Device independent: Words to avoid online

 Content delivery, Technology, User experience  No Responses »
May 192013
 

With responsive design, RSS, mobile and direct traffic to websites, there are some words to avoid when writing for online audiences.

Let’s take this site for example. Depending on how you are viewing it, the pictures might appear on the right or on the top of the content. The sidebar might be below all the homepage posts (especially on mobile) and not on the right where it would be on a desktop or laptop computer. But the posts might look different, yet, in the email newsletter or in an RSS reader.

Some words may not work across platforms and devices.

Some examples of words to potentially avoid

“Pictured at right/below”
Depending on the site’s design and the user’s device the picture might not be at right but instead below. This blog, as mentioned, uses responsive design and pictures show differently on different devices.

This also doesn’t work as nicely if posts are automatically fed into an email newsletter. The post might say “the picture below” but email readers actually have to click over to the website to see the picture and the rest of the post.

Solution: Don’t use the phrases. Use self-explanatory pictures and/or add a caption/cutline. Don’t even call the photos out in the copy. They should work without saying: At right….

“After the jump”
I don’t see this all that often anymore but I do see this. This refers to that the story continues after clicking on a link (and stems from the newspaper industry where stories jumped from the front page and continued on another page).

This works for readers who are visiting the site’s homepage. “After the jump” makes sense to them. But this doesn’t work on RSS feeds or if somebody has a direct link to the article. It’s not necessary for those readers and might not even make sense.

“As mentioned above”
I usually notice this in books (on my iPad Kindle) where the author says this and whatever is supposed to be above is actually on a previous page.

Solution: Say “as mentioned earlier” or avoid this altogether.

Not words: Some picture alignments or naming conventions don’t work
We might as well assume that everything that is typed into a picture field or on WordPress will be public somewhere.

At United Way of East Central Iowa, where I’m currently the VP of Communications and Innovation, we publish a monthly Young Leaders Society profile. The one about Amber Doyle can be found here.

20130518-143010.jpgAs you can see in the first screen grab the web version has no text with her and her family’s photo. (By the way, did you notice how I didn’t say: The screen grab ON THE RIGHT? It’s hard not to. I caught myself wanting to write ON THE RIGHT. Because as I’m writing this it indeed will be ON THE RIGHT, but some of you will see it ABOVE.)

But check out the second picture, which is how this same post displayed in Flipboard, an iPad reading app. The title of the picture shows up here “Amber Doyle cropped,” which is what I called this picture when I cropped it. But why do my readers have to see this?

20130519-182611.jpg

Main take-aways

Words matter, especially in our online blog posts. As devices continue to evolve it’s important for us – the content producers – to consider how our chosen words add value to our consumers.

If we say to check out the picture below, but it’s not below, that doesn’t add value. It might even be confusing. Saying that a photo is “cropped” is only useful for internal purposes.

How do we remember this? Some words, are just good to eliminate completely (see above), but I’m sure we’ll run across more examples down the road. At that point we’ll just learn from those.

- Christoph

From Germany to Iowa

 Storytelling  No Responses »
May 102013
 

Note: This will be part of a book about German American history, traditions, festivals and recipes that Penfield Books of Iowa City is scheduled to publish in 2013. Published here with the writer’s permission.

By Mary Sharp

Christoph Trappe was sixteen years old when he left Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1995 and moved half a world away to go to high school in Iowa City, Iowa.

He’s now 35, a U.S. citizen, and one of the top young professionals in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

When Christoph arrived in the United States, he was a foreign exchange student at Iowa City West High School. He played football there two years and was recruited to continue playing at the University of Iowa, where he was a scholarship player for four years, graduating with a degree in journalism in 2001.

Christoph worked for daily newspapers in Muscatine, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and then for a video training company. He became a U.S. citizen in 2008 and is now vice president of communications and innovation for United Way of East Central Iowa in Cedar Rapids.

He also married Rachel Ott, and their daughter Sophie is now five.
Which has to count as quite a story in anyone’s book.

“You set a goal and kind of go for it,” Christoph says.

Christoph is a big guy and started getting interested in American football when he was thirteen and playing club games in Germany, where he met some U.S. football players, including former Iowa Hawkeyes. Then he saw Joe Montana and the 49ers play a pre-season NFL game in Berlin.

“I was hooked,” he says.

Continue reading »

Volunteer App Mentioned in President’s Report

 Technology, User experience  No Responses »
May 092013
 

“The app was the result of a conversation between United Way Vice President of Communications and Innovation Christoph Trappe and local app developer Karl Becker of KarlBecker.com.” Good things happen from conversations!

More from The Gazette here.

