Editing

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Recently, I heard David Meerman Scott give an interesting keynote at the Marketing Profs digital conference. While all of his presentation was worth listening to, the part that had me cheering (and if you follow me on Twitter, you heard me) was the simple recognition that words like "cutting-edge" and "robust" are overused. Not necessary. Meaningless.

Have you ever been stuck on the treadmill of revision? Do your projects get bogged down as you find yourself creating version #20, or making "just a few more quick changes"?

I was positively inspired by the call to service issued by President Barack Obama this week.

As Americans— including myself— participated in more than 11,000 service projects across the nation, our new president asked that we "turn today's efforts into an ongoing commitment to enriching the lives of others in (our) communities, (our) cities and (our) country."

And as I listened to these words, I realized that it’s time to make official something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

One of the writing projects I've been working on is a museum display. It's reminded me of the importance of concise writing-- and the effort involved in engaging readers while being brief. If there is one thing that holds true among busy museum audiences, it's this: they are not going to spend much time reading long paragraphs of text.