Odds & Ends

Odds & Ends

USA Today: Ten articles in USA Today promoting a National Quality Week conference co-sponsored by the American Society for Quality.

Software Documentation: A web-based application allowing a company to analyze customer satisfaction survey data for both products and services. Also, a detailed process to measure an individual office's performance against key corporate goals.

Annual Reports: OshKosh B'Gosh 1999. Johnson Worldwide Associates 1995. The Marcus Corporation 1992. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Wisconsin 1990.

Fund-Raising: Proposals and mission statements for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's $10 million fund-raising campaign.

Futures Study: Brochure and PowerPoint presentation summarizing the American Society for Quality's 2002 Futures Study, which prepared the Society and its members to succeed in the future.

Research Summaries: Concise web site summaries of 26 university research projects funded by the American Society for Quality.

Employee Awards Program: Administrator of the highest Johnson Controls award for employees, from processing nominations to publicizing winners.

Corporate Histories: OshKosh B'Gosh, Snap-on Tools, Shorewest Realtors and Jones Dairy Farm.

Writing Improvement Training: One-on-one coaching for customer service employees in the financial services and benefits industries, including Northwestern Mutual, William M. Mercer Inc., Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Wisconsin.

Employee Handbook: Overhaul of 200-page employee handbook for W.H. Brady.

Proofreading: A 270-page research report on genetically modified crops, which included more than 500 footnotes. Also proofed a 12-page brochure for a leading healthcare equipment manufacturer on an advanced research application for quantitative echocardiography.

Book Indexing: Created index for “Implementing Strategic Change: Tools for Transforming an Organization."

Publications
New York Telephone	Editor of monthly newsletter for 60,000 employees and retirees.
Johnson Controls	Sole writer of bi-monthly newsletter geared to sales force in 200 North American offices, and quarterly newsletter for aftermarket parts customers. Lead writer for monthly worldwide employee newsletter.
Sunday Supplement	A 32-page Sunday Kenosha News supplement on the startup of a Wisconsin Electric coal-fired power plant.
Magazine and Newsletter Articles	National Kitchen & Bath Association Miller Brewing Rockwell Automation OshKosh B’Gosh Dade Behring Square D Quad/Graphics Medical College of Wisconsin Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Wisconsin Johnson Controls

A few more links, if you still feel like clicking...

Resume

Personal Information

Speaking Engagements

Resume

Established freelance writing business in 1985. Specialties include technical writing, speech writing, business proposal writing, brochures, web sites, case studies and capturing best practices.

Public Relations

New York Telephone, New York City (1983-85)

Editor of 32-page monthly employee newspaper with staff of three full-time writers. Other projects included speechwriting, brochure production and audio/visual scripts.

Freelance Writer, New York City (1981-83)

Speechwriting, brochure copy and more for Equitable Life. Product releases and trade show press kits for Nissen-Lie Consult, a Scandinavian PR agency with a New York office.

Carl Byoir & Associates, New York City (1980-81)

Associate on the Emery Air Freight account for the nation's third largest PR agency at the time. Duties included press kits, news releases, media contact and editing worldwide employee newsletter.

Newspaper Reporting

The Herald-News, Passaic, NJ (1978-80)

Feature writer and county government reporter for this evening newspaper with a daily circulation of 75,000.

Beloit Daily News, Beloit, WI (1978)

Police/court reporter for this 19,000 circulation daily newspaper. Also wrote features and opinion columns.

The Mauston Star, Mauston, WI (1976-78)

Sole reporter and photographer for this twice-weekly newspaper. Generated all story ideas and wrote a weekly humor column.

College

Journalism degree from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1976.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources - Part-time during first three years of college at the agency's headquarters, primarily writing press releases.

Wisconsin State Journal - Newsroom assistant, or "copy boy." Occasionally wrote classical music reviews, including the Stockholm Philharmonic and guitarist Andres Segovia.

Personal Information

Favorite Movies: The Wizard of Oz. A Hard Day’s Night. This Is Spinal Tap.

Favorite Rock Songs: Can’t Buy Me Love (Beatles). Can’t You See That She’s Mine (Dave Clark Five). Time (Pink Floyd).

Favorite Books: The Crown and the Cross (Frank G. Slaughter). Monty Python: All The Words. The Beatles Anthology.

Quirky Things I've Done: Walked through Central Park alone at 2 a.m. Recycled high school lunch bag for 104 days. Charged admission to my birthday party.

Wish List: Compose an interesting symphony in C Major. Have Mom approve my eulogy of her before she dies. Love my enemies.

Speaking Engagements

As a well-established freelance writer, I have always been happy to share my experiences with others...

Milwaukee Area Technical College

"Writing for Publication" guest lecture 10-9-2002

University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Careers in Communications" workshop 10-23-2002

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Freelance writing panel discussion 11-4-2003

"Creative Non-Fiction for Publication" panel discussion 12-3-2003

Public Relations Society of America SE Wisconsin chapter

"Creativity in Communications" workshop with ComedySportz group 1-22-2003

(The transcript of my talk is printed below.)

