, Hell’s Pizza marketing director said the company was known for its controversial advertising, and that a lot of people loved it. She went on to say:

“Interpretation of this is always up to individuals and we are always mindful of that and always keep an eye on our tone of voice and try to keep on top of that.”

A little too much sauce, I think.

3. Assume that technology works

Your website’s got an e-commerce function so you never have to talk to people. It just runs itself, right?

Wrong.

I recently (re)discovered this when I tried to buy a USB pen drive. I dropped it into the basket, then clicked ‘Next’ to enter my details. Then ‘Next’ to go to the payment screen. I filled in my card details, and hovered over the ‘Pay’ button.

And that’s when the little seed of doubt sprouted into a green shoot and pushed through the soil.

Had I ordered the 2GB or the 4GB drive? I was pretty sure it was the 4GB one. But here’s the thing: I couldn’t go back, forward, or anywhere else. I couldn’t view the basket. It was ‘Pay’ or nothing else.

So I opened another browser, brought up the website again, found the contact number, phoned them up, got them to pull up the (pending) order and check that it was 4GB. It was, so I clicked ‘Pay’.

Not an example of technology at its best.

It’s also important to remember that technology is logical - ruthlessly logical. The sort of ruthless logic that caused AOL and Google to blacklist the northern English town of Scunthorpe as an obscene term (think about it).

The sort of logic that meant Google Alerts I set up a few months ago never reached me. Why? Because they were blocked by the Google’s Gmail spam filter.

The bottom line is this: technology is only as clever as the people who design it (not to mention the people who use it).

And that’s a pretty scary thought.

Find out more:

• Tasty pizzas and tasteless humour: ‘Grotesque’ NZ pizza ads dropped on the BBC news site.
• Brush up your Latin with Harry Mount’s Amo, Amas, Amat… and All That.
• Get all the dirt on the Scunthorpe Problem at Wikipedia.
• Want to set up a Google Alert? Click here. Then cross your fingers.

Help your audience dodge those bullets

We’ve all experienced the famous ‘death by PowerPoint’.

It’s a painful process: slide after endless slide, oceans of text (usually in a tiny point size), and enough bullets to wipe out an entire regiment.

It’s stressful enough standing in front of people without having a presentation that works against you. So here are some tips to cut it down and liven it up:

• Don’t use PowerPoint as a script: If all you do is read word-for-word off the screen, you might as well sit down and let the presentation run by itself.
• Limit the number of bullets: keep it to six maximum, or fewer if you have lots of sub-points. Go to the back of the room when you’re rehearsing and see if you can read everything.
• Hold something back: don’t give everything away on your slides. Consider animating your points so they follow your presentation, but don’t go wild or it will affect readability. Try using consistent animation on all slides.
• ‘Chunk’ information: break it down into manageable bits, which are arranged logically. Remember, your audience is reading your slide and listening to you, so make sure it flows smoothly.
• Split it up: sometimes, there’s just too much information for one slide, even after you’ve edited, chunked and deleted. Consider splitting one slide into two. The information will be much easier to digest.
• Preview, review: it’s always a good idea at the beginning of a presentation to set the agenda. And at the end, it’s useful to wrap up with a summary of what you’ve covered. That way, the audience is in no doubt about your message.

OK, example time. Here’s a slide that breaks all these guidelines:

And here’s the same information spread over two slides, but radically cut down. I’ve also changed the template to make the copy more readable:

See the difference?

The first slide holds nothing back: it’s a stream of consciousness. The second two are short and concise, and don’t give everything away. Which means the audience is left wanting more detail.

And they’ll get it - from you.

Writing for the web, questioning what you know, and the irresistible appeal of a slinky little number

OK, slinky little number first.

This week, Steve Jobs came back from the dead and announced the new range of iPods.

It’s not the first time (for the iPods, not the resurrection). This time last year, he did the same thing, launching a new range in time to make them the must-have Christmas present.

I have a Nano. It’s not the square-ish one. It’s the original - the one with the screen that scratched easily.

“There was an issue with some Nanos,” said the salesman at London’s Apple store when I bought mine, “but it was very limited.” (A week later, I realised I had one of the limited-edition Nanos.)

And so, to the new new Nano. Or Nanos, because there are eight funky colours to choose from. And it’s curvy.

So far so superficial. So what are the real changes?

Well it’s now either 8GB or 16GB (I already have enough space with 4GB). It lets you cycle through album covers in 3D (not interested).  It picks similar tracks and creates compilations for you (not interested). It helps you organise your music better (I listen mainly to spoken-word podcasts). And lastly, you can ‘shake to shuffle’ to let it randomly jump to another track (not interested).

