Many writers cite Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson as the mother and father of contemporary poetry – or perhaps more accurately, as its queer, brilliant aunt and uncle. The two writers may at first seem to have little in common—Whitman is as expansive as Dickinson is compressed, as wild as she is precise. But they [...]
Posts Tagged ‘copywriting’
Quotation Dos and Don’ts
Your Highness: I hold a job that requires I write articles, press releases, and similar pieces in which I quote others. You’d think I’d have such matters down by now, but I’ll come clean: I never really learned the rules for using quotation marks. To complicate matters further, I’m a bit of an Anglophile—only the [...]
A Stranglehold on Mindshare, with Compound Interest
Business-speak seems to spawn imaginative metaphorical meanings for compound words. We have turnkey solutions to bandwidth issues and roadmaps to implementing backend gateways; we have sales pipelines and streamlined workflows and software toolkits and downstream upsells. Lately, we have been seeing some compound word metaphors that leave even Content Bureau eggheads with a bit of a headache…
So a Copywriter, a Carpenter, and a Chiropractor Walk Into a Bar…
Is it a stretch to see parallels between shingling a wall and writing copy? You be the judge.
How to Overcome Writer’s Block (Works for Me, At Least)
The deadline approaches, but words won’t dislodge and tumble onto your screen. You’re juiced up on caffeine and your favorite writing music has been playing for hours. The sum total of three hours of “work”: one crappy sentence. Oh dear, what can you do? I can only tell you what works for me…most of the [...]
How to Write an Edgy White Paper
Ho-hum. Another white paper. Most clients struggle to turn this staple of the high tech industry into something exciting, engaging, and most important, actually read. An edgy white paper is refreshing. Challenges your thinking. Shows true zeal. We’ve written hundreds of white papers. Though often few and far between, the edgy ones are my favorite. [...]
Damn You, Autocorrect: Bringing Writerly Mortification to the Masses
When those pesky demons get into the phone, the results are both embarrassing and (for once, literally) laugh-out-loud funny.
Happy 10th Anniversary to the Content Bureau!
Happy New Year to all, and Happy Birthday to the Content Bureau–our baby copywriting agency “all growed up.” Ten years ago, we were a tiny operation serving our first large tech client, PeopleSoft, and an assortment of small companies who loved our work—and kindly referred us to their friends. Here’s what a few of our early [...]
The 60-Second Copy Lesson
Back in the 90s, it was my voice that told you the Cellular One number you called was out of service. Sorry about that. I was a professional voiceover actor. You may have heard me on radio commercials for Spiegel, the San Francisco Ballet, Brita Water Filters, and Union Bank, and on computer games, including [...]