Introduction

Pretend you're someone else when editing. This is good advice for fiction writers. Read your draft in a foreign accent, as if you have trouble understanding English. Or pretend you're a drill sergeant who is not easily impressed. You'll see your work in a new light, and will always spot the boring stuff. And read it aloud whenever possible.

Save your creative work for the morning, unless you can concentrate better at another time of day. Do your edits or other mundane tasks in the afternoon. Put a sign on your office door or cubicle: "I like to create in the morning. Can this wait until the afternoon?"

#1 Change of Environment / Imagine the Future or Past

A change of environment can help spark creativity. I get some of my best ideas while walking the dog. Beethoven and Mahler often brought notebooks with them as they walked through the woods, and jotted down musical ideas.

Freelancers can work in their back yard, living room, beach, park or the public library for a few hours. When I worked for a corporation, I would run off to the Legal Library for peace and quiet. Try the employee cafeteria after lunch is over, or a conference room if it's not booked.

For a creative opening sentence or paragraph, conjure up images of the ideal, the past or the future – and then compare the subject at hand to these images.

Engine brochure for Briggs & Stratton (Ideal)

Picture the perfect lawnmower engine. Briggs & Stratton did, and the result leaves very little to the imagination. Quantum combines optimal power and easy starting with an unprecedented reduction in noise.

Johnson Controls employee newsletter about an automotive seating plant (Future)

Peek inside the Tillsonburg, Ontario Headrest Plant and you will see the future of foam. It is our first location to use a new pour-in-place technology, where foam chemicals are poured into headrest covers that have already been sown.

Wisconsin Electric power plant expansion in Pleasant Prairie (Past)

Step back half a century or so and draw a mental picture of industry at work. Your head is probably full of clanking and thumping, whirring and hissing, zipping and zapping. And you've no doubt littered the landscape with smokestacks spewing their plumes all over town, lining windowsills with ashes.

Maybe it used to be that way, but my, how times have changed. The continuous march of technology, along with increasingly stringent government regulations, have teamed up to make sure that image stays where it belongs - in your mind.

Pleasant Prairie is one of the best examples of business doing all it can to keep the air and water - and noises - as close to natural levels as possible.

#2 Consider the Reader, or End-User

Always think of the end-user of your work, especially when you're in a rut. Pretend that your article is competing for the reader's attention with Time magazine or the daily newspaper. That's one of the best pieces of advice I ever received.

Instead of a Q&A lead or an anecdotal lead, determine what's the most important thing you want to communicate. How would you interest your mother? "Mom, guess what? Briggs & Stratton is putting tomorrow's technology to work for you today by combining optimal power and easy starting with an unprecedented reduction in noise. Mom? Mom? Hello?" Or: "Mom, step back half a century or so and draw a mental picture of industry at work."

National Kitchen & Bath Association magazine

Mark Brady wants to get on with his life. And he wants the same for his kitchen and bath clients, who find it difficult to thoroughly research the overwhelming array of products in the marketplace. Brady figures that if he can compress the decision-making cycle, he'll secure more business - and his clients can move into their dream spaces much sooner.

His solution is both innovative and classy. And yet it's very simple: He chauffeurs his clients to six showrooms in a single day for an Exploratory Shopping Cruise. Ten hours and 175 miles later, they have plenty of samples, literature, photos and notes to take back home and begin making decisions.

Let the facts speak for themselves. Another NKBA article.

Triangle Design Kitchens of Raleigh, NC saw its business jump 62% in 2001. The average price per kitchen doubled, without lowering the firm's healthy profit margin. The secret? A well-orchestrated advertising and marketing campaign targeting upper-income homeowners.

Snap-on Tools - How ergonomics applies to hand tools, for mechanics

When you work with your hands for a living, the last thing you need is a sore wrist, hand or finger. And yet these little annoyances cause lost work time for employees and headaches for employers. If we can send a man to the moon, why can't we help mechanics here on earth?

Science has heard the cry and has sent one of its branches – ergonomics – to the rescue. The result? Many tools for the professional mechanic are now being redesigned to minimize stress and fatigue that come with repeated or awkward use of hand tools.

#3 Personal Experience & Interests

If you inject your personal interests and experience into your subject matter, it will almost always be more lively. Sometimes you have to stretch to find the right analogy, but it's worth it. Although I do a lot of technical writing, I can't even understand how a lawn mower engine works. I've had lots of success weaving in music, film, soccer and other references that I enjoy to pep up mundane subject matter.

Blue Cross & Blue Shield

The Top 20 is usually associated with hit songs or college football rankings. But it's equally convenient for telling which health care diagnoses are the most common. Even more important than the numbers are the factors that explain why a diagnosis (or diagnoses-related group, DRG), makes the list.

American Society for Quality speech on corporate creativity

Let me end on an entertaining note. Many of you remember The Far Side comic strip by Gary Larson. In one panel, a monster is standing on top of a hill on the outskirts of town. He's reading a sign on a tree that says, "You must be taller than this sign to attack the city."

It looks like the monster is a bit short. Is he going to obey the rules of mankind, or attack the city anyway? Can the monster even read the sign? We don't know. The reader, like the monster, is in a state of uncertainty. But one thing is certain: the longer the monster waits to decide, the better chance the city will have to defend itself.

If your organization is the city below, you will need to think creatively and act quickly to defend yourself. If your organization is the monster, poised to capture greater market share, you will need to think more creatively and act more quickly than your competitors. In either scenario, I'm sure you will emerge from these learning sessions better prepared to act decisively and appropriately in any circumstance.

Johnson Controls

Don't be shocked if you see this football score a few years from now: University of Florida 112, Florida Gulf Coast University 3.

Florida is currently building its 10th state university. The four-year institution in Fort Myers may be the only new college currently under construction in North America. And Johnson Controls will be supplying a Metasys system to keep students and faculty comfortable.

#4 Poke Fun at Dry Subject Matter

Everybody has a sense of humor. Even engineers and actuaries.

Blue Cross & Blue Shield

Headline: It's Risky Business, but somebody has to set premiums

As phrases go, "refined risk classification" is a sleeping giant. On the surface, it would bore most people to tears. But if they realized how it affects their health insurance coverage and premium, they'd probably have some pretty strong opinions.

Snap-on Tools - New product makes torque measurement more convenient

Nuts and bolts may appear lifeless, but they're just itching for the chance to break loose. They are particularly restless when it comes to industrial environments. If they are not held in place with required torque, nuts and bolts will struggle free like Houdini in a straitjacket.

Johnson Controls

This Just In: Architects and design professionals are becoming extremely serious about the color white. So, if you'd like to be aesthetically correct, you might want to switch to white thermostat covers and conversion kits.

Johnson Controls

Just when you thought the HE-6300 and HE-6310 humidity transmitter product lines left no room for improvement, along come new choices of sensors that meet a wider range of applications.

#5 Opposites, or Satire

If you're having trouble bringing life to a subject, try thinking of the opposite of what you're trying to say. It may trigger an analogy or a comparison (do's and don'ts). If you want to run a hotel correctly, watch John Cleese in "Fawlty Towers" and do the opposite.

The following are samples of satire (or opposites) from my fiction collection, "Things To Do This Week."

New Car Review: The Field Mouse XL

If you want to get from your garage to the grocery store and the path is relatively direct, the Field Mouse XL from Generic Motors is an ideal choice in the Microscopic category. And if $4,495 is all you've got to spend on a new car, the Field Mouse is your only choice.

Standard seats are comprised of planks of unfinished pine, but for an extra $150 why not spring for a cushion of corrugated cardboard and a stadium blanket from your favorite NFL team?

Don't let the 0.8-liter, two-cylinder engine fool you. It's a workhorse for its size. A recent test drive demonstrated that it will climb from zero to 60 mph if you really have a desire to go that fast.

If the Field Mouse XL has a fault, it would be in the styling. The trunk can accommodate no more than 50 paperback books. The rear-view mirror hangs from a piece of twine. And the lack of a passenger window may be disturbing to some.

T is for Time Out

"March up to your room this instant, close the door, turn out the lights, get under the covers and keep your mouth shut until Mom or Dad comes up to get you. If you can't get along with the rest of the family, we'll have to put you in solitary confinement. Now get going! MOVE!"

We do things differently today. Behavioral research has taught us to use an approach more along these lines:

"You have chosen to defy logic, even though we gave you several opportunities to participate in a meaningful dialogue with Mother and Father. Therefore, we have no recourse but to issue you a Time Out. This was a very painful decision for us to reach, Kyle. But please understand that your isolation from family activities is only temporary. In fact, for a mere three minutes. When the bell goes off, you will apologize to the Gregorian chant that you interrupted."

In My Next Life

In my next life, I am going to make more of an effort to impose my will on other people. I am through being timid. There's a pretty good chance that I will grow a thick, foreboding moustache in my next life. I am not going to be a hospital attendant or a migrant farm laborer. That much I know.

When charities ask for my contributions, I am going to brush them aside like so many cocktail-hour pianists. "Scoot along," I will tell them. "Can't you see I have work to do?"

Let's say I am driving a motor vehicle in my next life. Do you think I am going to let hundreds of motor vehicles pass me, or do you think I am going to pass them?

My aggressive behavior in the life to come will balance my compassionate behavior in the present life. At the end of the next life, I will be in a good position to evaluate the differences between the two – and decide what kind of person I want to be in future lives.

Perhaps you sense a latent cruel streak? Or a thinly veiled absurdity that deceives only myself? Well, think what you will, but at least I am giving you the opportunity to choose for yourself. In my next life, I may not be so generous. Your freedom of choice may trouble me, and I may have you executed.

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