6/4 Class: Wrap Up (and Ship Out)

A Bit of Review
Class Theme: Targeted Communication

• Clearly responding to needs of task and audience
• Have specific purpose
• Audience assessment should be integral in writing process
• writing exercises (see Tariel's blog post)
• Bridget on her presentation tips (see Bridget's blog post): hand drawing slides is especially useful. Tests your knowledge of your slides. Purpose of this practice is to know info so well that you're not thinking about what you're going to say; you're just saying it. Have a conversation with the audience rather than sounding memorized.

Applying good writing strategies to job application

• Job announcement example: Tribal Forester for Santo Domingo Pueblo (Note: the pay scale for this job seems to disgust Monica. Message: an Indian trible is a long way from a tech company.)
• Using job description, highlight requirements that you can actually do
• Underline things that you are not qualified for and see how you can "fudge" them in your cover letter or resume
• Place job description side by side with cover letter and resume to see how they reflect job requirements

Writing a strong cover letter

• formatting tip: | Create header | stationary by | using vertical line key | above return key.| Note: use at your own risk. This technique is not sanctioned by Bren Career Development.

Cover Letter Introduction

• specifically target company
• shouldn't look like a form letter
• state which group you want to work in or the position you want
• mention master's degree next
• sweet sentence: "...school's rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum, coupled with my professional experience, have provided me with the skills to succeed in a position requiring analytical research, discretionary analysis, and effective collaboration."

Craft your bullet points wisely

• need to work well, shouldn't look like a paragraph
• option: bold bullet titles (truly state of the art)
• have consistency with bullets (not like this). Use colon or periods (em dashes are also pretty badass).
• Market yourself. Use the word "led" wherever possible.
• Employers want strong writing skills so use concrete examples. Example: "Read 80 pages and produced a 2 page summary memo in 48 hours."
• If attaching lots of files, state names of files in email
• Question: What if cover letter bullets are too similar to resume?
  
• Answer: Bullets in resume should be more extensive and highlight/emphasize elements of the resume
• How to beat the resume machine: Machine will be looking for key words that maps to job description. Make sure these words are in your resume and cover letter or you will be TERMINATED (yah, I just saw the movie)
• Keep audience in mind when formatting
• For instance, Oxford is very proper and old-fashioned (hence all the white uniforms at Wimbledon) so anything bold might gravely offend them
• How the goverment operates: bold is better when it comes to bullets. (If the Feds only read the bolded text, why does it take them twice as long to read it?)
• When applying without existing job description: Make cover letter display and wide range of abilities that could apply to a number of positions OR write a cover letter for your ideal job.

Email Etiquette (avoiding the #%$! storm)

• Generate positive outcomes from bad news emails
  
• Most important to consider: What is the audience (person you're on the verge of an email firestorm with) hoping to get out of this
• Give person/ group an 'A' (flatter, praise, suck up, give 'em that "damn right I'm awesome" feeling
• Can't take attitude that you're the only one giving 100%. Have to assume that everyone is giving their best and state this recognition.
• These situations happen frequently in collaborative projects
• Don't take yourself so damn seriously!
• Bold move from Monica: Shows examples from her personal email. Monica, a model of transparency.
• Purpose of Monica's email was to activate many people to solve an ongoing problem created by a single person.
• Words that activate people: "let's pool our collective expertise", "let's work together"
• Look for positives in the negative email
• Use a little humor
• Avoid burning bridges. Important thing is to stay professional.
• Always think about what possible outcomes might come from an email, especially in the long run. How can this help me in the long run?
  
• Sometimes you just have to brush your shoulder off.
• If it's really serious set up a face to face to resolve it.
• Sager shows me his Hooters pen. I give a chuckle. Ah shucks.
• Best strategy: when things get heated then step back. Wait. Deep breath. Clear head. Look at big picture.

Writing for a call to action or outreach

• Problem statement
• Your stance on it
• Very clear message
• Action phrases
• A call to legislative action can serve 2 purposes. The messages goes to Congress but also sells people on whatever stance you support.

Monica thanks the students. No, Monica...Thank you. Thank you.

--Lucas Bare

Authoritative Nonsense: Professional and Creative Writing Exercise

1. Write a short paper (up to 1-2 pages) explaining or describing a topic about which you know nothing.

2. You can explain or describe a concept, how to do something, or how something works.

3. This piece should be written in an authoritative style - pretend that you are an expert on the subject. What you write can be completely ridiculous, but the tone and style must be serious, authoritative, and professional.

4. Do not do any research on the topic.

5. This exercise can be written in 15-20 minutes. However, more time can be spent writing, if desired.

The piece will probably be funny, if not absurd.

Although this is a creative writing exercise, it is particularly relevant to people who practice professional, academic, and scientific writing. It is an exercise in writing in an authoritative and convincing style - even if it is completely ridiculous. By divorcing the authoritative and professional writing style from a real subject requiring any expert knowledge, the writer is required to focus on the qualities of authoritative professional writing rather than being distracted by research, facts, and reality. Additionally, the creative aspect helps develop general writing skill.

Doing this exercise with a group of people is very funny and entertaining...it is also a good way to compare writing styles.


--Tariel Naxon

Random Bowls: Creative Writing Experimentation and Exploration

The purpose of this exercise is to stimulate the creative process and develop your writing ability. The random nature of this exercise challenges the writer to creatively and spontaneously write a story. The point is not to write a masterpiece. Therefore, do not worry about the quality of your writing. This is a time for experimentation and the exploration of your creativity and writing ability. Although this writing exercise is a creative writing technique (e.g. novels, poetry, playwrighting), it can be beneficial for developing any writing style.

I learned this technique from award winning playwright and author, Luis Alfaro. He claims he practices this simple exercise for at least ten minutes every morning.

