Archive for November 2006

The Washington Times states that approximately one in six students took an online course. The article and the referenced report imply that online learning is receiving mixed reviews. But it all depends on the program, the university, and and student motivation.

For me, online-based education works well as I don’t have to worry about understanding a professor as it’s been my experience that most are difficult to lipread. It could be because of accents or mumbling as a result of speaking too fast. But I’m glad online education didn’t exist when I went to college as I would’ve missed out on the college experience.

I hope to get a master’s degree when the time comes and I plan to work on it through an online program. I work with New York University’s master’s of science in management and systems. The program has one drawback: weekly online lectures complete with audio. With VoIP and applications like Centra, I fear more universities will add online and audio lectures to their curriculum by the time I find the time to start a master’s program.

Bloomberg News findings reported:

* 32 percent administrators at public colleges say their faculty support online education — down from 36 percent in previous year.

* Almost nine percent of admin believe faculty reject value of online teaching, up five percent from previous year.

* At private schools, 19 percent of admins say faculty opposed. Up 17 percent from 2004.

Not good news. This attitude lowers any hope of seeing a degree program a person wants that isn’t available yet. Furthermore, some students have concerns that online classes degrade the educational experience.

I earned a certificate in Internet technologies from New York University through an online program. The experience and other online classes I’ve taken proved it’s possible to get a high quality education online and walk away with new knowledge. I’ve been able to use what I picked up from the classes.

View the detailed Sloan Report on online education in the United States.

Thanks to Web sites and email newsletters, white papers have become a great way to market a product or service. A visitor can get a free white paper in exchange for signing up for an email newsletter or basic information. People can’t resist a free offer and white papers — when done right — can educate and inform.

Sure, a business wants to show how it has the solution to the problem identified in the paper. But a well-written white paper does more than market a solution. It also establishes a person or business as a thought leader, introduces a new idea or concept, and explains how something works. Too many white papers turn into infomercials and Stelzner walks the reader through the process of creating an effective white paper.

Stelzer covers everything including needs analysis, research, interviews, and other important steps in the white paper writing process beyond the actual writing. I’ve downloaded or received many white papers and few get my attention. For some, the title can scare a reader out of reading it. These titles sound like something written by a PhD for others in the field.

As a freelancer writer, I’ve written a few white papers and not with as much confidence as I would like. Writing White Papers gives me all the information I need to thoroughly and confidently write the next one without any lingering doubts or fears.

Writers who write few or no white papers will appreciate the chapters on “Interviewing,” “Researching,” “Writing the First Page,” “The Compelling Title,” and “Writing Tips and Strategies.” The advice in these chapters applies to various types of writing.

Most of the book’s contents focus on writing information technology-related papers — probably because they’re the most technical and difficult to write about — however, one of the examples is about personal accountability. The book doesn’t stop at the white paper writing process. Its last chapter focuses on marketing white papers.

The book demonstrates how to make a boring topic engaging — a problem that often faces the writers of white papers and contains two examples of white papers that retain my attention even though I’m not the prime audience. The book engages the reader making it a surprisingly fast read. Writers, technical writers, and marketing professionals will benefit the most from this well-organized, insightful, and clearly-written book.

FYI: Stelzner’s web site.

Title: Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged
Author: Michael Stelzner
Publisher: WhitePaperSource Publishing
ISBN: 0977716937
Date: October 2006
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 214
Cover Price: USD: $34.95 Amazon: $23.07

Trading / Swapping

Don’t want to spend a dime? How about trading or swapping? Sick of a book, movie, or album? Trade it for something fresh.

Bookcrossing: Leave a book for someone else to discover from over three million registered books.

BookHopper: UK-based swap site where users pay the cost of shipping.

Bookins: Trade books for the cost of shipping. The site provides postage and tracks packages.

BookRelay: “If you see something you like in the relay index, click on the relay name to see the full list for that particular relay. Then pick a book on your BookCrossing bookshelf that you’d like to offer in trade. You can then accept the offered book, and your offer goes to the top of the list.”

BookMooch: Community for trading used books.

Distributed Library Project: For San Francisco Bay Area only. A virtual library experiment for books, videos, and music.

Flickflop: Trade used DVD movies against its inventory of DVD movies without waiting to see if a DVD available. No membership fees or commitments. Costs $1.99 per movie for packaging and handling.

FrugalReader: Trade books and pay only cost of shipping.

Lala.com: Trade and buy CDs.

PaperBackSwap: Get credit for every book you mail.

SwapSwop: Exchange books, CDs, DVDs, games, and gift cards using a point system.

Swapthing: Exchange or barter anything for a transaction fee of $1.

SwapTree: Swap books, CDs, DVDs, and video games paying only for postage.

SwitchPlanet.com: Trade used DVDs, CDs and video games.

Titletrader: Trade books, CDs, and DVDs through a point system. Over 180,000 items listed.

WhatsOnMyBookshelf?: Exchange books using a point system.

ZunaFish: Trade books, CDs, and DVDs for a buck.

Please add others by leaving a comment. Since there are so many choices, share your favorites and why.

Updated: May 31, 2007

Management using jargon like blue sky thinking, brain dump, thinking outside the box, get our ducks in a row confuse staff more than encourage them. We may have heard “thinking outside of the box” for years (I met that term in my first job out of college), but BBC News reports these terms don’t go over well with employees.

“Thinking outside the box” doesn’t sound bad. I think it’s a simple phrase that reminds us to try to brainstorm different and uncommon ways to deal with something or to find a solution. Perhaps, employees believe management is trying to impress rather than communicate when using jargon. Maybe not the “box” one specifically, but others they encounter.

As a long-time process manager, “best practices” appeared in my work all the time. It still does. But it’s the one phrase I can’t find a better term for. It says exactly what we mean… “best practices” for doing something. To explain it another way would take more words.

Many grammar geeks tend to be snobby about corrected incorrect grammar. I try not to be. It depends on who the person is and my relationships to them. If I’m writing a general article to an open audience, I try to have fun and in some cases, come across as the grammar police.

ChangeThis features Grammar Need Not Be Cruel to Be Cool by June Casagrande author of Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite. She shares a story about writing to the author of an article who despised split infinitives. Personally, I think split infinitives work and sound better in some cases.

After all, what if the Star Trek voice over said, “To go boldly where no man has gone before… ?” I think plugging “boldly” in between “to” and “go” makes a bigger impact.

Casagrande also discusses the use of “A’s” and “B’s” as opposed to “As” and “Bs.” In the past, I stated that I don’t like apostrophes with anything plural unless it belongs to the object. However, “As” and “Bs” sure looks like “as” and “bs” and B grades aren’t B.S. So I’m OK with “A’s” and “1′s.” Some numbers like 1 look like a letter, so the apostrophe helps distinguish it as a number.

Casagrande and I share the same philosophy regarding grammar. She closes the article:

But if we can avoid the temptation of grammar snobbery, if we can give ourselves permission to make mistakes, if we can think of grammar as a tool or even a toy, well, that’s when grammar really can be cool.

Amen.

I’m sure I have plenty of grammar errors and typos throughout this blog, but it’s a blog not formally written articles with an editor on call. Grammar snobs disagree with that.

By the way, it looks like Lynne Truss is trying to get kids into the grammar game with a children’s book version of her best seller Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.

SitePoint Newsletter and forums have an interesting discussion on clients who don’t respond or are slow to respond. Almost every freelance and small business can count on this happening. It happens to me once in a while.

A client wanted me to write his web content and we went back and forth on that. She asked for samples, I sent them. She asked questions. I replied. The next step was for her to get all info together that she has available and send that to me. Still waiting. In normal circumstances, I’d follow up with the client every couple of weeks. However, this isn’t a project high on my list so I haven’t pushed it. My choice. If the client follows up, I’ll be ready and willing.

Over the last few years, I’ve worked with a few web designers to get my web site updated. Almost every single one of them stopped following up in spite of my sending messages every few weeks. The job was theirs to lose. But perhaps, they felt the way I did about the aforementioned client… not a high priority project. That’s OK. Rather than leaving me on hold (since I was waiting on them), I’d appreciate their letting me know they can’t do the project so I can find someone else.

I read an article somewhere about a freelancer in the same boat. She continued to follow up and she continued to market with her email newsletter. Eventually, the client did call her and hire her. She stayed in his mind with her email newsletters. Sometimes the timing isn’t right. I’m more apprehensive about taking on new clients between now and February as I have a big family event to plan. But I still keep my eyes open as you never know when a great opportunity comes along.

Keep working, keep marketing, and keep following up.

In 2000, I wrote an article about Internet and tech terms for Webreference and followed up with others. I revisited the capitalization of Internet, email vs. e-mail, and e-words. Reading WebMarketCentral Blog’s entry (including this one that’s mentioned) motivated me to visit the topic again.

The #1 rule remains: consistency. No one will get cursed writing email vs. e-mail, internet vs. Internet, web site vs. website vs Website vs. Web site. AP Style users need to check with the guide under its entry for Internet, which contains about five pages of terms and how to write them.

Email vs. e-mail

I did a comparison of email and e-mail. It looks like email is finally catching up as the gap gets closer. I think email has been around long enough to earn its own word without a reference to “E” for electronic. I use email without the dash. AP Style uses e-mail with a lower case and a dash as does Webster’s. However, when writing for a source that relies on AP Style, I use e-mail as I follow the source’s style guide not mine.

Internet vs. internet

Wired News online switched to internet, but it doesn’t look like it’s caught on. Wired made it part of its style guide to keep its articles consistent in the writing of internet and I respect that. For me, I can’t bring myself to do it. Internet still rules in my book. AP Style also capitalizes Internet.

In reading a handful of Wired articles, it looks like the magazine uses web, website, and online.

All things web

Capitalize web or not? When should a word with web in it be one word not two? Wired uses web and website. Neither capitalized and website as one word. AP Style says Web is capitalized as in Web site and Web page. However, webmaster and webcast are single words and not capitalized.

Meryl-style: I’ve been using Web site for a long time, but starting to change to web site. Like AP Style, I use webmaster and webcast as one lower-cased word. Webster’s references webmaster and noted that it’s often capitalized.

Other natterings

AP Style says: Login, logon, logoff, plug-in, and online. That’s what I use, too. Although on occasion, I’ll debate whether to use login or logon. I like login better. I’m sure I’ve gotten lazy with plugin, but it looks more like you’re misspelling plugging thus the need for the dash.

Emoticons in sentences

I’ll put a smiley at the end of a sentence and then take too much time debating what to do with the period :). (It makes the smiley look like it has a dimple or worse, a pimple). Or I’ll put a smiley in () and then delete it because the smiley gets lost (Like this sentence :)).

Someone wrote asking about this and I replied there’s no standard. But if you need a standard, this is what I do:

* Treat a smiley at the end of a sentence as the closing punctuation mark. In other words, the smiley behaves like a period :) Then I start a new sentence.

* Avoid having a smiley at the end of a () by leaving it out, rewriting the sentence, or putting it elsewhere in the note.

URLs in sentences

I’ve got a bone to pick with Microsoft Publisher. It hyphenates every article unless you tell it not to. Unfortunately, it’s on an article basis, so I can’t turn off hyphenating for the entire newsletter or document. Can we please have this option, Microsoft?

I work with newsletter editors who use Microsoft Publisher. They’re volunteers, so I don’t like to nitpick. But it can be problematic when the hyphen appears in an email address or URL. Hey, email addresses and URLs CAN have a dash in them. So the reader wonders if the dash is a hyphen or for real. Some readers aren’t tech-savvy and won’t consider trying it with or without the dash.

In writing a URL in an article, I’ll let it break and go to the next line rather than split it. It’s harder to read a URL that’s split up even without hyphens. The drawback is the break could leave too much whitespace in the sentence prior to the URL. For example:

You can read more at

http://www.meryl.net/blog/story/folder/too_long.html

The above may not look weird, but it can in the middle of a paragraph like this one. See

http://www.meryl.net/blog/story/folder/too_long.html

to learn about writing long sentences that bore the reader.

AP Style works around this by recommending that if an address breaks because it reaches the end of a line, break it before a slash or a dot and don’t use a dash or hyphen. Two examples:

http://www.meryl.net
/blog/

http://www.meryl
.net/blog/

AP Style also says to use a period when a URL appears at the end of a sentence. For example:

Check out http://www.meryl.net/.

