by Morgan Lewis | Apr 14, 2021 | Blog
Writing is drudgery for many people, which is part of the reason our clients let us do some of that writing for them. Often, the hardest part is just getting started, even if you write for a living.
As I’ve described before in this blog, at the start of a writing project we may become overwhelmed by all the information we want to include in our written content, or unsure of how we want to start, and it leads to procrastination and more stress. We end up either missing a deadline or we rush to put something out that could have been better.
The best recent advice I’ve seen about overcoming writing procrastination comes from an anecdote in the irreverent best-selling self-improvement book, “The Subtle Art of Not to Giving a F*ck: The Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Better Life.” In the book, author Mark Manson recounts a story of a novelist who had written more than 70 books. The novelist’s advice for how he is so prolific, according to Manson: “200 crappy words per day, that’s it.”
Of course, Manson points out, the novelist rarely stops at 200 crappy words because the action of generating those first few paragraphs motivates him to keep going. Even non-professional writers get in a rhythm and it can be as difficult to stop as it was to get started. The 200 crappy words almost serves as a warmup to the real workout of writing 1,000 or 2,000 words.
How to Get Started
Sometimes, however, even getting those first 200 words down is challenging; that is where research can be a big help. Simply going online to research the topic, even if it is something you are already very knowledgeable about, can be highly motivating because you will likely learn new information that will help support your content. Other times, research can reveal that a competitor or other thought leader has already written pretty much the same article or other high-value content. Don’t despair. You can read similar articles or content and then look for gaps in their information or it can inspire a different, fresher angle for your article, white paper or eBook.
The opposite dilemma can also occur. Sometimes there will be so much research and information, and so many topics you want to cover, that you cannot imagine how you will assemble it all into a coherent whole. Here is where outlining can help to get you started and keep moving.
The outline doesn’t need to be the precise order of the final draft; it is just to get ideas down. Simply list the topic heading you want to cover in a section, such as COVID-19, and under that heading list all the relevant ideas you want to include (e.g., effect on elective/preventive care, growth of telehealth, reimbursement changes from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, etc.). Once you begin the bare-bones list, you will find that you want to add more and more detail and can begin to envision how the finished content will be structured.
From Outline to Draft
As opposed to writing an article from beginning to end, an outline lets you preview if the finished piece flows logically, if there are potential gaps of information, or if sections should be shortened. Recognizing these deficiencies in the outline stage saves writing, cutting and rearranging time in the long run. Once the outline is completed, writing the full draft simply means expanding each item in the list to full sentences and paragraphs. Depending on how detailed the outline is, writing the full draft may take much less time than expected.
With the full draft completed, the real hard part of writing begins: editing. Reading and re-reading what you wrote, cutting and rewriting for clarity is not as much fun as putting all the words together, but is perhaps the most important part of the process. Since editing means you are close to the finish line, that may motivate you to keep going.
Everyone Needs an Editor
Have you ever heard of Maxwell Perkins? Me neither. I found him through a Google search. Have you heard of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway or Thomas Wolfe? Me too. It turns out Maxwell Perkins edited all of these authors, and even convinced Wolfe to cut 90,000 words from the final draft of one of his novels.
I mention Perkins to point out that even the best writers need editors. Editing is not just for proofreading for typos, grammar and misspellings, either. Rather, an editor’s value is providing high-level, constructive feedback about the content, structure and readability of the content. Most importantly, the editor needs to look at the content through the eyes of your intended reader. Is it relevant to them? Will it make sense? Does one idea flow logically to another?
Just Write
So the next time you need to write, gather your information and just start writing. Whether it is full sentences or just a list of topics and ideas you want to include in the content, the act of getting 200 lousy words on the screen will save you stress and time in the long run – and likely result in a higher-quality finished project.
by Morgan Lewis | Jan 20, 2021 | Blog
COVID-19 left no industry unscathed in 2020 (well, except maybe Wall Street). One of the hardest-hit industries was healthcare, which is Amendola’s specialty. Throughout the year, we posted blogs with helpful advice about adjusting to the massive changes occurring in the economy and how to steer your organization when so much was uncertain.
