Talk like Barack?

Want to talk like Barack Obama? Or do you prefer a little Jon Stewart? It’s easy to change your writing voice to fit the occasion.

My No. 1 advice here is that you write in your own voice first. Focus on content. Only after you know your content is relevant and compelling should you then begin to apply a final varnish.

Voice is varnish, the glossy finish you apply at the end of your creative process.

To talk like Barack, do this:

· Add sweeping references to time

· Emphasize continuity and evolution

· Make all efforts and problems collective

· Use colloquialisms like “look,” “you’re going to see,” “you’re going to have”

· Use multi-syllable words unless talking about human beings

Let’s say, for example, your company is introducing … um, well, let’s call it a tablet computer. The PR team is asked to pitch a case study about the “Smart Tablet” being used by teachers in the classroom. But someone says, “Can you make it inspirational, kind of like an Obama speech?”

The marketing department will hand you this:

Fireside Inc., the leading provider of innovative computing technology, today announced that the Springville Central School District has become the first educational institution in Texas to deploy the innovative new breakthrough Smart Tablet computer with elegant form factor and intuitive interface featuring the X-Blast 1400 operating system, potentially revolutionizing the delivery of classroom instruction.

To Barack-ify it, say goodbye to leading provider, form factor, intuitive interface, deploy, breakthrough, revolutionize and delivery.

Add Abraham Lincoln, use the word “kids” for the human recipients of the instruction, and replace Fireside and Springville with “all of us.”

New version:

I think Abraham Lincoln described this best. And perhaps I’m paraphrasing a little bit here, but he basically said, look, I think it is very important to acknowledge that we can collectively give our kids a decent education much more effectively than we can individually.

Sounds like him, doesn’t it? Problem is, the person who told you to sound like an Obama speech didn’t really mean quite that. To get through the approval process, you’ll need to reel it back in.

My suggestion: Keep much of the original lead paragraph (minus the jargon and hyperbole), but replace multi-syllable words with one-syllable words where possible – for example, say school, not institution.

Let your executive sound like Obama in a quotation. Delete Abe Lincoln, but keep the feeling of “we’re all in this together.”

“I’ve got kids of my own and, as a parent, I recognize the enormous potential for the technology industry to lend a helping hand to schools. Collectively we can do a tremendous job of helping youngsters acquire the education they’ll need to carry the dream forward in the decades that stretch before them.”

At the end of this post, I’ve listed Obama words.

But now let’s look at Jon Stewart, host of the satirical news program “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central. Maybe your marketing department likes the fact that he’s smart and funny, and wants to appeal to consumers who would like to think of themselves as smart and funny, or wish they were.

Unfortunately, you might end up with something like this:

Speaking of education – and someone’s got to – a mentoring program in Texas is giving teachers new tablet computers. Some believe the tablets are smarter than the teachers.

Pa-dum-pum.

OK, so now you realize that you don’t really want to sound like Jon, though it was a nice idea.

Still, you can capture a bit of his smartness, if not his humor at the expense of others, by doing this:

· Focus on the “why”

· Add connotation

· Emphasize contrasts

· Use highly precise vocabulary

It might look something like this:

Looks like a clipboard. But a tremendous amount of ingenuity makes the Fireside Smart Tablet an eloquent new contender in a teacher’s instructional arsenal. Traditional textbooks and ordinary notebooks are at a disadvantage in several respects. For one thing, the Smart Tablet’s infrared sensor captures the notes scribbled in the margin and files them. And a built-in microphone matches the notes to the lecture. So in terms of accuracy, it is, well, impeccable.

Many companies fear this degree of clarity and attitude in a product comparison. And key people in the approval process tend to appreciate formality and decorum.

So what I’m really saying is: Voice matters less than you think. People hate it when I say this. They miss a beat in the conversation as their eyes quickly shoot directly to mine, then dart away and soften while they censor their thoughts. It's like I've taken something from them. They love to feel they are writing in “the client’s voice” or “a cross between the voice of Barack Obama, Jon Stewart and Sandra Bullock.”

But what matters more than words are deeds. Keep it plain, keep it clear, and keep your customers’ needs front and center. Actions do in fact speak louder than words.

