bill bennett

journalism + new media

It is best not to use jargon. You may think otherwise, but it makes your writing harder to understand.

After writing about the virtues of snappy, easy-to-read writing, I re-read earlier stories on this site and found shocking examples of mangement-speak jargon.

For example, in Managing change: keeping a lid on panic I wrote about 'participative management'.

Are these jargon terms avoidable?

They should be. 'Participative management' is a horrid term.

Ambiguous language is bad languge

It is ambiguous – it could mean a number of things. And the five syllable word 'participative' is troublesome on a number of fronts.

The phrase is typical of the highfalutin jargon-laden nonsense empty-headed bosses puff themselves up with.

Yes, I confess it is bad. Yet I don't think it would be possible to write about the subject without using the term.

I thought of going back and changing the term to 'open management'. The term is still a tad wanky and ambiguous, but 'open' is miles better than 'participative'.

Let me be understood

The problem is, nobody understands what the term 'open management' means. You could almost say the same about 'participative management'. But the term is understood by management experts and academics.

Google lists 170,000 entries for 'participative management'. They mainly refer to the same thing.

There are 73,000 Google entries for 'open management'. One look at the first page of entries shows the term is used in a variety of different ways – in some cases for complicated information technology things.

So, it looks as if we are stuck with 'participative management' and hundreds of other management terms. In my next post we'll look at how to use them and not lose our readers.

Your job as a writer is to get your message across clearly and quickly.

One way you can sabotage your communication is by laying traps for readers. They stop a reader's flow as their eye scans over text.

Punctuation – as the name suggests – stops flow. This is why, for example, I leave out all optional commas.

You can also slow down a reader's flow when you use capital letters incorrectly. For the same reason you should never write a word entirely in capitals.

Likewise I don't use the '&' symbol – instead I write 'and'. The exception to this rule is when the '&' forms part of a company's name.

The same applies to '+'. I've used it at the top of this page, but it doesn't count because it's not a piece of flowing text.

It is also better to write out percent in full than use %. Although some newspapers, including one where I work, insists on using the symbol.

Never resort to phone text-style language in anything written for a wider audience. It's not funny, clever or useful.

Employers often have the upper hand in pay negotiations.

This is because of 'asymmetric information' – bosses can easily find the going rate for a job. It's like a card game where your opponent sees the cards in your hand while you can't see theirs.

Companies rarely allow staff to talk to each other about salaries. In some workplaces sharing salary information is an offence.

Employers compare your pay with that of other employees. They also usually have access to wider industry pay information either through organisations or by buying third-party salary reports.

You'll struggle to find this information. Some recruitment advertisement offer clues.

However, recruiters are often coy about exact salaries. They don't want existing staff to know what they pay newcomers.

Even when you are the recruit, employers often won't tell you the salary until later in the recruitment process.

When you apply for a new job, you need to get as much salary information as possible before negotiating. You also need to know if it is worth negotiating.

Likewise, if you want a pay rise from your existing employer, you need to know what others doing the same job elsewhere earn. This gives you useful ammunition. It also lets you know whether you should stay or move if your negotiation fails.

Resources for New Zealand knowledge workers wanting to compare pay rates.

• Hudson has good pay data for IT, finance, accounting and office workers.
• Absolute IT has a tool for finding pay rates in IT jobs, but you have to give personal details to use it.
• Hays offers NZ salary information from its Australian site – but again you have to give personal data.
• Frog recruitment has basic pay information for a range of knowledge worker roles.
• TradeMe's salary guide covers the widest range of jobs.
• Seek's salary centre uses information from Robert Walters.

Sheldon Nesdale offers five useful tips to help newcomers to web writing.

Nesdale is a marketing consultant. So his approach to web writing differs from mine.

When I wrote  Writing for the web in 300 words I called on the lessons I first learnt as a newspaper journalist almost 30 years ago.

Nesdale's How to write for the web attacks the same subject from a marketing and sales point of view.

The two approaches overlap. We both prefer snappy, well signposted text. We both pay attention to the way words are organised on a page.

There's only one piece of Nesdale's advice I disagree with. And then only partly. He starts by telling readers to write long descriptive headlines to help skimmers find their way to the story.