Random Bowls

1. Designate three bowls or another type of container as "subject", "action/activity/event", and "goal/purpose" respectively.

2. Write a word or sentence fragment on a small piece of paper. Or, you can cut them out of newspapers and magazines.

3. Repeat the above step using different words or sentence fragments until you have at least several pieces of paper.

4. Place these pieces of paper in the three bowls.

5. Sit down ready to write.

6. Without looking, draw one piece of paper at random from each of the bowls so that you will have drawn a "subject", "action", and "goal".

7. Write a story based on your random subject, action, and goal.

8. Write for at least ten minutes. Write longer, if you feel inspired.

9. Practice this exercise daily or occassionally, as desired.

--Tariel Naxon

Suggestions for developing a memorable presentation

1. Work with your group to determine what you want to say, but not how you want to say it.

2. Fancy words don’t matter when presenting, people tend to hear whatever you say in their own words anyway—fancy words are for writing, not speaking.

3. After you know what you want to say generally, write a script.

4. Memorize that script pretty well, but don’t worry about slipping up on one to words—you’re going to try and forget that script soon anyway. Consider different approaches to memorization: speaking out loud, typing, writing by hand, and mentally reviewing.

5. At least once, go through the script by memory and hand draw all the slides; make bullet points of what you are suppose to say on each slide—bullets should include hard facts that you have to say, but not full sentences.

6. Start practicing the script intentionally phrasing in different ways—or better stated, practice without trying to determine whether or not you are saying it exactly as the script was written.

7. Work with a person one-on-one who will give you critical advice about what isn’t working.

8. Practice for critical points (facts). Do not try and say the exact same thing every time—it is unnatural. We can almost never repeat back the exact same phrasing of anything we say—we know basically what we said, the main point and the general tone, but we rarely know the exact wording. Speeches become obviously memorized when you are mentally searching for a specific word rather than a concept.

9. Get to know the information thoroughly, then relax a little.

10. Don’t act, most of us are bad at acting and it shows. Don’t try to “present”, try to explain (e.g., one client at the GP defense remarked “I didn’t know I was going to a play”).

11. Practice a lot. Practice with different people—it’s hard to get excited or sound interesting when you are talking to people who know exactly what you are going to say.

12. Be yourself on stage, if you like hand movements, use them, if you like walking on stage do so, consider other people’s advice on the best style, but be confident that the audience actually wants to see you as a person—they aren’t as interested in seeing you try to be someone else.

13. If you know the information, if you have practiced, if you know the point of the story and what you want people to understand, then little slip-ups the day of or other life events that suddenly dominate your brain won’t throw you off as much.

14. Have confidence in yourself. You are smart, you know the information, and people are interested.

--Bridget Dobrowski

6/2 Class: Guest Speaker Tracy Barba

Guest Speaker: Tracy Barba (Director of Marketing for Duarte Design, Inc)

In today’s class, Tracy presented strategies for interacting with the press. She provided an overview on interacting with the media and some helpful interviewing tips that she has acquired over her 15 years in the marketing field.

Preparation: Take a strategic approach

• Target what you want the reporter to learn from you whether it be on new material or in response to material that is already circulating.
• It is good to look at what are the top stories, what reporters are writing about, what is the slant of the stories (i.e. human focus stories such as profiles of CEOs as would be found in Forbes magazine), and what their readers care about.
  
• After learning about what the audience wants, then you can start the process of talking to a number of different reporters or journalists or bloggers
  
• Best interviews have been when reporters are just looking for information and do not have a particular angle in mind, but are just about having a conversation
• Use a conversational format in order to build rapport with the reporter for future meetings
• Reporters often do not have time to do research, so wrapping the information or research you are doing around a particular trend that is going on, or a trend that the reporter likes to cover can be helpful for them
• Synthesizing information can also be a very helpful way of building a relationship with a reporter
• If you can tie your research into something that, for example, the local community can relate to, is something that can be very effective and gives the audience proof points
• It might be a good approach to frequently check in with a reporter, follow the pieces they write, and take notes of topics they write about or are interested in and then shoot them an email and fill them in on something you know or are currently researching. It is a way of keeping them informed and often times the reporter will appreciate it.
  
• Focus on relationship building

Interviewing Tips

• Having 2-3 things that you really want to convey to the reporter about your company or product is very important. Have statistics and facts readily available
  
• Dialogue is key - ask follow-up questions, ask the interviewer if the interview is going in the right direction or if there is anything else that they want to know about
  
• Always assume that everything you say to a reporter is on the record
  
• Need to be more cautious about junior reporters because they are still learning and finding their own voice and are using a lot of different tactics, as opposed to more seasoned senior reporters
  
• Best way to be prepared for interviews with junior reporters is to just keep in mind 2-3 key things that you want to convey and to try and relate those things with a trend

Reasons you might get quoted:

1. You are seen as an authority on the topic because of your research and knowledge
2. Something you say is edgy or funny - don’t be afraid to be funny, you might say something that challenges conventional wisdom or relates to a popular trend
3. If there is a human element to it, it is more likely to attract the attention of the reporter
4. Reporters love “firsts” – good way to get their attention

The Don'ts and "other" guidelines

• Never do a cold interview! Always feel like you have the ability to tell your interviewer that you need some time and that you will call them back, or ask if they can shoot you over some questions that you two can talk about.

• Think of the questions as conversation starters, do not necessarily just answer the question. It's good to answer the questions asked, but then be able to bridge the interview to something that you would like to talk about or something you think the reporter might be interested in.

• Be respectful of commitments you make - remember that reporters are on a deadline and if you commit to doing an interview, you should stick to it. It is a good way to build a trustful relationship with a reporter.

--Julie Randall & Nikki Maciejowski