Music, writing and whatever else crosses my mind

Special effects, which is easy to remember, is a noun. Therefore, effect is a noun and affect is a verb.

• “Our new software caused the desired effect.”
• “Our new software affected the hamster’s behavior.”

Jessie at The Blah Blah has posted a banjo throwdown of her favorite songs with banjo in them. Looks like they may only be up for a week, so hurry!

http://theblahblah.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/pluck-it-a-banjo-throwdown-mix/

Finding the right words for a speech is tough enough, but when your job could literally depend on what you say, it gets downright impossible. If you’re going to introduce your boss, for instance.  

With speeches in general and with introductions especially, keep it short. Your goal is to set the stage, not to one-up the speaker. Remember that it’s not about you (this time). The safest bet is to say something like:

“I’m privileged to introduce my boss/supervisor/manager and good friend, Jonas Jones. Jonas started here in 1996, cleaning the dust out of the keyboards. Today, he heads up the Hardware department, and he’s here to tell us about the latest advancements in wiring.”   

That’s it. You’re done. Now you can sit down and happily enjoy your boss’s discomfort.

If you have more confidence, or if the situation is more informal, you may want to tell a story as part of the introduction. If so, keep it to one story. Funny is ok, but the wrong kind of funny is bad. Very bad.

Following are some questions that might give you ideas for a short, job-friendly introductory story. Ask around - you never know who has an interesting insight. And remember, use your judgment about whether the story is appropriate based on the boss (some have more humor than others) and the situation!

• What is the boss’s alma mater? What does the school’s mascot or colors say about the boss today?
• What is the craziest job he or she had while at the company?
• What is the boss’s hobby outside of work? How does that hobby come across on the job? What about sports?
• What experiences have you shared with the boss on the job? For instance, major project accomplishments, frustrations with a business customer (always an easy target), fights over parking spaces, etc.
• What is the boss’s favorite charity? How has he or she contributed (non-monetarily)?
• Does the boss have any unusual pets? How does that relate to the workplace? (”Brenda is used to herding programmers. She has 18 cats at home!”)
• Does the boss have a family? Has he or she shared any touching, not-to-personal stories about family life? (You may want to clear any family stories with him/her beforehand).

Good luck!

IT employees have opinions, too. In fact, as IT integrates more with the business, the opinions of the people who select, implement and maintain essential technical architectures become more and more critical.

Have you ever started to write a strong opinion in an email or article just to have your point lost in the details? An opinion that’s hard to understand is easy to ignore.

Follow these steps to give your argument the punch it deserves:

1. Focus on a single, specific call-to-action. You’re trying to persuade someone to do something, right? That’s your call-to-action. Identify it clearly before you start writing. If you have many things you’d like your audience to do, narrow the list down to one. Everything you write from then on should support that call-to-action, so when the reader finishes, he or she will yell out, “I agree with that IT guy! We should stake our entire future on cloud computing!” (or whatever your cause).

2. Put your voice into the writing. Effective persuasion requires emotional as well as logical arguments. Let your voice come through to make a personal connection with your audience. If you have a hard time doing this in writing, speak your argument into a recorder, then transcribe it.

3. Edit ruthlessly. You don’t want anything to distract from your point (your single point), so you have to edit out the stuff that doesn’t support your argument. Random thoughts have to go, along with any technical terms and acronyms that will distract your readers.

One way to make your IT content more interesting is to find a compelling story among all of the project plans, acronyms and specs. 

But a story is more than just having a beginning, middle and end. To make it interesting, the story needs conflict. It needs a problem. Luckily, addressing problems is what IT does best.

So when you’re writing a press release, speech or email about a new product or project, get away from the details and go back to the original issue.

It doesn’t take much. Just a couple of sentences may be enough to establish why your topic is important while at the same time drawing in the readers.

Not this:

Last week, the Printer Network Optimization project team added 23 Epson DX3 MicroPiezo’s to the enterprise LAN.

But this:

In 2007, Jeff Jeffery walked a mile-and-a-half for his printouts. Now, thanks to the Printer Network Optimization project, Jeff’s printer is closer than his coffee maker.