Category: Writing

Networking

Hi everyone! Dualities are the best. You keep passing them – right/left. In a similar sort of way, networking plays on the ball and catcher theme. What do you think?

Life can be unfair.

If you’re like me, you always want to know the perspective of others. I try to emulate it using my ‘super sensory assumptions’, but that  doesn’t give perspective any justice. I just cannot circumvent the topic enough. I even wrote an elaborate letter to a stranger, expecting some sort of comeuppance for the amount of energy I divulged throughout. I think that’s when I discovered my passion for technical writing, ironically by asking about technical writing. So, returning to the main topic, I wrote a letter to Duncan Kent.

Mr. Kent is my good friend’s uncle and the firm founder/senior project manager at Duncan Kent & Associates Ltd., a technical documentation company based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. For the past 27 years, his company has guided and developed more than 300 manuals and technical publications. His team’s work and client list span many industries, from construction and project management to law enforcement and security.

I was inspired to write to him because of his company’s success. Or perhaps, more realistically, I wrote to him to feed my desire for positive constructive criticism…from anyone…someone…please.

My apologies for continuing to fall off of our topic. As I started planning (this elaborate letter you see), I wondered to myself, “Imagine if my client list was in the thousands?” I thought, I’m prepared to ride this wave, although, I do not surf. This is much more important – to change the course of history vs learning how to write effectively. Alas, I tend to jump the gun, but that is only my proactive personality. The unfortunate thing is – when things don’t turn out, and especially because I rely so heavily on fate – I get extremely disappointed, saddened to say the least. I suppose I will be able to save the documents for a record of my process. Egad!

Let’s have a read –

Good morning Duncan,

Thank you for your time. I am excited to share a bit of my background with you and hope that this will be the beginning of a new adventure! (Edit Jan. 4, 2020 – and holy f what a crazy ride it has been!)

I have spent the past 8 years managing corporate accounts for the medium and enterprise-sized business market segments of Canada’s #1 telecommunications brand and wireless service provider, Bell Mobility. I write about 50 emails a day, corresponding with important decision-makers like billing analysts, IT coordinators, managers and/or executives.

Writing business emails has taught me how to approach language in a linear and logical manner, so that the complexities of the technologies and services we implement can be communicated to our clients with clarity and ease.

My passion for writing was originally theoretical (art school approach), but my role at Bell Mobility changed that. Now, making words make sense in a technical fashion has me completely converted, if not entirely fascinated by the precision of writing in and of itself.

I have achieved positive results in account management by way of technical writing:

  • Optimizing processes
  • Maximizing workplace efficiencies
  • Minimizing client expenditures through routine jargon
  • Organizing & streamlining daily communications
  • Thinking critically
  • Taking proactive approaches to solving problems in writing
  • Building dependable & long lasting relationships with my team & clients

So here I am, graciously connecting to you thanks to your nephew, Chris Kent. I understand you must be very busy, but if possible, could I ask you some questions about technical writing? My goal is to determine if it is the right career for me and what steps I would need to take to get there.

Cheers,

Chona Fe Canlas

There is always a way to make things simpler.

*Note: I ended with that sentence and amazingly, I can see now that it is the beginning of my brand! (Edit Jan. 4, 2020 – Simpler & Larger guys!)

The success of your pursuits can be measured infinitely. (Edit Jan. 4, 2020 – OMG, did Simon Sinek steal that?) What will you cherish once your work is done? For myself, it is truly gaining the perspective of someone else ego holds a different holistic experience. I am continually examining this philosophy, why not!

Technical Writing

Hi everyone! How technical can you be with creative content? This is a good question. Let’s start by looking at how we can define a technical writer.

A technical writer is an organized communicator for a company. They present the company in specific ways and focus on areas that require clear and succinct communication. They also work on creating and formatting material effectively to increase overall communication efficacy.

A technical writer for a communications company would be responsible for the below (and later on can assist with other areas like research, project management and customer advocacy):

  • Creating/formatting proprietary documents (i.e.: emails, meeting minutes, customer welcome packages, social media posts, blog and website content etc.)
  • Developing instructions, guidelines, training material, strategies and plans
  • Creating templates, marketing collateral, brochures, promotional materials, ad copy and presentations

Higher-level roles:

  • Writing contracts, proposals, RFPs, white papers, reports, feasibility studies and reviews
  • Acting as an interviewer, trainer, organizer, facilitator or mediator
  • Designing visual communication strategy, information graphics and/or data interpretation

Another advanced role is analytics (excerpt from Wikipedia):

The use of computer skills, mathematics and statistics, combined with descriptive techniques and predictive models to GAIN valuable knowledge from data. The discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data; and the process of applying those patterns towards effective decision-making.

In other words, analytics can be understood as the connective tissue between data and effective decision-making, within an organization. A technical writer also observes and collects data from customers that suggests the product and/or customer experience can be changed or improved in a way that customers would prefer or benefit from.

So, technical writing can be used to enhance communication to a specific audience and can create simplicity from abstract or conceptual ideas. These specifications can improve user experience, time management, levels of customer satisfaction and other customer-centered metrics. 