Well, judging from the most-read blog posts from the year, it seemed our readers were more interested in writing tips than survival tips. This unexpected outcome, we hope, is a positive indicator that most of you coped well with working from home, virtual meetings and travel restrictions in 2020, and were simply trying to sharpen your written communication skills with the additional time on your hands.
So, without further ado, the following are the top 5 most read Amendola blog posts of 2020 in descending order.
5. The New Normal in Public Relations and Marketing
Our only post written in 2020 to crack the top 5 describes how various brands have responded to the pandemic and how there is likely no returning to a 2019 version of normal. As the post points out, while the world may have changed, the vision and mission of your organization should remain the same. Maintaining the status quo, however, is not an option and neither is giving up. Communicating strategically, i.e., not ignoring the seismic disruption caused by COVID-19, is essential and can help your company weather (and even grow) during this catastrophic time.
4. Simple Language and Communication Success
As a professional writer for more than 20 years, I can attest to how difficult it is to write with simplicity, especially about complex topics like healthcare and IT. As this post from 2017 reminds us: simplicity is often better. Keeping sentences short, avoiding jargon and using an active voice are important tips to remember for everything we write and across all forms of writing. It is no wonder that this post was among our most-read posts again.
3. The Importance of Feedback in PR From Media, to Writing to Client Relationships
Feedback, when appropriately delivered, makes us better at whatever we do, as this post written in 2018 reminds us. Feedback takes on an added dimension in PR because we need it from clients and colleagues, but also editors and other members of the media where we have deep professional relationships. Seeking feedback can certainly provoke anxiety in all of us, but, as the post assures us, it can motivate, improve performance and keep us focused on the right targets.
2. Health Care or Healthcare? Here’s the Answer You Won’t Find in an AP Stylebook
As a journalism major in college, the Associated Press Stylebook becomes your bible. Since Amendola has so many former journalists on our team (including yours truly) many of the manual’s terminology, abbreviation, punctuation and other rules are hardwired into our brains and fingers. (I still often write the word “percent” even though the AP ruled in 2019 that the “%” symbol is now preferred.) Publications and organizations often have their own style rules for content that differ from the AP, which is what this blog post from 2019 is about. At Amendola, for example, we write healthcare as one word, although the AP uses two. Curious readers (and writers) clearly wanted to learn more about the secrets of this vaunted manual, which is why it was in the top 5 most read for the second year in a row.
- Going in AP Style
Sheltered-in-place during the pandemic, many of us turned to self-improvement activities – exercise, healthy cooking, reading more books, learning a new professional skill — and were seeking online content and classes to help guide those activities. That is my highly non-scientific explanation for why four out of the five most-read blog posts from 2020 were about personal development, mostly improving your writing chops. Yet this blog post from 2018 was also the most read post of that year, as well as 2019, which makes me wonder if readers are on a self-improvement kick or they just don’t want to shell out $27 for an online subscription to the stylebook. Either way, this post is filled with helpful nuggets for writing a press release, blog post or any type of content.
Whether it is writing tips, strategic branding guidance, media relations best practices or any of the other many PR and marketing topics we cover, we hope that you’ll continue to visit our blog throughout 2021. Who knows… maybe we’ll even write about AP style again.
by Morgan Lewis | Aug 5, 2020 | Blog
Stats and other evidence can look great at first, but after a little digging…not so much
A big part of the content we create for clients, whether it is a blog post, bylined article, white paper, or even an infographic, is research. It can be a collaborative process where the client will recommend statistics or a recent study they have discovered and want to highlight, but often it will be up the writer to unearth interesting data on their own.
Anyone who’s spent time researching online knows what an exhaustive process it can be. When searching on PubMed, for example, a writer can spend hours scanning study after study and still not find enough relevant data for the article they’re writing. Either the nature of the research does not quite relate to your content, it’s too dated, or it says nothing conclusive other than “more research is needed.”
Searching for recent results from a non-scientific poll or survey can be even more fruitless and risky. Part of the reason is healthcare information technology is at least a $227 billion industry, and it can be difficult to generate media and industry awareness of your company (unless you have a great partner like Amendola). That is why many companies will conduct their own survey or poll to generate media interest.