You can read more at http://www.meryl.net/story.html.

Again, it all goes back to picking one way and sticking with it. Use your best judgment when dealing with URLs, emoticons, and hyphens.

My parents returned from a two week trip to the Orient and reported the trip was grand and tiring. They brought back maps, tickets, papers and documents for us. One thing caught my eye: a card printed with English and Chinese phrases. I ask Mom about it.

She said that taxi drivers don’t speak or understand English. They also don’t understand poorly spoken Chinese (a person fluent in English who tries to say Chinese phrases with an American accent). I respected that because the taxi drivers are, after all, in China. Why should they be expected to know English to do their jobs? Whether or not schools in China require students to learn English is not relevant here.

So my parents’ received the card so they can point to the English / Chinese phrase pairing to show the taxi driver. One thing that frightens me about traveling to other countries is the communication difficulties especially since my English speech isn’t perfect (as a deaf person) that it’s harder for those where English isn’t their first language to understand me.

I loved learning foreign language and took two different languages in high school. Even if I were to immerse myself in a country speaking one of the languages, it would be difficult for me to become fluent because I can’t hear the conversations. Lipreading is another story altogether.

Anyway, my mom said that the hotels’ concierges understood English and advised them how to communicate and get around or directly told the taxi drivers where to go. My parents worried that the drivers would take the long way to get to places to rack up the fare, but taxis were so cheap that an average ride in the large and spread out city of Beijing was the equivalent of USD $2.

The longest ride cost 18 yuan ($1 US = 7/.8 yuan). The drivers charge for time and distance, so traffic tie ups cost more. However, drivers don’t expect tips and are reticent about taking them if offered.

Yesterday, I spent too much time trying to find all 50 dark movies in the Bosch-style painting at MMS.com. I figured I should put my wasted productivity time to good use here.

I’m not even a fan of horror films and I just had to find all of the movies. Though not a horror film person, I enjoy Alfred Hitchcock‘s movies and there are some in the painting. I got stuck after finding 36 movies and knew I couldn’t quit until discovering all 50. So I searched the Internet to speed my efforts.

Many sites pointed to the puzzle and it had plenty of Diggs. Thanks to Digg, I finished the puzzle and could get on with work. Turned out that I would’ve never found the remaining movies without help. Before clicking on the Digg link, be warned there are no hints — just straight answers.

Mars took a creative approach with this campaign especially since it chose “dark” movies. Not only did the company tie it in with the release of its dark M&Ms, but also close to Halloween. Will people buy dark M&Ms as a result? Or maybe just their favorite? Don’t know, but I tell you M&Ms were on the brain for a long time (and obviously still is as I’m writing about it). I’ve got a lot of M&Ms from Halloween, so I won’t buy them soon. Mars should do another puzzle using “sweet” movies.

I worked in process management for ten years, some with the federal government and most of it in the telecommunications industry. I’m a supporter for having processes because:

* Avoids reinventing the wheel
* Ensures you don’t miss a step
* Helps others know what to do
* Simplifies improving the process

But there’s such a thing as having too much process that instead of being effective, it strangles employee time. Such processes may have too many steps or too much detail that the employee spends too much time trying to get the steps right and loses sight of what’s important.

For example, I search for high quality Web articles to put in newsletters. The process involves how to handle entering an article as well as how to handle an approved article for a later edition. I love digging for inspiring and informative articles. Lately, however, it feels like having little energy left to find enough first class articles because I’m tied down by the process.

Perhaps, it’d be better to create a higher level process so I’m empowered to spend more time on article hunting while satisfying the process requirements. For example, state that if an article is approved, but not for the next issue — put it in reserve and indicate its approval.

Coincidentally, I was searching for articles when I came across this quote from a Fast Company article:

There are formal processes for everything, with well-intentioned manuals, training programs, hierarchies, and corporate jargon that mostly keep employees from really communicating. We typically assess a colleague’s work, for example, via online surveys, psychological tests, and language that strenuously shuns direct criticism. Anything to avoid taking a colleague aside and telling him what he’s doing wrong.

But lack of communication isn’t a problem in my case. In fact, this client is considered more of a colleague and friend that he’s the first person I feel like I can be honest without fear of negative results. In fact, when we talk about an issue, things get better.