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When you write for an organization, it's hard not to commit writing sins. Everything is lined up against you: crushing deadlines, limited access to information, exhausting approval processes, boring topics, [...]

Oscar Wilde once said: 'There is no sin except stupidity.' He obviously never met any corporate communicators. We commit lots of sins. Lots of writing sins, to be specific. In [...]

Welcome to the second installment in our ongoing series about what communicators can learn from the media in the 'real world.' Most communicators love to benchmark against other companies--and they [...]

Note: This is the third in a four-part series on the new roles communicators are adopting as the profession changes around us. Scene: The CEO's office at a midsize company. [...]

In the last issue, we painted a dreary picture of what it would be like for a communicator applying for a job five years from now with only 'old-fashioned' skills [...]

As companies start to reject business buzzwords, it may be time to start trying to salvage these phrases What would we do without business buzzwords? What would we do if [...]

Writing for organizations is hard. Being creative inside organizations is harder. Sometimes it seems everything is set up to prevent us from creating the kind of content that people will [...]

Welcome to the third installment of the 'Seven Deadly Sins of Organizational Writing' series. We're getting close to the end. Redemption is in sight. Do you feel cleansed yet? Have [...]

Is print dead? That's one of the most common questions I get in my communication seminars. Bald my answer is always the same. Nope. Not by a long shot. But [...]

As a consultant, I get a lot of requests from clients who want to 'benchmark best practices' with other companies. In other words, they want to see what other communicators [...]

There are a lot of bad words out there. And most of them can be found inside companies, where good people use bad words for the wrong reasons. You'll encounter [...]

When trying to do creative communication in an organization, you face a lot of hurdles. Stifling approval processes, managers who are scared to death of trying anything new, lawyers who [...]

Note: This is the final installment in our series on the evolving role of the modern communicator. Here, Steve Crescenzo introduces to you the model for the future of communication: [...]

Scene: A typical human resources office, somewhere in the bowels of a large organization, in the year 2015. Like many HR offices, the space is bland, with very little personality--just [...]

In the last issue of CW, we talked about how dangerous being creative in the corporate world can be--if it's done for the wrong reasons. You can't be creative for [...]

There is a downside to doing creative communication--namely, if you don't do it for the right reasons, your entire career could be at risk. Note: This column is the first [...]

I first met Kevin Heinrichs when he was working for Petro-Canada. He attended a writing seminar I conducted in Vancouver, British Columbia, and at one of the breaks, he showed [...]

Admit it: You're a social media junkie. You're hooked, and you know it. It started with a harmless Facebook page that you barely paid attention to. But then you fell [...]

Translators know that if they walk out of the interview without understanding the topic themselves, there is no way they can write an article that anyone else will understand. In [...]

Remember the bad old days of corporate communication, when pulling information out of the workforce was like pulling teeth? When finding good stories was as hard as finding a book [...]

Let's face it: As corporate communicators, we don't get to write about 'sexy' topics. We don't get to write about wars, or politics, or sex. We don't even get to [...]

Remember when you used to have creative juices surging through your body and oozing out of your pores? You were just out of college, maybe, and filled with ideas. New [...]

I have a routine that I go through at least once a week. I pour myself a glass of wine and grab a stack of about 100 employee publications to [...]

As corporate editors, we sometimes struggle with what role we're supposed to fill in our organizations. Are we supposed to be a champion of the people? Are we supposed to [...]

By doing just one thing, you can turn the CEO column from a space-wasting bore into a dynamic communication tool. And that one thing is: make the column interactive. Let [...]

Some companies spend millions on charitable endeavors in order to build a good reputation in their communities, not realizing that individual employees can undermine that reputation every time they open [...]

Imagine this: You're sitting at your desk, checking your fantasy baseball scores and trying to figure out what to have for dinner, when the CEO walks in. You've never actually [...]

So, you want to do a readership survey on your employee publication, huh? Well, good for you. It's always a good idea to reach out to the huddled masses and [...]

Doing video is easy these days, but doing good video takes time, thought and creativity. Used properly, video is a way to capture emotion, passion, humor and personality. It's a [...]

The Contra Costa Times is among the newspapers that have decided to extend their brand identities onto the World Wide Web. In July 1997, the paper's Web site Hot CoCo was awarded an Edgie award by the Newspaper Association of America's New Media Federation for papers with circulations of between 75,000 and 150,000. Altogether, there are 600 US daily newspapers with online addresses, and a Jupiter Communications source said that the most successful merely strengthen their current brand identities in the new media forum., If a serious news organization decides to name its Web site Hot CoCo, it had better be damn good. After all, it's hard to imagine newshounds logging on to the [...]

The article focuses on several roles that communicators have to adopt in the corporate communication while working in the social media sector. As stated, the social media and new media fields require talented communicators with good personalities. The communicator has to be a big picture painter, community organizer and creative strategist.

Presents a list of ideas, thoughts and opinions that came out of the `Strategic Employee Publications' seminar series. Best and worst articles; Weirdest power struggle; Best way to handle fluff.

Provides guidelines in achieving credibility in the information presented in an employee publication. Factors influencing the credibility of editors; Consideration on the characteristics of the employees and the management in the articles; Ways to build credibility in articles.

Offers tests that editors of company newsletters should use to determine whether certain articles should be included in their publications. Call for the cancellation of `roving reporter' features; Aim of improving publication sections; Ways to fill space; Importance of interesting content.

Suggests four stories that can be run when employee publications run out of copy. Question and answer column; Instructions for filling out expense reports; Graphic timelines of executives who have made a difference; Profiles on top executives.

Presents ten commandments on how to edit a corporate publication. Overcommunication; Use of the intranet; Editorial guidelines; Service anniversaries.

Discusses methods of purging management propaganda in employee publications. Revealing approval claim; Getting employee perspective into each business story; Showing employees what is in it for them; Choice of language.

Presents problems encountered when making headlines for articles in corporate publications. Problem with bloating the headlines with extra words and characters; Putting big words and claims in the headline; Using confusing nouns and words.

Presents information on how employee publication editors plan a story. Factors to consider in planning a story; Discussion on how two different editors did the same story on stress in corporate America; Evaluation of the tips offered by one editor on dealing with stress.

Provides tips for editors for better publications.

Cites several feature stories that corporate communicators should eliminate from their employee publications. `Roving reporter' feature; `Employees eating something' photograph; `Stupid employee hobby' feature.

Focuses on the conflict between corporate editors and corporate designers. Implication of the conflict on the publication; Consequences when corporate designers take control of publication.

Presents foolish features that should be avoided. Example of photo that should be avoided; Titles that should have been cut in the editing room.

Provides information on how corporate editors can get management to take them seriously. Suggestions on reporting on the company's competition; How to report on people whose opinions matter to senior managers.

Looks at unethical ways to improve organizational publications. Reasons many employee publications are not as good as they could be; Things that editors can do to improve their publications.

Discusses the need for serious publications for companies. Examples of serious business communication; Examples of classic picnic reporting.