More often than I would like, while researching for one client I will discover the enticing results data was from a survey commissioned by a competitor. Such a conflict makes those stats, while tempting, off-limits. (But I am surprised how often I come across competitors who will cite one another’s research in their content.)
To avoid these mistakes and ensure the research you use in your content is relevant and accurate, consider these tips:
Get to the Bottom of it
I came across this stat recently that was perfect for a writing project I was working on: 85% to 99% of medical device alerts are not clinically actionable. I saw it cited in numerous medical journals and even in books with different attribution, with many citing it from The Joint Commission.
Although TJC did reference it, the stat originally came from a 2011 report from the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, which cites that figure to a study conducted by Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. I highlight this example to illustrate how challenging, but also how important it is, to identify and link to the original source of the stat.
Not only is it the most accurate way to present the data, but you may discover that by getting to the root of the source it may not be reliable or from an organization (i.e. competitor), that you want to draw attention to in your content.
Find the Context
Avoiding information from a competitor is an excellent reason to scrutinize the source of data. But after you determine where the information is coming from, the writer should also investigate the context around the data so you can further evaluate its credibility.
Some organizations will issue press releases, or mention in blog posts or bylined articles, “astounding” results from a survey or research they’ve conducted. In reading the full report or study it came from, you will learn that its PR or marketing materials carefully omitted important context, which creates a misleading perspective.
For example, you may find survey results that show “90% of physicians are considering retiring within the next five years.” However, if you dig deeper into the survey, you may find that the survey question was only conducted on physicians age 65 or older. While that may be an exaggerated hypothetical scenario, it shows how risky it is to feature data without investigating the context.
Science or Pseudo-Science?
As New York Times reporter Carl Zimmer pointed out, thanks to COVID-19, many more people are reading scientific papers, but are finding them difficult to understand. Although I’ve been reading these studies for many years, I, too, occasionally struggle to interpret findings that I can incorporate in the content we create.
Fortunately, article abstracts typically offer enough information to help decide if you should keep reading. Abstracts also provide insight into the scientific rigor behind the study, such as if it is a randomized controlled trial, which is the gold standard for medical research.
Even in such trials, if it includes only a very small or narrow population of patients, it may not apply to what you’re writing. The publication itself should also be considered. A peer-reviewed publication is ideal, as is information published in prominent journals such as JAMA, Science, The New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet, although even some of these journals have taken some credibility dings lately in the rush to publish COVID-19 research.
You are the Gatekeeper
Regardless of the quality of the data or the publication, you are the ultimate gatekeeper: Do you find the information and publication credible? Will it be meaningful and interesting to the prospective reader of the content? If so, then include it.
The great part about finding lots of meaningful research data is that it can help accelerate the writing process. With lots of information to include, it is just a matter of organizing and presenting it compellingly…but that’s for another post.
by Morgan Lewis | May 6, 2020 | Blog
Writing is difficult, especially when you work from home, as many of us do here at Amendola. As I write this, for example, the COVID-19 virus pandemic is sweeping across the U.S., with New York City and Louisiana emerging as hot spots. I point that out for two reasons:
- To show that we at Amendola compose these blogs weeks in advance (and you should do the same for your site’s blog)
- To illustrate how difficult it is to write when there are many distractions
Not only is the local and national news about the pandemic a constant source of distraction, but I am also now home with my wife, who has a full-time career, and our 2-year-old and 5-year-old sons. It’s not an ideal environment for writing, but that’s the thing about writing: There never seems to be a good time.
Give Yourself A Deadline
At Amendola, most of us write a lot of content and all of it comes with a deadline. The concrete date itself can be a huge motivator, but even if you are not given a deadline by a manager or colleague, create one for yourself and let others know about it, such as the colleague who is going to review it before it’s shared with the rest of the team or your boss. Once you’ve set a realistic date for completion and shared it with others, it motivates us to put distractions aside and get started because we feel accountable to the other person and ourselves to finish the content.
Ignore the Monkey
Apart from my kids who demand quite a bit of attention the distraction I feel is entirely self-inflicted. Writer Tim Urban, in one of the most entertaining blog posts ever about procrastination, blames this type of behavior on the “Instant Gratification Monkey” who takes control of our brain from the “Rational Decision-Maker” who we rely on to get our work done. The monkey, however, causes us to repetitively check the news, watch videos, scroll social media sites, or even clean the refrigerator instead of completing our cognitively challenging work.
