Why we use innuendo
Posted By david ~ 18th March 2011
Why bother using innuendo if the whole point is that we both know what we really mean?
Psychologist Steven Pinker explains in another great animated talk from the RSA.
How working memory affects writing
Posted By david ~ 18th March 2011
Working memory is the part of your mind that holds information while you try and process it. We have much less than you might think. In the 1950s, psychologist George Miller found that the working memory can hold only five to nine ‘psychological units’ at any moment:
- Seven digits (plus or minus two).
- Six letters.
- Five words.
- Three concepts.
So what? Ask it, before your audience does
Posted By david ~ 6th September 2010
A compelling and persuasive message needs a clear benefit that its target audience can understand immediately.
As an example, I saw the sign above outside a beautiful Georgian house in Hackney.
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Create more effective adverts in less than two hours
Posted By david ~ 22nd July 2010
In 1999, a team of Israeli researchers took a bunch of total amateurs and taught them how to create brilliant adverts in less than two hours. That’s less time than you’d spend sharpening pencils, surfing the internet or doing whatever it is you do to put off starting work on something difficult.
How to write an advert
Posted By Alfie ~ 19th July 2010
Posters, leaflets and adverts all have one thing in common – they make people care enough about what you’re offering to take action.
Finding your core message
Posted By Alfie ~ 7th July 2010
What’s so hard about saying what you do? I mean, you’re doing it every day after all. But faced with 30 seconds to make someone interested enough to want to get in touch later (and remember who you are when you do), it’s all too easy to mumble something about engagement, support, and helping people do stuff before quickly changing the subject. If you’ve just bumped into the person in charge of allocating funding to good causes in your area, this is bad.
Writing a better funding application
Posted By Alfie ~ 17th May 2010
Throughout the application form, explain everything as if the person reading it knows nothing. Imagine you’re writing for a child who says ‘whhyyy???’ after everything you say. If you don’t answer them, you are giving the funder a reason to deduct points.
What funders are looking for
Posted By Alfie ~ 3rd May 2010
Funders often have such broad, abstract outcomes, you wonder what they don’t fund:
Why learning about writing just makes it harder
Posted By david ~ 27th April 2010
Learning about style and grammar helps you produce a better finished product. But it also increases the gap between your idea of good writing, and the type of writing you produce in the instant you write it down. You might become a better editor, but you also get better at inhibiting you writing.
Applying for funding? How to beat the odds
Posted By Alfie ~ 24th April 2010
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about looking for funding is that most funders do not fund ongoing running costs, however amazing you might be. Funders usually fund specific projects. This project-based approach doesn’t mean you have to think of new things to do: it’s an opportunity to find new ways of doing what you do: