Message in a Bottle

Editorial . List of contents

This is for non graphical browsers and those who want the complete quick all in one download to read or print out.

You are missing some fun graphics. If you DO want to see them, hit the bum!

Alan Scott/Perth/Scotland

Contents .

Introduction

What do YOU want to say?
If you don't know - how is anybody else to know?

Who do YOU want to reach?
If you don't know who to grab what's the point of reaching out?

Why say it?
Signal to noise ratio, your message, is it worth the bandwidth?

How to hook.
Hyperslidyinfoslip missed it can't find it - story of the Net.

Chop chop
If it's not an easy swallow it's passed over.

It's a dog.
Take responsability - it's not just for Christmas.

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Introduction

This is a wee Magazine dedicated to helping people successfuly communicate their message.

It's intention is to help you get what you want out there, clear, loud and into someones brain.

Pencil and paper Glory Hellelulya!!

Pencil and paper ARE IT! to best start to get what you want to say in, then out, of the electronic ocean into someones brain box. Get scribbling.

Fingers off the keyboard it's a straightjacket to the brain. Start with a pencil!

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What!

Don't handicap yourself!

You can create order out of chaos but you can't create - at all, out of order

The minute you put your ideas in lists you become locked into linear thought, that's a handicap. This doesn't need to be a linear medium, if you work that way you're not making the most of what's on offer.

Find ways to break any old straight line habits you may have

Dump all you ideas chaotically handwritten on a big page misspellings scrawls and all.
It might be that a linear method will be your best solution but if you start off that way, you'll never know.


      Dump all
      thoughts ------------All over ------add
     facts ideas          the place       bits
          \                   /\            |
           \                 /  \           |
            Focus and highlight  \      Delete bits
              /    whatever     / \
             /                 /   \Add connections
     Restructure              /
        whenever          ___/____Break connections!
       whatever             /
                   Give connections .......Or
                          weight         value

Laying it out like this also allows you to see how the information groups itself, how best to section it into discrete digestible units and where information should be repeated to maintain sense.

Kiss

It also allows you to better apply your mission statement and objectives letting them work the ideas and information into the direction you intend to go.

This is also the best stage to bring in professional designers, now you have a grip of the content and a direction. Letting them see where you want to go lets them contribute their experience and skills to better get you there.

Good design is like good programming - you get the message - you enjoy the software - the work and sweat gone into making it so is invisible. My motto is:

Communication not decoration

If a bit is not earning it's keep throw it out, make everything work hard for your mission.

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Who!

Pop who's Cork

Who do YOU want to pop your cork - someone who'll like the beverage? Mebbe you want to get folk who won't? Either way to succeed you have to define your target audience.

The clearer the target the better the chance of a hit. . . .

The whole world and it's auntie - NO CHANCE!

Refine and define, the world is too varied to connect with all but the few. Too too many disparate folks and varied national habits and ways of thinking to even scratch at.

Wee Aggies big brother? - PSYCHE HIM OUT!

He's well defined and understood. Aggie knows how to push his buttons and you could ask her. Do the research.

The more the focus is on the individual, group or type the more you can tailor your message to fit. The better the fit the more likely the client is to 'wear' it.

Define your target audience in your terms - Age, Literacy, Pain, Religion, Handicap, Size, Hobby, Rage, Pitifulness and so on.

Advertisers pick on you carefuly - just watch them.

X files versus Coronation St. versus Reeves and Mortimer
Theres a million worlds out there, trouble is everyone thinks everyone elses is not too dissimilar from their own. What's the world you inhabit like, compared to your worst relative's?

Work Hard Watch Out!

Work hard to watch out for those lots of little slips twixt lip and ear. What you think you say is often not what you actually say.

Have you ever raked over an old argument with a buddy or you partner and discovered the most amazing missunderstandings to the extent that you ask each other, 'How could you think that I meant that??!' Think of the levels it could reach speaking to strangers.

WORSE!

What people take in is often not what they hear.

When your done with your message take your brain out and study your work with the maximum amount of ignorance you can bring to bear on it. Maybe then you will see wonderful examples of mis-communication

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Why?

Why say it?

This E mail will self destruct in three seconds

YOU HAVE A MISSION

Do you? What is it? Write it down in 14 words or less. No more!

Why should the audience have to do any work, why should they bother to find out what you're about? If you don't define it they'll never figure it out! They won't even try, unless it's a damn good puzzle of course.

Rules

Be focussed

Be active

Be achievable

Next you need Aims and Objectives for your mission, map them out:-

Rate from must happen to - nice if it happens

My mission was
I mean to help punters speak out, clear, be noticed, heard and understood.

Some of my objectives.

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How to hook


Only let away the fish you don't want.

If someone lands on your page.... GRAB THEM....but do you want everybody?? No you don't - define your audience then you will know how to:

HOOK

If you know your target audience you will know how to provoke him/her into: Love - Anger - Curiosity - Lust - Humour - Whatever - Just get their attention for an instant.
Then.....

RELATE

Make your message a lively echo particular to what they already know in their present or past - if no echo - then eyes will glaze over and people will hyperlink on.
Then......

IMPART

Short and to the point, start from where your target is now and take them that one step into the new. Look at any good adverts and you'll see these techniques used over and over . . . . . on you.

Provoke - Relate - Reveal(sell sell sell) it's not new. .

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Broken Glass

-Chop Chop

CHOP!

Make information into tasty little chunks
that build into a feast before anyone knows it.

Kiss!

Reading on screen is a pain in the butt - definitely a case for less is more - be concise - be brief.

Kiss!

Think of the information - if it was food, would you eat the pig whole unchopped and unchewed?
Think of the download times
Think of the wee 14" screens
Think of the waste of paper


After planning out - wield the axe.

Cut off all the gobbledegook, technospeak, corporate speak, everything that might pass your target by. Everything but the core in good plain english as she is spoke.

Kiss.

When you're finished remove your brain and study your work with the maximum amount of ignorance you can bring to bear.

You should then be able to see some of the holes that the 'what YOU know' was filling in. Knowledge what some other people don't got.

Say up front what you are going to say . . . urm . . . Then say it . . . urm . . . . Repeat it in brief at the end . . . .

but above all!
Keep It Simple Stupid . . . K.I.S.S.

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Bottled Dog!

Don't piss about in self indulgence.
Self indulgence is for mutts!

Get something good out there even if it's only good for a few. Everybody can be in the limelight for a moment. The thing is what will you do with your moment that will make a difference.

"Don't be good! Be good for something!" Edgar Cayce.


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