The Instant Gratification Monkey is only interested in “maximizing the ease and pleasure of the current moment,” Urban writes, so we need to resist that urge. That starts with putting away all distractions as much as possible (I’ve put a website blocker on my laptop and sequestered my phone in the kitchen) and creating a plan for your content.
Get the Plan on the Page
A good way to fight distraction while still not actually writing is research. Whether it is a blog post, white paper or thought-leadership article, you should have adequate source material available beforehand, but don’t let it stop you from putting words down on the page. There is a tipping point and it varies depending on the length of content, the audience, publication, etc. between inadequate research and too much.
A good way to figure out if you’ve reached that tipping point is to start listing the points you want to convey, or the most interesting facts from the research so far. That should give you a good idea if there are gaps that need to be filled with more research.
Simply getting started in this way can in itself be the most important part of the writing process because, as James Clear, author of the bestselling self-help book Atomic Habits, writes in his blog: “the willingness to start is the littlest thing in life that makes the biggest difference.”
Editing is the Work
Some non-writers may be surprised once they start writing how smoothly their content is flowing from their fingers. After this revelation is usually when they realize that the composing part of writing isn’t the hard part of the process, but rather it is the editing. It’s the reading, re-reading, moving words around and cutting that’s the most tedious part of writing and the part that elicits almost as much procrastination as getting started. Fortunately, when you have arrived at the editing point it’s likely closer to the finish line. As both Urban and Clear point out, that momentum helps move you faster toward completion, even if you are not 100% satisfied with your final draft.
It’s Never Going to be Perfect
Hopefully, you will have someone reviewing and editing what you wrote to make it better. Everyone needs an editor, especially if you’ve been drafting a piece of content for a while without working on anything else. When the content is still very fresh in your mind, it can be difficult to assess its quality because you have edited it so many times and can remember the changes. If your deadline won’t permit a day or a week between your most recent draft and another look, turn the content in anyway. Another round of revisions before outside feedback won’t significantly improve its quality. As internal medicine physician Alex Lickerman M.D. puts it: “Recognizing that inflection point the point at which our continuing to rework our work reaches a law of diminishing returns is one of the hardest skills to learn, but also one of the most necessary.”
Experienced writers have a keen sense of that inflection point. For professionals who write less often, I would urge you to always edit and revise those first couple drafts, but then trust your gut when you feel a piece of content is done. A good editor or at least a proofreader will be able to truly review the content with fresh eyes and make changes or offer recommendations.
During this time of powerful stress-induced distractions, we can still get writing and work done. We just have to turn on “Paw Patrol,” ignore the Instant Gratification Monkey, do the research and start writing. The progress you make, even if you don’t finish the content, will reduce your stress and remove the self-inflicted
obstacles to completion.
by Morgan Lewis | Jan 29, 2020 | Blog
In our 24-hour news cycle increasingly driven by social media virality — public relations disasters occur and are crowded out so quickly that many people, including me, don’t even notice them. In 2019, there have been a few exceptions to that rule, which are listed below.
These companies and individuals didn’t just commit one PR blunder, but rather a sustained or repeated series of PR fails that withstood the shortening attention span of the news media and public. The biggest PR disasters in of 2019 include:
PR Fail #1: Boeing Appears Callous After Crashes
After crashes involving its 737 Max airplane in late 2018 that killed 189 people and in March 2019 that killed 157 people, Boeing continued to publicly insist that its planes were safe instead of recalling all the aircraft immediately and launching an investigation.
It didn’t help that a National Transportation Safety Board investigation revealed later that the aircraft’s new MCAS software was a contributor in both crashes or that whistleblowers emerged to allege the company cut corners to reduce costs and speed production while not documenting safety faults. Boeing continues to lose
orders from airliners and its stock price and revenue dropped precipitously throughout the year.
Boeing treated a major crisis involving the loss of hundreds of lives as if it were passengers complaining on social media about uncomfortable seats and lack of luggage space. Their response should have been contrite, swift and comprehensive.Heren gym T-shirt grijs bodybuilding trainingsshirt training ijzeren tanks proviron kopen tbol strikt als een pre-workout.
