simonyoungwriters.com

A belated happy new year to you. We’ve been back at work since early January, building some systems to make 2008 run smoothly for our clients.

Peter Day’s broadcast on craft in business caught my attention during the break. In an age of automation, efficiency and scalability, writing is a bespoke, hand crafted thing. We can design our processes to produce customised, high quality writing as efficiently as possible, but it is ultimately the quality that counts most.

In some industries, such as publishing and entertainment, this is an established truth (although the recent Hollywood Writers’ strike shows the constant danger of undervalued writing).

In other industries, such as web development, it’s either taken for granted, or an afterthought.

That’s why the strategy we’re pursuing this year is relationships. Writing is often not valued until you see what things look like without it. (Here’s an extreme example.)

On the other side of the coin, good writing can make the difference between good and great communication.
Next week, we’ll talk about the magic of storytelling, and how it makes the difference in anything from a casual conversation to an instruction manual.

(Photo courtesy of cimonoregal)