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March 2019

Mar 31

Observations and Insights

By Communication theory, content, Contract theory, Uncategorized

What’s the difference between an observation and an insight? Insights are generally based on observations but they go further. They’re generally unexpected, and they have real value to the reader.

They often require joining some dots and give an ah ha moment to the person who discovers them or is told them for the first time. They are often the product of asking the question “why?”

People generally read text for insights but they want to be able to see that the observations are there to back those insights up.

Mar 30

Conversational context

By Uncategorized

Sometimes people write stuff up for the benefit of those they’ve just had a conversation with. And what you often get is an aide memoire for both parties, and that’s perfectly fine. But if you then hand the same piece of writing to someone who wasn’t in on that conversation, and you present it as a report, the results can be quite confusing.

Think of the whole transaction as the white and the yolk. What was said is the white and what is written is the yolk. The yolk can seem like the concentrated essence of the egg, but that’s not really the case. They’re two different things. If you’re going to help people who weren’t in the room at the time of the conversation to understand what went on, you’re going to need to include some context.

 

 

 

 

Mar 30

Value Exchange

By Uncategorized

When we give attention to a piece of text it’s almost always because we think we’re going to get something out of reading it. That’s a value exchange and if you’re not giving your readers any value, you won’t build any readers. The only exception to this is if you’re working in a coercive environment where you can penalise people for failing to read. Good luck with that to anyone writing outside North Korea.

(See also the difference between and observation and an insight.)

Mar 30

Larry McEnerney

By Uncategorized

According to McEnerney, every successful piece of academic writing has the same structure. It goes like this:

“You and many others think X. But I’m here to tell you that you and they, are wrong.” By the end of the paper you have been sold Y which is right. And being corrected represents the value exchange for the effort you’ve put into reading it.

On the Copycourse, we don’t see that as very different from a piece of marketing writing. Marketing writing goes as follows:

“You’ve be doing X. But X is something of a problem. We’re here to tell you there it’s easier if you do Y.”

By the end of the marketing communication you have been sold Y. And the possibility of having a marginally better or easier life represents the value exchange for paying attention to the message.

So in case you’ve ever wondered about the difference between marketing communication and academic communication, the answer is that fundamentally they’re the same structure.

Mar 25

Dove

By Uncategorized

Dove took a very ordinary soap and found what was at the time a very extraordinary proposition. At the heart of this leap forward was research which told Dove what everyone already knew but had never really identified properly. Namely that women filtred out most marketing messages delivered by models because they weren’t real women.

More Dove

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