Even if human error was a factor in both crashes, such major catastrophic events involving the same airplane required the company to demonstrate that it was
doing everything possible to investigate and protect passengers. Instead, it denied anything was wrong and let public opinion take control.
PR Fail #2: Facebook – Here We Go Again
After a very rough 2016 presidential election where the social media giant was accused of enabling the spread of misinformation from fake accounts, it was revealed the site sold user data to Cambridge Analytica and other outside groups for political research. This led the company being ranked as the “least
trusted” tech company, according to a Fortune poll.
In 2019, even after Google and Twitter issued strict guidelines limiting political advertising, Facebook, as of this blog post, was still undecided about what it would do about the ads.
Its first public comments stated the site would do nothing in fairness to free speech, regardless of how false the claims were. Recently, a story leaked that Facebook might flag all ads as not fact-checked, which some pointed out would paint even well-cited ads with the same brush as those with fabrications.
Considering the hundreds of millions of dollars Facebook takes in from these and similar ads, it’s not surprising they are reluctant to push back, but the indecisiveness only ramps up the lack of integrity and untrustworthiness perception it has in the market.
PR Fail #3: College Admissions Scandal
Two famous TV actresses were implicated with at least 51 other parents in a scheme involving bribes and hired test-takers to help their children gain admission to prestigious colleges.
One would assume that the celebrities would have memorized and rehearsed a carefully worded script within 48 hours to perform before the news cameras. Instead, there was silence.
One of the actresses, Lori Laughlin, even signed autographs before a court appearance. The colleges involved in the scandal, namely Yale and UCLA,
were far more transparent about what they knew about the fraud committed by the parents’ hired conspirators and then revoked offers to the students involved,
which was a much better PR response to the crisis.
These institutions also have strong reputations that can withstand this tertiary involvement in such a scandal. I can assume the actresses’ legal teams urged them to remain silent. I would also bet their publicity teams had a crisis communications game plan ready, but they just weren’t allowed to execute it.
Regardless, in a society obsessed with celebrity, it seems like a missed opportunity by the actresses’ legal teams to sway the court of public opinion before the accused appeared in federal court.
PR Fail #4: IHOP Wearies the Market
In 2018, IHOP pretended to change its famous acronym to IHOb (for burgers), which, albeit quite intentionally, generated a news and social media storm. Depending on who you talk to, the stunt was either ill-advised because it was just a trick, or quite successful because it got people talking about and buying the restaurant’s burgers and it gained 60,000 Twitter followers.
After such a big response, IHOP went back to the well in 2019 to launch a new line of burgers with a marketing campaign that referred to them as “pancakes.” Get it?
Well, it didn’t generate quite as much news or social media attention as the fake rebranding and it just further confused the market. While more of a marketing misstep than PR, it does show how important brand trust is, even with tongue-in-cheek marketing.
After the name-change stunt and follow-up, what are consumers going to believe? Will they even bother paying attention to from the pancake-restaurant chain?
PR Fail #5: Uber is Lost
The PR and reputational struggles of the ride-sharing service continued in 2019.
After hiring a new CEO and its first chief marketing officer, the CMO and chief operating officer resigned and Uber laid off 400 marketing employees. This is despite a $500 million rebranding and reputation management effort launched after news media coverage of its toxic culture and driver underpayments emerged in 2017.
Unsurprisingly, the company’s stock price plummeted after its IPO in May 2019, although not solely related to its PR struggles. Not helping the reputational renewal was a report the company released in December 2019 showing nearly 6,000 reports of sexual assaults involving rides in the U.S. in 2017 and 2018.
The only positive aspect of this horrific PR moment is that Uber released the report itself, demonstrating some degree of transparency. Its top competitor, Lyft, which has its own similar problems, has yet to release such a report.
Bottom line
There is plenty to be learned about crisis communications and reputation management in these incidents and others, namely the importance of responding quickly, being transparent and controlling the narrative.
There are plenty of experts on such matters here at Amendola and you can read their insights here and here. Better yet, give us a call and our media relations and crisis management team can help you design a plan and keep your stress levels down and reputation up if such an incident occurs involving your organization.
