Anyway, here’s my profile.  Comments welcome.

A quick search on Google will find you lots of examples.  The following are from organisations not among my clients:

“We stand with the Pakistani people and walk with our partners on the path of a liberal democracy with human and civic rights as well as the freedom of equal citizens.” Friedrich Naumann Foundation

“We have had the pleasure to walk with our partners in Uganda—to see schools built with Invisible Children, knowing our resources helped make it happen.” Reject Apathy (Clothing)

“Our goal is to walk with our partners, walk behind our partners, and ultimately walk away from our partners empowering them to drive their own projects forward.” Plant a Seed Foundation

It is all very nice and heartwarming.  And trendy.

As a copywriter, I make it my business to read everything about a client in terms of their aims, their self-image and their positioning in the marketplace.  This means reading things like Mission Statements and Tone of Voice documents, and it is these documents which reveal the kinds of words the organisation wants to use about itself.  There is a lot about ‘The Language of Accompaniment’.

Words are powerful, especially when fundraising for urgent humanitarian disasters and preventative development programmes.  Novelty in language is important and there is a danger that, as trends in language rise and fall, words lose their meaning and organisations get left behind.  Who would use any of the phrases in this terrific Calvin and Hobbes Cartoon?

One of my favourite things about Calvin and Hobbes is Calvin’s unrepentant butchery of the language, satirising the trends current to the strip. I wonder if Calvin would take a similar tone with the language of accompaniment in 2 years’ time when it has reached absolute saturation?

Accompaniment is just one trend in language.  Interestingly, I recently saw two instances of a different trend which also is spreading away from its point of origin.

Gyms, sports clubs and health spas command monthy subscriptions of £60.00+ from their members and they use the language of membership to bring people in.  How many charities would jump at the chance to up their baseline donation to £60.00?  Might they start to use the language of membership?

It would seem that unlikely businesses are catching on.  Here’s what I saw on the side of a dentist’s surgery:

I also saw something very similar on the side of a warehouse owned by a furniture importer(!), though I don’t have a photograph because I was driving at the time.

What does it mean to belong to a dentist?  What does it mean to belong to a furniture importer?

The presumption is that there is a benefit; perhaps some kind of discount programme or specialist service.  Membership is a curious balance of inclusion and exclusion.  You’re in; others are out.  You belong; others don’t.

It may be ugly, but it speaks to a deep human need to be part of the in-crowd.  Can it be harnessed to the good? I think so.  Would it excite you if you belonged to a charity that broke up illegal slave markets in Sudan and set people free?  Though you might never actually go and do the work on the ground, your regular donation secured your membership of a dynamic and daring charity.  You’re in.

Food for thought.

Philosphers are debating what comes after Postmodernism.  Where will society go after ultimate fragmentation?  The answer – NeoTribalism.  The ancient urge to belong will resurface and individuals will band together into tribes to live and work and belong.  The tribes will be very specific – not necessarily based around national identity.  It might be a way of living, such as semi-self-sufficiency through an allotment, or it might be working within the bonus-saturated culture of the Corporation – anything that offers a sense of in and out.

Charities might do well to position themselves as tribes; tribes with a mission.

Courtsey of Instagram

Easy, ain’t it?

It was the moment the dam burst. Demonstration after demonstration followed.  The security forces responded with violence and drew the attention of the world’s media.

On his release he said, “I’m not a hero. I was writing on a keyboard on the Internet and I wasn’t exposing my life to danger. The heroes are the one who are in the street.” Though modest, this savvy marketing manager knows that his words released the people onto the streets. “I’ve always said that if you want to liberate a society just give them the Internet,” Ghonim said. He’s right.

What followed was a year in which both the West and the Middle East saw massive social upheaval.  In the Middle East, the Arab Spring shook Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen.  In the West, the Occupy Movement knocked loudly on Wall Street’s door, calling for financial reform.  The Occupy Movement spread around the US before spilling over into London and other European cities.  The News Media in the US insisted on misrepresenting the people of the Occupy Movement as confused, dirty, lazy scroungers, anti-capitalists and anarchists.   Very few news outlets reported their demands accurately, which were complex, nuanced and – well – an appropriate response to Wall Street’s tangled mess of corporate greed, political corruption and self-serving interest. They didn’t make easy soundbytes for knee-jerk news editors.

