Zadie Smith famously advised novelists, once finished with their work, to put their book into a drawer and not touch it for one year.
One year!
I’m not sure whether Zadie ever had the discipline to wait so long but her point is clear:
You have to put time between you and your writing. As she says: “You need to become its reader instead of its writer.“
Do you know how Amazon’s homepage looks like?
The truth is:
You can’t be sure.
You probably see a different page than I do. Amazon shows us different versions to test:
Companies like Amazon test these things because they make a difference. A series of small tweaks can increase conversions by hundreds of percent, we saw that in the case of Dustin Curtis.
So, if testing is so important why don’t we do it ourselves?
The answer is, of course, that it’s cumbersome. That’s why I am going to propose an alternative: Read more…
Do you know the bat and the ball puzzle? It’s quite simple:
A bat and a ball cost €1.10
The bat costs one euro more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost?
Our world is swamped with boring press releases.
I bet you: 70% don’t get anyone’s attention.
They are wasted time.
Most striking, companies, yes, even charities that have exciting stories to tell, indulge in the boring press release.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently: why do organisations invest so much time for little to no return?
One reason is what I call the Press Release Reflex (PRR).
This reflex says: “Whenever we do something, whatever it is, let’s publish a press release.”
It also exists in this version:
“We want to publish a press release. What can we say?”
No joke: some agencies advise their clients to publish a minimum number of releases per year. And a friend recently told me of a non-profit organisation that wants to publish plus ten releases in 2013. Read more…
Do you know this feeling?
You’ve written a good text.
You think it will touch readers’ nerves.
You hoping for response.
But now the text is out…and no response coming.
Wat went wrong?
Well, maybe it wasn’t much.
Maybe you just missed this one little thing…