From the United Way of East Central Iowa Marketing Blog:

Our iPhone volunteer app was mentioned in this report for the George H. W. Bush Volunteer Generation Fund on page 50. The mention says that our app makes “volunteer opportunities more accessible.” You can download the app here.

volunteer generation fund mentioned by president

 

Email news: Easy to sign up – Drop Card in Bowl

 Marketing, Observations, User experience  No Responses »
May 072013
 

I admit it. I’m lazy. I don’t want to fill out long forms (on paper or online) to sign up for email newsletters. You might not want to either.

20130507-193840.jpgWith that in mind this caught my eye at the ImpactCR table at the Corridor Welcome Reception at the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance on May 7, 2013.

This is so easy. Leave your card in the bowl to stay in touch. No lengthy sign-up required.

The easier the sign-up the more likely I am to get on the list, especially if I’m on the fence on whether to sign up or not.

Full disclosure: I’m on the ImpactCR Board, staffed the table that night but had nothing to do with the set-up. Thanks, Mallory Mohwinkle!

20130507-193928.jpg

(Filed from my iPhone)

Good stories have automatic details

 Storytelling  No Responses »
Apr 272013
 

Traffic ticket storyDuring storytelling sessions in 2013 I’ve caught myself referring back to stories I wrote between 2003 and 2007 while working for The Gazette. One of those was a look at traffic tickets. Overall, I learned that if people fought their ticket there was a 50-50 chance that their fine was reduced or the ticket was dismissed. Of course, the newspaper article didn’t stop there and shared stories from people who actually did that.

The Example

One of those stories involved a Tiffin woman who told the judge that she could not have been speeding because she was driving by a church and always says a prayer when she drives along that stretch of road. Had she been speeding she would not have had enough time to finish the prayer, she said.

The Added Details

I share this story with the details above verbally during presentations and training sessions on how to tell a good story. I then ask the audience: “What did the church look like? Who can describe it to me?”

Usually a handful of hands go up.

“It was a white church, near the street.”

“It was built with bricks, brown. The front door was white.”

Other descriptions follow. None match up, of course. How could they? I didn’t describe what the church looked like. I don’t actually know what it looked like.

How do people know? I’ve asked groups this and typically the answer goes something like this:

“That was just how I pictured it.”

Good Stories are Memorable

Perhaps, engaging and interesting stories draw people in so much that they add some of the details themselves? They visualize the story and fill in the unmentioned details based on their own experiences? Is that possible?

I’m not saying we should leave out details that are necessary for a story, but perhaps good stories that are engaging are more memorable because they provide a visual in a person’s mind.

Perhaps the takeaway for us storytellers: Share the basics. Share only what really needs to be shared. The listener imagines some of the other details and remembers your story later on.

The Wrap

What’s the point of sharing this?

First of all, I heard these answers first in casual conversation during a group session. I’d never put much thought into people doing this. I started asking groups I was speaking to more deliberately. I started to hear a recurring theme: People add their own details to a good story. It just happens.

Second of all, it made me think about what details to share. For this kind of story there are all kinds of things that could be shared:

  1. What kind of road she was driving on.
  2. The type of her car.
  3. The weather.
  4. Details about the police car or the police offer.
  5. Etc.

But would those details when told actually add to the story? Probably not. In fact, a listener might tune the storyteller out if there are too many potentially unnecessary details.

Sometimes even typically important  facts might not be that important. For example, when I share this story in presentations I never mention how fast the ticket said she was going or what the speed limit was on that road. And, nobody ever asks. Perhaps, while traditionally this might be considered an important fact, it doesn’t actually add all that much to the gist of the story.

Gang investigator reminds how social media and offline can connect

 Content delivery, Social media  No Responses »
Apr 142013
 

This article over at Fox 13 News out of Salt Lake City was a good reminder how social medial (even if not used by a person) and somebody’s appearance in an offline place can connect.

From the article:
Simonelli says he learned about Instagram the hard way; one of his sources informed him that a local gang member had snapped a picture of Simonelli while he was out to dinner with his family. That photo was put on Instagram with a derogatory remark about police.

“I had no idea about it until it was provided to me,” he said. ”As I explain to cops, teachers, everybody, you always have to be watching your surroundings. You never know, I didn’t see that individual take a picture of me. Doesn’t take long for anybody to take a quick picture on a phone nowadays.”

This is something I continue to talk about in social media presentations.

Do I have a right to privacy when I walk my dog? Probably not. Can somebody take my picture and post it wherever? Probably.

It will feel awkward, perhaps, but can they do it? Sure. Is it legal in all instances to take somebody’s picture and post it? Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean people won’t try.

