Four ways to use your writing skills in a down economy

Writing is writing. Unless you write sonnets or haiku or dig iambic pentameter, if you can write, you can write. It's just a matter of doing it, learning how to apply your skill to the needs of a specific type of writing.

If you believe the prognosticators, 2009 is going to be a difficult year. And let's face it, in a down economy, if you get laid off today, it might be months before someone hires you to another "permanent" gig. Now is the time to expand your horizons and prove your writing flexibility. And if you can't prove it now, start laying the foundation so you can prove it later.

Here are a few possibilities to consider:

1. Technical writing. Technical writing doesn't mean computer manuals. A technical writer can develop anything from process documentation to recipes. If you can write instructions, you can write technical documentation. My first technical writing assignment was about playing baseball.
2. Blogging. If you aren't blogging, you need to. Blogs are great ways to build an online network. Combine your writing ability with a blog. If you're a technical writer who restores antiques, create a blog describing how to restore antiques.
3. Courseware. Courseware isn't much different than technical writing. You're providing steps that tell readers how to do things they need to do, and backing it up with exercises. The key is determining the most important thing users need to learn.
4. Press releases. Press releases are a specialized form of writing and require practice and instruction. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources on the Internet that can help you learn.

Whatever you do to expand your writing, you need to be able to prove you can produce output that will help someone make money. In other words, you need samples. If you can't get someone to pay you, volunteer your time. The local church or senior center could probably use some computer documentation. Local public-service organizations can always use press releases. The senior center might like to use your courseware to teach basic computer skills to seniors.

Whatever you do, get referenceable clients and a portfolio. And blog about it. Talk to people who write for a living. Offer to help if they need it.

Getting laid off is a horrifying experience. But expanding your skills and keeping the mortgage paid in spite of the obstacles can provide a heady high.

Method Writing

A guy named Lee Strassberg changed cinema in this country by popularizing a technical called method acting in the middle of the 20th Century. The concept behind method acting is simple: as an actor, you come as close as possible to re-creating the condition under which your character lived so you can fully understand his or her motivation and emotions. Method acting made a lot of money for people like Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, and Meryl Streep.

As much as possible, method acting is a construct that provides a basis for success in business, marketing, and technical writing.

In technical writing, method writing is easy: whenever possible, you should have done what you're documenting. If you're documenting how to use a program, you should use the program. If you're describing how to assemble something, you should assemble it. And if you're documenting a process, you should either perform the process, or spend a lot of time with someone who's performed it--enough time that you could perform the process with minimal supervision.

Granted, performing everything you write about isn't always feasible, but when you can, you should. And don't just talk to experts. Whenever possible, talk to the users or to the performers of the actions. I've learned valuable information about every major product I've documented from users, who can figure out shortcuts no one on the project team ever considered.

For business and marketing writing, a method approach would seem less of a match, but only at first glance. In almost every instance, my business writing really is marketing writing. Because whether your reader is a potential client, an internal resource you're trying to convince, or a boss whose confidence in you is invaluable, you're marketing something.

And the best way to reach your goal is, once again, to understand your audience and its needs. I've done ample ghost writing in my career. I've assisted my leaders in navigating tricky political situations, pursuading their bosses and stakeholders to take a specific position, and presenting product information to potential clients.

In each case, my success was tied to my knowledge: knowledge of the subject matter, the person for whom I was ghost writing, and the targets. When I ghost wrote for political circumstances, I asked as many questions about the targets of the piece I was writing, as about the content. Then I could present the material in a persuasive way that spoke to the target.

The most extreme cast came when I wrote a business plan for a startup to attract venture capital. We didn't get any venture capital, but the people who read the business plan loved it. At its heart, the business plan was a marketing document. We weren't trying to get people to buy our product, we were trying to convince them that we could make them money. So we deconstructed the original business plan and reconstructed telling the readers the story of how we could make them money.

Could it have been better? Well, we didn't get the capital we wanted, but the approach was right.

To paraphrase Gus Sands, Darrin McGavin's character in The Natural, you've got great talent, but it isn't enough. You can't write what you know until you know what you're writing.

One Message, Many Approaches

A little more than a year ago, I met with a communications expert, and several training experts to discuss our combined efforts for rolling out a company-wide application and business process for 30,000 across the United States.

We faced major hurdles: we couldn't communicate directly with most of our users and we couldn't require them to take training. We could, however, create training and make it available and we could contact them through their groups' internal newsletters.

We spent the first meeting covering one simple point: every single word we spoke, recorded, wrote, or disseminated had to speak to our main points or we didn't say it. It took us two weeks to assemble our talking points before we even started to design our various products.

Then, we went off and created a plethora of multi-media delights, from newsletters, to table placards, to online live and recorded demos, to content-rich on-line training, to townhall meetings, to a comprehensive FAQ and help file. The effort included marketing, change management, training, user acceptance training, and support. And through the entire process, when determining if we were on course, we went back to the talking points.