Desirable traits of a technical writer: 

  • organized and able to optimize process
  • detailed and extremely focused
  • able to portray different styles and perspectives 
  • a leader and team motivator
  • easygoing and confident personality
  • insightful, intelligent and innovative
  • transparent, accurate and responsible

Blox. Communications would like to define technical writing as it specifically relates to creative entities. What traits (quality) and aspects (quantity) do you think would be important to operating a technical creative company?

Sales Specialist

Hi everyone! As VanWhistle Media’s Lead Sales Specialist, I have been building the foundations for a new digital marketing brand. How will we stand apart from others? How do we get customers to commit?

In my mind, it’s a combination of creative direction (standing apart) and content (establishing commitment). Also, a strong brand is everything. It is about locality plus some other concept I haven’t figured out yet (internationalism?). Meet your neighbors and start building connections any way.

I wanted to design some storefront posters and presentation slides (with animation) and this is what I came up with in the discovery stage –

Header: VANWHISTLE MEDIA IS HERE TO HELP! (large, black + white)

Sub-header: Social Media (rainbow)

Done correctly, you can tell everyone that your brand is ACTIVE and that you are FOCUSED on promoting ongoing and thriving communication with your customers. We will show you where your efforts have worked and where they are falling short! DO SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT with VANWHISTLE MEDIA today!

Sub-header: SEO (blue)

Progress to the next level with a definite increase in traffic by organizing your content by keywords; this will ensure your brand appears HIGH on Google’s list of results. Your business will need a powerful strategy as search tactics are always evolving. Let’s get you to the top of the list! DO SEO with VANWHISTLE MEDIA today!

Sub-header: Web Design (orange)

Everything about your website (content, appearance, functionality) is determined by the QUALITY of its design. Aim to establish expertise & credibility. We can manage this process from start to finish! DO WEB DEVELOPMENT with VANWHISTLE MEDIA today!

(include at bottom in smaller typeface, maybe white on gray?)

Small print: We can also help with – Email Marketing, Pay Per Click Management, Blog/Content Creation, Designing, Auto Dealership Package, Storefront Signage, Business Cards, Branding, Creative Direction & Idea Development. Contact us, we’re flexible and talented!

(contact info)

Background tip – I repeat ‘DO…with VANWHISTLE MEDIA today’, because repetition has been shown to be an effective selling tool. Scientists have found that repetition increases processing fluency. In other words, our brains find repeated words easier to process and remember. I really want to establish a focus in my message (do = doing = done). What will drive people to stop and read/look at our poster? The word DO repeated equals the word DOING repeated equals the word DONE repeating in their heads, thereby increasing desire and attracting demand. It’s always about thoughtful language, usage and placement!
Coming back to this project, I question the use of ‘talented’. For whatever reason, people hate that word. Like, a talented person couldn’t have an honest mandate. Or, to say one’s talented is to say, I’m egotistical. It really makes me wonder. What do you guys think?
I suppose at the end of the day, people are going to think how they want. So…if you’re going to do it differently, find trustworthy research to support your ideas!

Preface to Elevententeen

Hi everyone! My aim is to develop Elevententeen into a movie script. Think Alice in Wonderland/Being John Malkovich/Harry Potter. Feel lost in my words? Close your eyes and imagine the characters in context. This is a great exercise for reading comprehension!  

In a fictive story, we follow Daisy, our protagonist and an offshoot of author Chona Fe Canlas. Daisy is humbly inappropriate and disillusioned. She deals with the transitions of her environment while trying to succeed as a social media specialist. Her role is futuristic, because she lives in a different time, within a different time frame called Elevententeen.

She takes adventures throughout this realm, as she tries to comprehend her reasons for being. She is an individual facing an array of identities, positioned to question new technologies and variations in time and space.

Intermingled with Daisy’s adventures are the author’s personal anecdotes, commenting on a career change and her attempt to comprehend the complexities of communication and the human brain. The author uses her own writing to cure a plethora of falsehoods, habituated over years of resisting Western culture, process & medicine.

Throughout it all, the characters must defend humanism and learn to praise their metaphysical accomplishments in a purely logical, but theoretical landscape.

A note from Chona –

I hope you can follow the wild ride! Linearity is scarce, because the story is intended to be read from varying angles (literally and conceptually). You will be following an infinite number of perspectives, while becoming aware of language’s transformative effects. Some important elements to consider – how do we (Daisy and Chona Fe) end up in the same place? Why don’t things change? What is considered to be change? What is the standpoint of time and space from the inside? And from the outside? What is real or constructed by our minds? How do we relate this to other living or non-living entities like animals, colours or feelings? What does the dual dialogue signify? What will be the ultimate outcome? Good, bad, happy?

Let’s figure it out everybody, enjoy the story! 

Acceptance Letter

Hi everyone! Here is an example of an acceptance letter I wrote for a sales job. Try not to copy it, just have a read and write one for yourself.

Dear hiring manager (or team),

Thank you for your offer of employment.

Q: What question does every CEO have when hiring a new business team member?

A: What makes you the BEST for my business?

