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Shape your message for success

Colleagues missing messages or just not acting on them?

Communicating is hard. Learn to make them look and respond.

Featured cases & evidence (members only)

Slides need headlines, not labels

Slides often collect undigested information. Headline sentences drive clear thinking and action.

Three police officers enter an apartment, one punching a man who was holding a gun. Cover of Headline Comics no 65, “Crime Never Pays”.
Surprise in style can rouse our brains

Playing with language keeps your audience switched on (even at work).

A mechanical brain transmits telepathically to an astonished boy the words “I sense danger here. Take me to a place of safety QUICKLY.”
Give enough context when you’re asking someone for advice

A colleague writes something like: “Can we have a call, as I’d like to know how to do some product management stuff?” And you wonder where to start.

A painting of Jesus healing a sick person
Great writers use this trick with sentence lengths

Vary the lengths of your sentences. The rhythms keep your writing interesting and easy to absorb.

Three boys and a dog, sitting in the woods, marvel at the sight of aliens coming out of a flying saucer.
In emails, the cheap trick of numbering points still keeps the audience glued

This one’s as simple as it sounds: number points to get them each read. This case shows a couple of ways it works.

A man wearing a black fedora hat and billowing black cape is walking up a stairway in the air, holding a dodo.
A job description was hard to write

“I got stuck looking at a blank page, thinking of the document it needed to be.”

A writer looking at a blank computer screen.

Related maxims

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Find the drama in your message

Shake up your style, wake up your audience

Show where you are in the message to keep the audience tuned in

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