Reduction of such issues to fit column inches inevitably damages nuance. The crux of the demands were 1) break up the banks so they’re not too big to fail 2) regulate the banks so the commercial banks could not gamble with savers’ money 3) close the tax loop holes that allow millionaires and billionaires to avoid paying anything like the tax level they should 4) prosecute the out-and-out financial fraudsters guilty of insider trading on toxic assets.

How do you make a catchy rallying cry from that?

The establishment media (Rupert Murdock’s Fox News etc.) refused to represent the movement fairly and – with the power of words – characterised the peaceful protests as liberal, antisemitic, violent thuggery. Nevertheless, when the movement spread across the US and the world, the heavy handed police moved in to break up the protests and were quick to resort to violence, even pepper-spraying 84-year-old Dorli Rainey, because, they said, she posed a physical threat to the lines of armed police in riot gear. The response from conservative News Media was equivalent to ‘well they started it’. It was only when police tear-gassed first aiders going to help critically injured Iraq Veteran Scott Olsen that the tone changed. How was Olsen, who had survived multiple tours in Iraq, injured? By being shot in the face with a Police Tear Gas canister at point-blank range.

Olsen suffered a fractured skull.  During his recovery, he wrote, “After my freedom of speech was quite literally taken from me, my speech is coming back but I’ve got a lot of work to do with rehab.”

If you can write that on a large piece of cardboard and hold it above your head, you have yourself a message.

It seems that in a world where every phone can record audio and video, and social media can send it around the world in a heartbeat, violence defeats itself by handing the peacemakers the power they need.

It was also a year of peril for Wikileaks: under pressure from the Obama Administration, financial institutions including Bank of America, Paypal, Mastercard and Swiss bank PostFinance moved to prevent their customers from donating money to the Wikileaks cause, effectively creating a strangle-hold on the whistle-blowing organisation.  Julian Assange also fought extradition to Sweden on somewhat suspiciously-timed charges and alleged informer US Infantryman Bradley Manning was brought in front of a closed Military Tribunal after months without trial in solitary confinement.  (It is alleged that Private Manning released the infamous ‘Collateral Murder’ video of the gung-ho crew of a US Apache attack helicopter gunning down a group of journalists.)

Why did Manning and Assange experience all of this? Because – allegedly – these men blew the lid off state-sponsored slaughter of civilians, ruthless corporate greed and unconscionable corruption.  How?  By violence and acts of terror? No – by sharing information.

Contrast this with the “Shoot First; ask questions later” message of US Marine Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich.  His leadership, summarised in his words, resulted in the deaths of 14 men, three women and seven children in Iraq.  These unarmed civilians died from grenade blasts and gunshots from American soldiers in retaliatory house raids near the site of an IED which killed a US soldier.  Wuterich escaped a maximum sentence of 3 months’ jail and instead was demoted to Private.

As Mazahir Hussain tweeted, “Bradley Manning should’ve really considered committing some war crimes instead of exposing them, worked well for Frank Wuterich.”

2011 was an astonishing year.  Core human rights and freedoms were contested around the world; violence was pitched against non-violence; corporate propaganda battled with free speech.  For me the message of 2011 was clear: freedom of expression is both the weapon and the prize.  It is to be treasured.

But 2011 was also the year Prince William married Kate Middleton so who cares about freedom of speech and freedom to protest? Right? Pippa Middleton’s bottom is – apparently – far more newsworthy…

I just helped HART – the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust – to produce a clever fundraising piece in the guise of a recipe book.

The concept was conceived on an mountain trekking expedition through the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabahk: why not create a powerful sense of intercultural connection (through the taste buds) as a way of informing the supporters about the charity’s work in diverse locations?

This is a genius idea.
(I wish I’d come up with it.)

From the beginning the book was part-travel guide, part-recipe book, including intriguing recipes like traditional Armenian flatbread, Sudanese falafels and Burmese Kao Soom (spicy rice). Each recipe came from one of HART’s project partners and was tested by a brave HART supporter in the UK.