So why am I still interested?

Hats off to Apple. I have no logical reason to upgrade my Nano. But they’ve appealed to my emotion, knowing that that’s the reason behind most sales.

Clever move. 

iPod. Do uPod too?

You’re tempted, aren’t you? If you do end up getting a sexy new Nano, you’ll need something to fill up all those gigabytes. So here are two suggestions to get you started:

First up is Jonathan Drori, an ex-BBC man whose presentation at TED questions how (and what) we learn. Why we don’t understand as much as we think we do is funny, informative and thought-provoking.

Second is the Internet Marketing Podcast from AI Digital. It’s a monthly podcast, with insider tips and advice for online marketing. The current episode is #39: Writing for the web revisited. It’s packed full of practical advice on web copy. Even if you think you know all there is to know (and remember what Jonathan said) it’s still worth a listen. To visit the subscription page, click here.

Enjoy.

…is the technology. Sometimes, it’s simply not enough.

When was the last time you saved a Word document as HTML?

Never, right? Same here. And yet it’s more than 11 years since Microsoft announced that the document format of the future was HTML.

I should know. I announced it.

I can see myself now: standing in front of an audience of 1,500, leading them into a brave new world, where people didn’t save on their hard disk. Or on the network - or, at least, not directly. Using Microsoft Office 97, they saved on the intranet. Using HTML of course.

I peered out into the semi-darkness. 3,000 sceptical eyes peered back at me.

And here’s the thing: they were right, I was wrong.

Way cool

The trouble with most technology is the technology.

It’s cool, it’s different and it makes for great demos. People gasp in amazement at product launches. They feel a frisson of excitement and anticipation.

Then they go home or back to their office, and try it out themselves. And the result? Usually, it’s disappointment.

Remember WAP? And the hoop-la over 3G?

This week, it’s the Sony Reader, an electronic book that’s hit the UK market. With a 200MB capacity, it can store over 160 books. It has a (faux) leather cover, and uses display technology called e-ink.  It uses power only when the reader turns the (virtual) page. So in theory, the battery should last 1,680 pages between charges.

There’s just one little problem.

Ne’er the twain

You’re either a reader or an gizmo junkie. Just step onto a commuter train - if you can - in the morning, and you’ll see that people fall into one of the two categories.

Reading isn’t just following the words with your eyes. It’s much more than that. It’s the opening of the book, the turning of the pages, the turning back. It’s the smell of the book, the size and shape, the satisfying heft and bulk.

It’s a physical sensation that nothing can replace.

Technology fails when it forgets how end-users really live, work and relax. And if you’re writing about, marketing or selling technology, you should always remember the real people out there.

The ones who still don’t save in HTML.

Find out more:

• Carry 160 books in your pocket with the Sony Reader.
• Reading on the web is not really reading, from this week’s issue of The Spectator.
• Could Sony’s electronic book reader kill off the paperback? from The Daily Telegraph. Includes a short video clip with some invaluable advice (‘just don’t read it in the bath’).

I’ve seen the future - and it’s big. Very big.

I remember it well.

It was 1994, and I was trying to explain the enormous potential of the internet to a sceptical friend.

I could barely contain my enthusiasm.

“It’s big, it’s global and it brings everything together,” I burbled. “Just imagine - shopping online, finding information, making bookings. Think what it’ll be like when everybody’s there. All the things you’ll be able to do.”

My friend stared at me blankly. He looked back to my PC screen, and frowned. Then he delivered his verdict.

“Personally,” he said, blinking uncomprehendingly at a web page, “I can’t see any practical application for it.”

I often remind him of it. Wouldn’t you?

That was then. This is now.

5,000 days. That’s as long as the web’s been around as we know it. According to Kevin Kelly, that is. He’s publisher of the Whole Earth Review and executive editor at WIRED magazine.

And I’ve just been watching his talk to last year’s TED convention about where the web’s been in the last 5,000 days and where it’s going in the next 5,000.

It’s fascinating.

He does look a little like an Amish grandpa - but the similarity ends there. He starts with what we thought the internet was going to be (‘TV, but better’ - we were wrong) and ends up with convergence into what he ominously calls The One.

He reckons that by 2040 the total processing power of the web will exceed that of humanity. And long before then, we’ll become ‘co-dependent’ with technology.

Visionary stuff indeed. Enjoy.

Here’s the link: Kevin Kelly: the web’s next 5,000 days.

(I’ve just sent the link to my friend. It’ll be 1994 all over again.)