People thinking about doing this, though, might consider this: How will the other person feel if I post this photo? Will it help us build a better connection? Will they be happy or embarrassed?

Taking a photo of a person speaking to a group about public communication (which I do from time to time) they probably won’t mind if you post it. They might even appreciate it. I know I do.

But what if you take a not-so-flattering picture of them? WIll they feel the same positive way? Maybe not. I know I’ve taken pictures of people speaking at events and they didn’t turn out very flattering. So, I didn’t post them.

Perhaps the question to ask: How would I feel if I was the person in the picture?

When in doubt: Ask. “Would it be OK to post this picture?”

Some people – including the gang members mentioned in the Fox article – wouldn’t do that, but it could help build connections and share something publicly at the same time.

Book Review: “Idea-Links – the new creativity” by Jim Link

 Books, Change, Storytelling  No Responses »
Apr 132013
 

Find the book here.

Q: Why did you read this book?
Julie Zielinski, the VP of marketing and strategy at the EDC, recommended the book to me during a strategic planning meeting.

I like to think of myself as a creative professional, but I never put much thought into where that creativity comes from or how and why I get a creative idea at a point in time. When Julie suggested this book and shared a quick summary of it, I was sold and started reading.

I’m always interested in learning new things, so this seemed like a good fit from that perspective, too.

Q: What is the book about?
The book explains the structure of linking ideas from one area to projects in another unrelated field.

By looking at the world and making mental notes of things around us, we can actually implement ideas from unrelated fields and advance our own industry’s current state.

The book, for example, mentioned how the Prius gives its driver instant feedback on how much fuel is being used. The book mentions how drivers like this and even try to get more miles per gallons out of their vehicles.

The book talks about how this phenomenon could be used in other industries. For example, in a home: If you keep this light on here’s how much the bill will be.

Another example that I found interesting was of the Oregon Ducks college football team. The team ran plays every 13 seconds, which compares to an average of more than 34 seconds for other teams.

How did the coaches speed up the game so much? They looked at other industries that were fast. And who is fast? The fast food industry, of course. McDonald’s, for example. You drive up and say “One No. 2, please.” And they know you want a drink, fries and two cheeseburgers.

Speeds up the process, doesn’t it? The team took that concept and translated it to the field. Instead of calling a play through a number of words, they communicated it through one sign!

The coach took a process from another unrelated field and applied it to his own profession.

The book puts structure around creativity. Some people, who we might call creative, already do some of this but can’t explain what they just did when they do it. This book puts a process around creativity and how to find new ideas, store them somewhere for later recall and then implement some of those ideas.

Q: Would you recommend the book to others?
Absolutely. As the Creative Corridor continues to grow and evolve in the coming years, I believe this book can help creatives be even more creative and people who might not consider themselves creative be creative.

This also appeared in the April 13 print edition of the Corridor Business Journal.

TV Broadcast Leads to Connection with United Way 2-1-1

 Etc.  No Responses »
Apr 112013
 

Note: This first appeared on the United Way of East Central Iowa Marketing blog.

The marketing team at United Way is helping the organization execute on a multi-channel storytelling plan. In other words, we try to share our stories on as many channels as possible. Typically, we think of this in terms of how can we share our stories in the most effective way and reach people who care where ever they are.

On April 11, 2013, this led to a bit of a different result and we were able to send a person in the right direction to get help.

Here’s how it all unfolded:
On March 25, 2013, we held a forum discussing Adverse Childhood Experiences, an event that was attended by 220 people. We recorded this forum and shared the video on our website – as we normally do. In addition, KCRG also offered to rebroadcast the entire two-hour event on its 9.2 channel. Thank you KCRG! They have been showing it numerous times these past few days.

On Day 4 of the broadcasts, I received a phone call from a person who had a question about the show. She said she came home and caught part of the program and noticed that somebody mentioned drug abuse on the program. Before the program she was looking to find help for another person and decided to call KCRG to get more information based on what she just heard.

KCRG referred her to me. When she called me, at first I thought she just wanted more information on the event. You can still watch it at UnitedWayofEastCentralIowa.org/ACEs-Event.

As we continued to talk I learned that she was actually looking for resources related to drug abuse. Of course, I knew to refer her to United Way 2-1-1 where an operator could try to help her find the right resource.

Why am I sharing this, you might ask? Here at United Way we try to share relevant information to connect the community, raise funds to fix community issues and improve the community as a whole in our focus areas.

Sharing the ACEs information is important and can help us improve the community of the future. And by partnering – for example with KCRG in this case – we can help people find resources that can help them.

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