I have an arsenal of answers, a few I will describe below. Let’s begin.

Q: What will you contribute?

A: I will empower you to be YOUR best. I will put my best talent forward understanding that there may be a learning curve, I can and will keep up.

Q: Every project will have a PROCESS to reach a targeted end. What’s your plan?

A: I aim to –

  1. Increase your profit margin by refining your sales purchasing funnel
  2. Raise overall awareness & interest in your company, products and services
  3. Generate more flexibility for the team, so that your company can further succeed

Q: What main attribute will you bring to the table?

A: Integrity. Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles or moral uprightness. It is a personal choice to hold one’s self to consistent standards.

Q: What’s your goal?

A: I will bring forth growth by focusing on the following –

CLIENT RELATIONS

  • Documenting the customer onboarding process
  • Developing welcome care packages
  • Articulating in-house processes & access to resources to the team and our clients
  • Writing case studies about the team, clients and our products/services
  • Creating client profiles
  • Performing client interviews over the phone and/or in person
  • Creating a Q+A document (5-8 questions) for customer stories to promote new business and to retain existing clientele
  • Promoting customer stories to expand our networking community via applicable social channels and platforms
  • Assisting with creative and technical content in other formats (blog, video etc.)

I can also help with copywriting, idea development, advertising, creative/art direction, account management and project coordination.

Q: How do you conclude?

A: I am insightful, intelligent and innovative. I intend to find ways to make things simpler and larger for you. I’m eager to learn. I am genuine. I am constantly inspired. I am enthusiastic and will take care of the company and our clients’ needs. I will proactively listen to my team. I will be dependable & I will deliver!

Thank you and best regards,

Chona Fe Canlas (your new Sales Specialist)

Finding creative + effective ways to communicate can be a challenge. How will your audience receive your message? Will they be pleasantly surprised or immediately repulsed? It’s always worth the risk to edit things down to their simplest context. So, take a different approach!

1 – The Pen

How do you write anew? How do you continue to post after a long weekend of stuffing your face with turkey and cranberry sauce, to the point where, by holiday Monday you’re lost in a hazy misconstruction of football episodes, your daughter’s Super Monsters Halloween edition and extra pumpkin pie/pumpkin coffee cake streaming through your veins?

I drove into work this morning feeling like I took a 5 month mental hiatus and that it would take another 5 years to get back to where I was last Friday in terms of thought processes and drive. But this sobering feeling, is it better than the former? Which should I be chasing?

I finally arrived and tried my best to ignore CBC and Stephen Quinn. Parked and ready to nap, Daisy thought frustratedly, “If I don’t get to my desk, I will fall further and further away into this sluggish slump. It will impact the rest of my week in a very negative way. I can’t be doing it this way!”

Dang it. “It’s starting already,” quipped a voice on the radio, when suddenly two of them proclaimed, “I’m not ready to travel! Dang you, dang it, DANG YOU!”

Are YOU ready?

I’ve fallen! This will last for 2 hours, then the clock will stop ticking on October 21st. I only have so much time to regroup and reiterate my success using succinct words and a logical progression of content.

She’s gone again. Don’t worry, she will return!

Daisy looked upward, toward the roof and saw a glowing star leaning on its edge, skirts away from abandoning friends and arriving onto a dust covered pillow. Puffy like an oyster, she rolled over in bed, drawing her arms over her face and pushing down to feel that cozy, cold feeling she longed for throughout the day. Today was bright and sunny. Bold rays peered through large windows, allowing light to enter her Brooklyn studio apartment. The girl was ready for A Day, ready to do the job she did best – ‘social media marketing’ for an up-and-coming TED startup company in the SoHo district of Elevententeen.

Elevententeen was a designated area for a group of bright communications pupils. They had three things in common. One – they were all Bipolar Type 10. Two – they had recently quit ‘drinking’. And three – they lived with the intent to impact the digital landscape, as no previous humans could have done it before them.

Daisy grabbed her pillow and immediately clicked on Instagram. That nagging suspicion to see The Need fed her like a rich, decadent chocolate drink costing tons more than a third-hand Prada bag nabbed off Vestiaire (for Seventeen). She quickly clicked, but then something else happened. It did not open, she did not see the grace of her favorite celebrity and his infantry women. She just heard a sound, a long-drawn, slowly creeping vibration of ‘digital air’. The only thing she could think of was, “The content has become redundant however, I can see the validity in re-writing and re-working the same concept several times. That way it will not become null and void. The success that emerged from it originally will still be there. That’s editing!”

“It’s locked!”, “Were you able to get back in?”

No. So, I decide to just write. Write down your thoughts Chona, write them down and write them down again. Get back to your spot on the list, get back to you, this new you. But sadly, I have already developed a headache from the idea of it. Will she be able to leave the content as it is? Will she usurp the value of its flow by editing it down, editing it all out to make complacent sense? Can you back away and still smile and feel success? That is something Alice from Wonderland would say, “Things aren’t worth that much once you start editing out the originality Miss Chona Fe, but I think this is what you think then isn’t that the way?”

Chona looks inward at her periphery, flips her hair, then walks away.