This is the support page for the book:
THE ELEMENTS OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
(How To Get Along Until You Hire Specialists)
Posted 3 April 1999
EXCERPT AND COMMENTARY
From the chapter: You have Influence, Not Control"...Be careful what help you ask for, lest conscientious people overwhelm you with assistance. Try to define the scope of the response you are requesting, so the reviewer doesn't waste time on lot of unhelpful work, and then feel miffed when you don't appreciate it...
"... A major part of the communicator's work is to keep little projects from becoming big ones, and to keep big ones from paralyzing the company. It can't be done by forcing people to follow formal rules. You have to be fast, flexible, persuasive, decisive, and lucky."
Additional commentary:
Presenting written material, artwork, etc...for review and approval
is always touchy, mostly because people see each project in different context,
from different angles, so you never really know before investing a lot
of work whether it will be appropriate or not. In some cases (not many,
to be fair) the party who is asked to review the material feels honor bound
to find problems with it. After all, if his/her opinion isn't important,
why are you asking for it...and if he/she does not require changes, may
not his/her importance may be questioned? Sigh.
The fellows at Walter Landor Associates years ago explained a stratagem they sometimes employed to satisfy compulsive critics, and get work approved with minimal effort. They illustrated the method with the example of a commercial artist. He had a client who was likely to examine a painting of a ballroom full of dancing couples, and say he liked it, but ask for just a small change: several of the couples should be rotated a quarter turn.
Preparing a complex work for this client, the artist added a small bulldog in a corner of the painting. He made sure the bulldog was cross-eyed. When his client examined the picture, he spotted the dog, and said "Why, that bulldog's cross-eyed! You'll have to fix that." The artist apologized for his error, and promised to make the fix. Satisfied that he'd done his critical duty, the client approved the work with that change.
Don't forget to add the cross-eyed bulldog to your work...an egregiously awkward phrase, a repeated misspelling of a name, a symbol known to be unacceptable, or whatever...something that the compulsive critic can discover and correct. While it's never wise or courteous to insult rational reviewers by attempting to manipulate them this way, irrational reviewers are usually unaware of their own irrationality; they welcome the contrived opportunity to express their authority.
QUESTION & ANSWER
Send questions to: correspo@swcp.com
Q: We have been publishing a basic how-to-use-our products
newsletter for our clients very successfully, but lots of them have become
sophisticated users, and want more advanced material, while our audience
of beginners is replenished by our sales to new customers. We can't keep
increasing the size of the newsletter with ever more advanced material.
Any suggestions on dealing with this?
A: Your problem's not exactly a new one. For example, back when
personal computers were relatively new, literally dozens of magazines sprang
up to help new computer buyers figure out how to make the accursed machines
work, even usefully. A few of those magazines became enormously successful,
with circulation in the hundreds of thousands, and three or four hundred
pages in each issue...but after two or three years, their publishers began
to offer new, simpler magazines for less experienced computerists. They
had discovered early on that they couldn't keep running the same "how-to-operate-a-computer"
pieces again and again, and it was impractical to aim a single publication
at both beginners and oldtimers. The new, simpler publications were seldom
successful, because their audiences continued to outgrow them.
There's no simple solution to this, but the power of desktop publishing
now makes it comparatively easy to produce different publications for different
audiences. The trick is in detecting the problem (which you have), and
then identifying and communicating effectively with the individuals, so
you can classify them effectively, and provide what they need.
THE ELEMENTS OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
220 Pages (ppb) USD~$26.50 CDN $36.81 (exchange rates vary a bit)
can be ordered from Trafford Publishing
Online at: http://www.trafford.com/robots/97-0004.html
at which site you'll find, a sample chapter,
(the one on working with agencies)
and background information.
Or by phone Toll-free at: 1-888-232-4444
Send email to: correspo@swcp.com
(By the way, if you do
not now receive an email notice each time a new edition
of this support site is posted, and you would like to, just drop us
a note, and we'll put you on the subscription list for notification. Be
sure to mention "Elements.")
Copyright © 1999 ABQ Communications Corporation. All rights reserved.