As the book’s editor, I had a number of challenges to overcome. It was important to capture the character of the projects and the faithfully reproduce the individual voices of the contributors. At the same time, I had to protect the confidentiality of some of the workers in delicate and dangerous situations and bring the book together in one strong voice that fitted within HART’s existing messaging. Easy? Not exactly. Fun? Absolutely. And my friends at HART were excellent to work with.

As an author, I’d previously seen the Editor as a tetchy and defensive creature who would work happily enough for many pages before abitrarily seizing on a passage that was fine as it was (in my opinion) and carving it to pieces for no obvious reason. Now I understand that the editor has to manage both the preciousness of the author and an unseen tier of interested stakeholders, hovering above and dropping demands, new information and comments and inopportune times.

God bless editors everywhere!

I am very proud of this book (buy it HERE)  and I am pleased to be listed as its editor. I am even more pleased to be associated with a beautiful idea that brings people together in a way that celebrates the delicious cultural differences instead of dissolving them.

Amy experienced an extremely challenging labour and an overly-swift final delivery.  These resulted in our son being whisked off to the Special Baby Care Unit where he will be until they deem him hardy enough for a cuddle.  We expect that to be this morning.  He is fine – truly he is – but it was scary for a moment because of his stressful delivery and so they are monitoring him very closely until he is ready and all signed off.  Amy is staying in, so his mummy is only a few corridors away.

I am sure it will not be long before he is safe with us at home.

Though this post is not in any way about writing, Richard is absolutely my greatest work and Amy feels the same: he is hers.  We are very grateful for our part in this wonderful new miracle that just entered the world.

Though it seems distasteful to mention it,
I have chosen to send out the news via the blog and not through other social media because I do not want Facebook to get its claws into Richard before he has even come home.  I do not want Zuckerberg to own photos of my boy.

My blog post is here, if you care to click through and post a comment.

I recently co-authored an appeal with a copywriter at a prestigious media company. I’d been brought in to take the pressure off the house copywriter who had many projects to contend with.  I was pleased to help: the task was to write an appeal letter and accompanying uplift leaflet to re-engage a much-neglected supporter base.

The job looked like a challenge from the outset.   The client was insistent on certain trendy corporate-speak (“walk with us” etc. – not the classic 1990′s bluesky thinking, thank goodness!) which I could live with, but the client was particularly determined that we use what was, frankly, a disastrous human-interest story.

My co-writer agreed with my reservations but, as the client was not mine, I stood back and he managed the negotiation.  We won some ground but in the end could not persuade the client to use a stronger story.

It goes that way some times.

Like the rest of the industry, I’m allergic to the word ‘spin’ but spin is what I did to that story.  Whilst remaining firmly within the bounds of truth, I reframed it in an entirely new light, cut content and relied on the power of suggestion.  The story began to work, not as well as a decent story ever would, but well enough, given the material.

I must admit I had a sense of bloody-nosed satisfaction on reading the final draft.

Life. Lemons. Lemonade.

Tomorrow I am interviewing a wonderful lady about her time in Austria when she ran a staging post for covert missionaries into Eastern-block states during the Cold War.  Afterwards, I am going to visit two of my best friends from school and Dorset days.

Friday I am visiting an excellent friend – James Wilmshurst of Red&Green | Domain – to talk copywriting, publishing, family, friends and good times.  I am sure doughnuts will be involved.

Saturday I will be in Dorset seeing family, including my delightful niece Ella, and maybe fitting in more friends.

I don’t care about the bad weather with good days like these.

Someone must be buying that stuff.  At least it allows the rest of us to roll our eyes and share a wry groan.

There are other folk who must, in this post-equinox heatwave, stare down the barrel of a yule log.  Copywriters like me are busy writing Christmas Gift Catalogues and web copy to help charities raise money for aid projects at home and abroad.

I can’t yet announce which particular charity I recently wrote for (because the project is not with the printers) but I will say that I enjoyed writing 23 product descriptions and surrounding copy for print and web.

I hope that many people will be moved to buy goats, toilets, blankets, chickens, mosquito nets and herb gardens for those in need this Christmas.

I wonder if Supermarkets would ever create a Charity Aisle in their stores, with virtual gifts that people could purchase at the tills.  It would be easy to do.

I’d promise not to groan.