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How to Create Perfect Documents Every Time

On August 1, 2017 / Email Writing, Wavelength Updates, Writing Skills

by Jody Bruner

No matter how good you are at what you do, documents with grammar mistakes will erode your corporate and personal credibility.

Proofreading is challenging for a couple of reasons. First, the mind tends to substitute correct words, “seeing” what was intended or what should be there instead of what is actually there. This tendency accounts for errors such as “She’s form Britain.”

Second, most of us tend to read far too quickly to spot all errors on a line of text. When we read at a normal pace, we fixate on a line of text in three or four places. We can only really see about six characters with each fixation, and everything else is picked up with our peripheral vision, which gets less and less accurate the further it is from the center. Read more →

5 Must-Read Books for Difficult Conversations

On July 11, 2017 / Book Reviews, Career Coaching

by Lesley Nevills

We all struggle at times to be articulate in face-to-face interactions, especially when the conversation is emotional, difficult or strategic. It’s hard to express yourself when you know the stakes or emotions are high. Being good at these critical conversations can enhance your credibility, boost your confidence, build an important relationship, or help get you that promotion or raise.

Luckily, there is help! I’d like to share 5 books that have helped me improve my communication skills over the years. Add them to your library, and you will find them useful at work and in life. Read more →

Is Your Social Media Persona Professional?

On June 20, 2017 / Career Coaching, Writing Skills

This is a guest blog written by Kim McLaughlin from Lyra Communications. Lyra is a social media company, that provides strategy, execution and consulting services for both consumer and professional service firms to help them retain existing clients and acquire new ones.

Emojis, exclamation marks, acronyms and kittens – the world of social media has turned the traditional rules of business writing on their heads.

Back in the day, the rules of writing were clearly defined given a company’s industry, target market and the preferences of its executives. But today those rules are blurred and there is often little difference between the kind of copy we see from a bank and an online jewelry store for teens.
Read more →

5 Tips for Writing Compelling Headlines

On June 2, 2017 / Email Writing, Writing Skills

by Rachel Eidan

Headline writing know-how is more important than ever as social media dominates how we interact with news, information, and networking.

Posts and updates are limited in length on most platforms which has created a culture of headline-style writing. Although you can share entire blog posts, your audience will need to click “read more” to get the full story. Writers, whether professionals on LinkedIn or marketers on Facebook, need to know how to grab their audience’s highly sought-after attention.

Fingers scroll fast, so headlines must hook even faster. Here are five strategies to help you capture your reader before your post falls to the bottom of their feed.

Email Writing Tips That Save Time

On May 23, 2017 / Email Writing, Wavelength Updates, Writing Skills

by Leigh Geraghty

Email is arguably the biggest success story of the Internet, and it’s no wonder! Consider its many benefits: email is fast, easy to use, convenient and inexpensive. However, all this convenience can backfire on us if we end up spending too much time writing, reading and managing emails.

Here are some writing tips that will save time for both you and your readers:

Tips for Learning Homophones

On May 4, 2017 / Wavelength Updates, Writing Skills

by Jody Bruner

Lots of good writers have difficulty with homophones—words that sound alike, but have different meanings and spelling. Hear and here is one example—there are lots more.

Spelling and grammar checkers have come a long way but are still fallible, especially when it comes to homophones. The  Spell Checker poem, which has been circulating since 1991, illustrates how a spell checker can be fooled. Go ahead and give it a try, your spell checker will only pick up two or three errors. Here are the first three stanzas: Read more →

How Yoga Can Improve Your Writing Skills

On April 20, 2017 / Writing Skills

by Lesley Nevills

When I first started practicing yoga, I had a lot of preconceived notions about what I could do physically. One teacher introduced me to a concept called beginner’s mind where you let go of assumptions and open yourself up to learning new ways of doing things. For example, the first time I tried to do a handstand, I worried that I didn’t have enough upper body strength to hold the pose. When I approached the handstand with a beginner’s mind, I let go of my fear and followed my teacher’s instructions step by step. Before I knew it, I was doing a handstand.

We can learn a lot by adopting a similar approach to our writing. By questioning assumptions about what you can say and what your readers need, your writing is more likely to be clear, concise, and persuasive.

Here are some tips to help you apply the beginner’s mind to your writing: Read more →

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

On April 3, 2017 / Career Coaching, Presentation Skills

by Sarah Maloney

Howsitgoin? Wanna grabba cuppa coffee? Have you heard colleagues speak this way? Have you spoken this way? Probably, we all have. Let’s step back for a moment and ask ourselves: what is our first impression of the speaker? Let’s put these casual contractions under a corporate magnifying glass.

As communication skills consultants, we work consistently with our learners to help them improve their professional images through their business communications. Recently, we’ve noticed that many of our learners are sabotaging their professional images when delivering presentations by using “informal contractions”.

We aren’t talking about contractions like “don’t” for do not or “we’ll” for we will. When you use a few of these contractions in your speech or your writing, you sound quite personable. However, some contractions can make you sound sloppy and unprofessional—like these examples:

Communication Tips for Change Management

On March 15, 2017 / Email Writing, Writing Skills

by guest blogger Siobhan Brown, Program Director at TidalShift Inc.

According to renowned change guru, John Kotter (2012), 70% of change initiatives in organizations and businesses fail. One of the major obstacles that hinder the overall success of change management programs is ineffective communications. This is partially due to lack of communication. When you are leading a change, you live, breathe and may even dream about the change. You are so engrossed by the change that you may feel it is not necessary to keep repeating it. However, the reality is, you cannot “over communicate” the change. When people don’t know what’s happening, what’s expected, or even why the change is occurring in the first place, they will likely make up the reasons—and their stories are usually far worse than the truth.

We need to talk. Love, your webcam

On March 2, 2017 / Meeting Skills, Presentation Skills, Wavelength Updates

by Amanda Bergen

In this digital age, video is king. It promises a more engaged audience and faster, more effective delivery of your message. But are you and your team making the best use of video capabilities when you turn on your webcams? Surveys and statistics show that most employees are allergic to their webcams, but if they use video conferencing effectively when communicating virtually, they can increase engagement, build trust, and speed up decision making. It’s not enough to know how to turn the webcam on—you also need to develop a new skill set to present yourself, and your ideas, in the best possible way. After all, if it came naturally we would all be vying for the anchor desk on Good Morning America.

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