Our roll-out was as smooth as it could be, considering its constraints. But the process was enlightening. Our approach went beyond single sourcing. It combined our marketing, technical documentation, training, and change management approaches to assure that every aspect of the message was in sync across all components.

I've written technical documentation for nearly twenty years now, and never have I worked in a circumstance that allowed this convergence. Tech docs is content in their silo, adjacent to the developers--but not too close. Marketing sits someplace else. Training might talk with marketing, or might not. But an alliance between marketing, tech docs, and training is rare.

And that's too bad. If all user-facing activities, from marketing to end-user support, follow the same well-conceived and focused message, a user-focused approach is easier to develop and maintain. In a world where getting more with less is the rule, this approach is an easy, inexpensive way to serve customers and build loyalty.

How technical writing can be marketing writing.

If you ask technical writers if they write marketing materials, they will often turn up their noses at your insult. And if you ask marketing writers if technical writing is marketing, they won't be much happier with your question.

And yet, when done correctly, technical writing may be some of the most subtle marketing writing that will help you keep the customers you have. Here's how you can do it:

1. Write to keep customers. I've written everything from end-user click-this-to-do-that manuals to complex programmers guides. In most cases, the documentation was well received and added to the word-of-mouth buzz among users, regardless of the complexity of the application. Writing a manual, it might seem, is easy. If you can't do that correctly, why should I expect you to program the application any better? Write it well, and users will notice, and tell people.
2. Be positive. When your customer uses the manual, you've already made the sale, so you don't need to market them, right? Wrong. Users talk to users and you want them to say good things. Highlight how your product's features are useful. Try to get in your users' heads and tell them specifically how to exploit your product to make their lives better or easier. If possible, provide samples. You want them to love your product, and you can help make that happen.
3. Write with an eye to future enhancements. If you know your product has functionality holes and the solutions are in the pipeline, tell your users. It builds trust because you're showing you understand their work. The issues better be relatively minor, though, and you'd better deliver on the promise.
4. Solicit feedback. Add an e-mail address and ask your users to pass along their feedback. When they respond, thank them for doing so and acknowledge what they said. You don't necessarily have to instantly solve every problem, but if you work with your support function to craft appropriate responses, your user community will respond.
5. Support can be a marketing tool, too. If your company has support functionality, include support contact info in your manuals and online help.

As the online world moves toward more interaction, these steps can add immeasurable value to your users. Marketing shows your users that they'll get return on the investment they make to use your product. Your writing, and the steps you take around it, should clearly demonstrate that value.

Following these steps will provide that demonstration, whether you write manuals or just get to deal with the users on a regular basis.

Is your information appropriate for an e-mail?

In the world of online communications in 2008/2009, e-mail is one of many arrows in your quiver. It's not the only possibility for you to use in getting out your message.

Facebook/Linked In/Ning/Etc.
Social networking is The Next Big Internet Thing(TM). Its usage has largely been confined to teens and young adults posting pictures on My Space, but that's changing. Businesses are finding social networking sites are a cost-effective and efficient method for getting the word out.

Facebook is like MySpace for adults. It has a cleaner, more professional appearance, but still allows for networking. It also includes pages, which businesses can use as an online business card. As of June 2008, Facebook included an astounding 132 million users. Best of all, it's free. And its demographics are surprisingly diverse. According to its own numbers, its fastest-growing demographic is 25 and older.

Facebook allows you to post content, including posts, messages, videos, and events. It also allows you to post messages that show up on other users' home pages.

LinkedIn is a professional version of Facebook that allows you to create a network of professional contacts. It's a great tool for workers in industries with a significant number of consultants or turnover. Recruiters for major companies often have LinkedIn accounts.

Ning allows you to create group websites. If you have a finite number of customers, you can offer a Ning network to communicate with them, provided they sign up. They can also create blogs, post pictures, and post to forums.

All three allow you to include links in your profile to websites and other supporting information. All three are easy to use, allowing you to set up a profile in one sitting. However, to set up your own Ning website takes longer.

None of the three require you to employ developers to implement.

Twitter
Twitter is a very simple tool that is growing like wildfire. Its concept is simple: you can post--or tweet--strings of up to 140 characters, including links to external website. Twitter users can follow other users, which results in those users' posts appearing in their Twitter stream. When a Twitter use sees something to which he or she would like to respond, a reply function creates that reply, but also displays that reply to all users.

Users can also "retweet" which effectively forwards the Tweet from the original user's network of followers to the new user's network. Although Twitter can be an effective business tool, using it solely for promotional purposes can result in your losing followers.

A coffee house in Houston recently started accepting orders via Twitter and found its sales growing significantly. You can also use Twitter to post updates to blogs or websites, or to let users know about events.

Conclusion
Social Networking is becoming a tool for keeping in touch, but also to reach your customer base. In instances where e-mail isn't the perfect medium, consider these approaches.

Next: Blogging.