As a reader you and I are consumers of words. I am finding that as a writer I am much more aware of words and their power. The old kids saying — “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me” – is not quite as true as I was brought up to believe. Words have a power all their own and we all use them — sometimes without thinking things through — to do all sorts of things. Words can convince, hurt, sooth, clarify, obfuscate and so many other things.
Recently the “balloon boy” story caught my attention with an article in the paper. In the article they used a word combination that got me to thinking. They said that there could have been a “terrified 6 year old boy” in the balloon. Now at one time I was a 6 year old boy and the thought of going flying in a big balloon might well have seemed like tons of fun for me. I think that the author of that article was trying to bend the thinking of the reader to feel that it would have been terrifying experience. Without a real boy in that balloon however I felt that terrified was a stretch. That seems like a small issue but those are the sorts of things that I find myself looking at more critically of late.
I am noticing that the use of the adjectives can offer the author of the article a slant in how he reports information. Here are a couple of different directions that the balloon boy adjective could have taken
- terrified
- fun loving
- inquisitive
- stupid
- normal
- special needs
If one of these other words were used in conjunction with an article it might lead the reader to having a different picture of the young man in question.
When you read, do you read every word, or do you tend to skip around and maybe only read a lead paragraph and skim the rest? Do you question what you read? Are you always in agreement with information that you read? I think that these are all very good questions to ask yourself.
In working with a couple of writers for different things that I do here at RCI I have become very impressed with their ability to use words to meet different needs. Writing just for myself I am trying to be a better wordsmith and have some great examples of how the professionals take what is requested of them, and turn out a great product. I still have much to learn!
Springfield, MO October 26, 2009 – Aaron Sachs is proud to sponsor the “October 31st Party” at James River Assembly. Aaron Sachs, whose personal injury law firm has offices in Springfield, Joplin, Columbia and Cape Girardeau, is committed to community service and safety. He encourages parents and youngsters to attend an alternative, supervised event on October 31st, Halloween at one of James River Assembly’s two Springfield locations for a fun filled evening.
At this fun, safe event at either the new Wilson Creek location, or at the original James River location, young people can safely enjoy a world of amusement and get the all-important candy “stash,” without knocking on a single stranger’s door.
Sachs states, “There is more candy than most children can handle, over 120,000 items. There’s kettle corn, a live show, inflatables for the tiny ones and plenty to do for adults, too.”
On Saturday, October 31st, the show will start at 1 p.m., and still be going as it starts to get dark around 5 p.m. The James River community is planning for approximately 7,000 children for this event.
Aaron Sachs Associates’ personal injury law offices are located in Springfield, Columbia, Cape Girardeau and Joplin. Their community-service outreach program is covered in much greater detail on their website: www.autoinjury.com under the “community service” header.
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Looking at how companies are currently using telephone marketing I was struck by how dated some of the techniques seemed to me. Going forward it seems that there has been a change in how people look at and use telephone numbers as company contact information. Before the web the telephone number on advertising was essential to making sure that people could remember and find you.
In today’s world I think the the web address has replaced the phone number as the information that you need to get potential clients to remember. From the web address the person should be able to contact you through a variety of methods — email, phone, fax and online forms – as long as your website allows that.
A bit of history comes to mind. As a youngster I remember that phone numbers had a name to help people remember the numbers. Something like Klodike 46789 would mean something to the person rembering a phone number. If I have this right it was that you would replace the first 2 letters with the number that is associated with them. So for Klondike it would mean 55. This sounds very quaint today but I still remember my folks and my grandma sharing numbers this way. Also in this time a “long distance” call meant that someone was spending quite alot of money to be making a call that came from a different state or region. All those long distance calls were started by dialing a 1 first.
Companies I think just extrapalated on this idea of the name to number code to help make it easy for people to remeber a number, even if they were away from pencil and paper at the time. So a company might advertise their number as 450-ASAP which again would decode to 450-2727. As the telephone network grew and more and more people were added to the system many phone numbers were expanded to 10 digits, even if was a local call. For instance in my area, Denver, a while back the telephone company did a area code “layover” which means that even neighbors could have different area codes, even is the call was just across the street. These calls did not require a 1 first to dial them.
Many companies have bought numbers that are free to call. These started out as “800″ numbers but now they can be a number of other area codes such as 866 and 888. This was required to handle the number of people that wanted free inbound calls.
This all worked very well but now there is a new member of the party. With cell or mobile phones the free goes right out of the equasion. At least in the North American market cell phone providers will charge for “air time”. That means that they charge for both incoming and outgoing calls. For them it costs for the connection. That makes a “free” call into a call that is no longer free if you are calling from a cell phone.
I was thinking these and other thoughts when I came across a truck that had an “800″ number on its side. They also had a word to help remember the number. While that is all well and good I had this thought. If I wanted to call this company and I had my mobile phone with me there is information that is not of any use to me. For one I am not sure that there is anyone who does not understand that you need to dial a 1 before starting a call like this. The next issue for me is that on my mobile phone ( a blackberry ) there is not an easy to see code on the phone to decode the name to number. So now I have to try and decode their nice “ASAP” name into a number if I am to call them right now today. That is what they call a barrier to entry. It just might be enough of a barrier that I might not make that call at all. Also I do not remeber if there was a web address. If there was I could use that, but since I was so distracted by the name to number decode it just simply slipped my mind.
So in closing I think that as you advertise you must keep in mind how people are finding you and the devices that they have available to them. For many business’s I might think that they can assume that most of their clients have mobile/cell phones. Many of these phones are also smart phones in that they may be able to visit your website right then and there. In the end it is making it easy for potential clients to be able to contact you and I believe that the rules have changed. Have you changed to meet the new model?