Barack Obama: enormous, important, recognition, if you have, then you’re going to see, you’re still going to have, we’re going to see, and once we’ve completed that assessment, then I think that we take a look at, and the question is, that tells me we’re probably in the right place, legacies of the past, certain amount of lag time, transition period, formative years, acknowledge the degree to which, perpetuity, continued grievances, unsentimental, pragmatic, mutual, meeting of the minds, provide social justice, system that works, complete disorder, allow people to advance based on, pursue prosperity, being thoroughly scrubbed, point number one, individual determination, relinquish capacity, mechanisms of, cut out, whole bunch, consistently spoken out, civic institutions, again we are tested, and again we must answer history's call, the spirit that has sustained this nation for more than two centuries lives on in you, the people

Jon Stewart: maniacal, eloquent, upsetting, vexing, indicted, obtuse, periphery, penetrate, dictate, credibility, disparage, fake, intervention, vociferous, scandal mongering, unpunished fraud perpetrated, theatrical farce, cahones to stand up to him, distinguished gentlemen, being swayed, lawns to mow and kids to pick up from school, hiding things, why is…, why are…, fractured mirror to reveal greater truth, play craps, bet with the table, ended up losing

How to figure out your client's writing preferences

Of course, this has never happened to you, but it might have happened to someone you know:

A hard-to-please client is re-writing your team’s work in the wee hours. Team morale is sliding because new quality control measures haven't helped. Baffled junior staff wonder if they chose the wrong career, and senior staff schedule extra client meetings to get to the bottom of things, to no effect.

In case you ever land in this situation -- or better still, if you want to pre-empt it -- here's what you can do to figure out a challenging client's writing preferences.

(1) Find out who your client admires -- Ask for writing samples from third-party or internal sources that the client likes. These may be from a company the client admires or the work of a favorite internal writer. Most people can’t articulate their preferences, but they know what they like when they see it.

(2) Study a body of tracked changes -- Gather three to five samples of this person’s tracked changes and look for patterns.

(3) Analyze in three specific categories: (a) discretionary vocabulary, (b) sentence structure and (c) content decisions. (That’s for starters. When I dive into these, I tend to find more categories specific to the client.)

(a) Discretionary vocabulary –
Does your client prefer international, global or worldwide? They all mean the same thing, right? Does he like meet, need and look better than assemble, require and appear? Again, same meaning, different words.

But to him, one set sounds right and the other doesn't. He can't tell you why. For most of us, it's a natural inclination to want writing that we are editing to sound similar to the syntax and connotation that matches the voice we hear in our head when we read. Most of us don't realize that we have these personal biases.

Does your client choose customer retention over customer loyalty, dramatically over highly, and stimulate over fuel?

Make a list of words that potentially could have been interchangeable with other words of similar meaning. Analyze them.

Some people have biases for particular sounds – like the “uhl” sounds in loyal, highly and fuel. I can't tell you why, just that I've observed it.

Some insist on generic college words (Latinate) like establish, initiate, consolidate and examine, while others prefer plain words (Anglo-Saxon) like set up, start, join and find. I know of one individual who likes Latinate verbs but poetic Anglo-Saxon kicks at the ends of sentences: “….consolidate ….initiate… cash in on the car’s cachet.”

If you detect an underlying core image, it may be easier to guess which discretionary words will be the best fit. Your client won’t realize how deliberately you made your choice; he’ll just feel comfortable reading what you wrote and won’t know why.

One company’s preferred vocabulary reminds me of music from the 1968 sci-fi classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It’s transcendent and expansive – freed from the limitations of, future generations, legendary.

Another emphasizes comparison (double the capacity, aggressive development milestones, outperform, minimal) and perspective (in a roundup of five, range from, longstanding, latest).

One reminds me of a race car: speed, accelerate, perform, grab, win, spin, stop.

(b) Sentence structure –
I know of at least one individual who systematically deletes all introductory clauses without fail. Meanwhile, others insist on them: “At a time when people are traveling more than ever (comma)” or “Demonstrating the popularity of mobile devices (comma).”

One company likes a rhythm of fours instead of the usual rhythm of threes, as in “apples, oranges, bananas and pears” versus “apples, oranges and bananas.”

I know of a company that deletes adjectives, except for certain ones immediately in front of product names – and nowhere else. This company mostly writes with strong verbs highly recommended). Many people do just the opposite. They mostly write with jazzy nouns (and quiet verbs like is, has, do), and love adjectives everywhere.

I know of a veteran professional communicator with an engineer’s love for efficiency but none for colloquialisms. So it’s “enables remote PC access” not “so users can connect to their PC while away from the office.” Another company with similar products prefers just the opposite.

(c) Content choices –
Some companies like to make explicit statements about business strategy in product announcements. Others stick to specs and features. A few (the ones that win awards and get talked about) emphasize social context. (Everyone agrees on emphasizing benefits.)

Once you’ve got these kinds of lists in front of you, the problem is no longer mysterious. You can create a cheat sheet for everyone on the team to use.