I say skilled writers should do the same job with tight, smartly written headlines.

If you're not a skilled writer, then by all means use those  long descriptive headlines. But think how you can compact the same meaning into fewer words.

I've nothing but praise for the thinking behind the Writemark Plain English Awards. Getting rid of gobbledygook is a cause close to my heart.

Yet in a case of the cobbler's children's shoes, the Writemark site needs fixing.

Here is the section headed "What is plain English?" you can find this paragraph:

Plain English allows people to participate in government, commercial, legal, and leisure activities more effectively because they can understand the information presented to them. Plain English also has proven benefits for organisations that use it in their publications — including significant cost savings.

It could be plainer. And, tut tut, it uses an American-style comma in a list before 'and'.

Let's make that paragraph plainer:

Plain English makes information easy to understand. It means people can play a more effective part in government, commerce, law and leisure. It's also good for organisations; among other things it saves money.

Feeding a news story to a journalist is an effective way of getting publicity. But you need to be careful.

Journalists have an ethical code. They are not for sale.

Many people mistakenly think applying commercial pressure influences the way journalists approach stories. For example, by saying you'll advertise in their title.

This can work with some journalists in certain circumstances. Most of the time threats or promises do more harm than good.

At best you will insult them or offend their professional pride.

At worst they'll decide not to risk touching your story in case they are tainted. Or they may underline their independence and cover your story with a more hostile approach.

Even if they bite, they may not see the story the same way as you.

Remember, their loyalty is to their readers. Journalists don't see helping your sales as part of their job.

This sounds confusing – media companies sell advertising so you might think journalists would jump at the chance of boosting sales. They like advertising, but they won't trade their integrity.

Journalists have a long term view. They know readers have more respect for titles with a strong ethical code. This translates to commercial success.

Respected titles have more readers, so they sell more advertising. They also get a better class of reader, which means a better class of customer for advertisers. Research shows advertising is more effective in credible titles.

Businesses wanting to grab people's attention have two options: advertising and publicity. They are not the same.

Advertising is a commercial deal between your business and the media.

You buy a fixed amount of print space, billboards, radio or TV airtime, or web traffic. You take responsibility for providing the advertising material – called copy in the industry – at your cost.

If you've got the budget, you can hire creative specialists to prepare the copy for you. It's usually worth the cost. Advertising professionals know how to get results.

As an advertiser you are in control. You decide when and where your adverts run. You have the last say over the message.

Advertising is expensive. Publicity is often cheaper. It is also riskier.

Publicity is when you grab people's attention in other ways. If you hire a publicist, a public relations expert or a press officer, those people will attempt to place stories in the media on your behalf. They can't usually guarantee anyone will sit up and take notice.

You have far less control with publicity. It works best when you have something newsworthy or interesting to say. If it isn't interesting then the media will ignore it. And your story can be crowded out on days when there are other more interesting stories.

Editors and journalists' first responsibility is to their readers. It's not their job to sell your business. It is their job to keep readers informed and interested.

Publicity is a scattergun. It can work. It might not. Use advertising to make certain your message reaches your target audience. It acts like a guided missile and costs about as much.

It is early days for newspaper pay walls. The experience so far says successful pay walls have four things in common.

Newspaper pay walls work for business newspapers like The National Business Review (NBR), The Australian Financial Review and The Financial Times.

Commentators often say pay walls and subscriptions work for niche titles providing specialist coverage and editorial quality.

This is true. For example, I work for CommsDay, which is a successful specialist niche title covering the telecommunications market. CommsDay doesn't use a pay wall – it is a daily PDF newsletter.

However, there's more to getting readers to pay for digitally delivered publications than occupying a specialist niche.

I've identified three other things needed for success:

• Quality. All the above titles are editorially excellent and professional. They are the best in their field.
• Appeal to well-heeled audience. People who buy online subscriptions are richer than average readers. Business people often have personal or company-wide budgets for buying media.
• Quick. Pay walls work when readers need information fast. They have to find it more convenient to whip out the credit card and pay for a subscription than walk to the local shop and buy a print copy of the publication or spend 30 minutes Googling for information.