Category Archives: Write

White Papers are Not Dead. They’re on Life Support.

Reblogged from Marketing Craftsmanship:

Click to visit the original post

The original purpose of white papers as a B2B marketing tactic was to produce objective information, packaged as quasi-academic research, that might validate a company's or product’s value proposition. White paper sponsors sought to educate, inform, raise comfort levels and eventually initiate sales conversations with prospective customers.

White papers gained significant adoption as a content marketing tool concurrent with the rapid growth of new technologies that often required explanation or context for non-technical buyers.

Read more… 765 more words

A great post from Gordon G Andrew on technology White Papers. Andrew writes about them from a marketing point of view and says while they are now less popular and their name may be a problem, the idea of white papers is still valid. I agree, but please, keep them short and credible. No-one wants to read a ten page advertisement.  

The irony of writing about Microsoft

It occurred to me while writing Microsoft’s design renaissance I’m what financial journalists would call contrarian when it comes to what is still the world’s largest software company.

When Microsoft  bestrided the narrow world like a Colossus, my public comments were often critical while other journalists lavished praise.

Now the mood has turned, Microsoft is often dismissed in the mainstream technical media while I’m starting to find more and more positives.

How a geek writes better emails

Adarsh Pandi is a developer who knows how to write great emails. He explains his technique in the curiously headlined Using Writing Smells to Refactor Your Email.

Pandi treats crafting emails like writing a piece of code. He starts by looking at the goals of an email which he says are:

  • Get the reader to read the most important thing
  • Get them to respond quickly or do something quickly

Then works to make them simple, easier to respond to and more likely to trigger an action.

He then works through a few details, such as keeping sentences short and simple What’s amazing is how he effectively develops a simple version of what us old hands teach every young journalist when they first start writing.

Related:
Are email greetings and salutations redundant?

My books listed on Google Books

30 years ago I co-wrote The Usborne guide to understanding the micro. The title has been out of print for a generation. So I was surprised to find it listed at Google Books.

Amazingly my book also still on sale at Amazon.com. Mind you, the sellers don’t want much for it.

The Usborne guide was my first book and, in sales terms the most successful although not the most lucrative. I can’t find any evidence, but remember it featured on some best-seller lists and total sales ran to hundreds of thousands. If you know, please get in touch.

Usborne translated the book into a number of other languages including German. The cover of that version is below and, sigh, doesn’t feature my name. I remember there were other language versions, I spotted one in a shop somewhere in Spain. There were at least three reprints of the English edition.

Oddly the picture shown at Google Books isn’t the cover but the title page from inside the book.

Mikrocomputer Wie Sie Funktionieren-Was Sie Konnen

My other books haven’t fared so well on Google Books. And as for this one from 1984. I wrote it under the pseudonym Gordon Davis after I saw a player with the same name score a goal for Chelsea one weekend. For some reason Google added the word ‘Bitter’ in the name. I’m not sure what that’s about.