Building Rapport

I just received an email solicitation from a business that I have allowed to send me these. I read it and thought my mind had wondered in 3 short lines because I was in a fog.
Here is the only full sentence:

Do you need a 1-Day priority support, an early access to betas and forthcoming features, goodies and a VIP status with guaranteed commitment to your organization on any dashboarding project?

The words are not that strange, so what is the problem. The only word that might be considered jargon these days is dashboarding. Beta might be inappropriate for a message to the general public, but I won’t complain about it here. So I ran the sentence through the test at Check Test Readability, just as a first-stage filter.

So what is the problem or problems?

The sentence has 31 words (a few too many even for skilled readers) with an average of 1.77 syllables per word (pretty good by that measure alone). The sentence scores 25.30 out of 100 on the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease scale. The text score indicates the is not clear and easy reading–confirming my personal experience.

These are the other results:

Readability Formula U.S Grade Level

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 17.40

Gunning-Fog Score 20.10

Coleman-Liau Index 13.80

SMOG Index 14.10

Automated Readability Index 17.80

Average Grade Level 16.64

Break up the sentence

I quickly broke the sentence apart and made a list. Like this:

Do you need help and a VIP status on any dashboarding project?

You get our guaranteed commitment to your organization with:

• 1-Day priority support,
• early access to betas and forthcoming features, and
• other goodies.

Readability Formula U.S. Grade Level

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 11.50

Gunning-Fog Score 13.90

Coleman-Liau Index 13.50

SMOG Index 10.10

Automated Readability Index 10.70

Average Grade Level 11.94

The tool reported that this text

1. gets a 44 on the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease scale (better, maybe not good enough)
2. contains 2 sentences, with 35 words (17.50 per sentence)
3. no change in syllables per word.

Tackling vocabulary

So I changed it a little more. Google, on an out-of-date link, defines dashboarding: Presentation of data through graphical interfaces modeled ad hoc. Not a quick and easy substitution, so let’s try social media and real-time Web.

My third attempt was:

Do you need help on any social media or real-time Web project?

You get VIP service and our guaranteed commitment to your organization with:

- one-day priority support
- early access to new features or versions
- other goodies.

These changes offer a little improvement. The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score is now 51.70 and the average words per sentence is 19.

Readability Formula U.S. Grade Level
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level  10.80
Gunning-Fog Score  12.90
Coleman-Liau Index  11.60
SMOG Index   9.20
Automated Readability Index (Wikipedia) 10.00
Average Grade Level 10.90

We could go further and even try this version out on a few readers, but for now I am satisfied with about a 50% reduction in confusion.

I want to hear from you: tell me what is right or wrong with this advertisement. This not a test. I am interested to hear from people with differing perspectives or focuses.

HST ad in daily newspaper

Anishinabek outlaw term ‘aboriginal’

WHITEFISH RIVER FIRST NATION, ON,June 25 /CNW/ – Chiefs of the 42 member communities of the Anishinabek Nation have launched a campaign to eliminate the inappropriate use of the term “aboriginal”.

During the annual Grand Council Assembly in this Manitoulin Island community, Chiefs endorsed a resolution that characterized the word as “another means of assimilation through the displacement of our First Nation-specific inherent and treaty rights.”

“It’s actually offensive to hear that term used in reference to First Nations citizens,” said Grand Council Chief John Beaucage.

The resolution notes that the reference to “aboriginal rights” referred to in Section 35 of the Constitution Act of Canada “was never meant to assimilate First Nations, Metis and Inuit into a homogeneous group.”

—————————————————————————
June 21 is National Aboriginal Day because of the cultural significance of the summer solstice.

The first day of summer and longest day of the year, is celebrated as the rebirth of Mother Earth. The many Aboriginal communities mark this day as a time to celebrate their heritage.

Marking this day for First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples also recognizes their primary and founding place on this continent and their ongoing contributions as First Peoples.

The writing tip for today is that you can use the general term aboriginal, at least in Canada, to refer to First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.

“corporate-speak” — language that is bland, undifferentiated, hard to read with meaning obscured by jargon, waffle, hype, verbiage, legalese and conventionality.

adapted from “Writing as branding” by Matthew Stibbe of Articulate Marketing on BadLanguage http://www.badlanguage.net/ which is a very readable blog.

“Transparency” is one of the vogue words in government that I hate, along with “embed” and “empower”. Not to mention “environmental scan”.

Yesterday the word came up on a listserve and was explained as “It has to do with making processes clear — how decisions get made, for example, or how money gets spent.”

I could not find a dictionary offering anything about process, although I know the word is used that way now.

Wallstreet Words offers this:

transparency

The full, accurate, and timely disclosure of information.

This morning I had a look at someone’s psychological assessment. Features of “transparency” were identified as:
+ keeps promises
+ brings up ethical concerns
+ acknowledges mistakes
+ acts on own values even at personal cost

I would say the meaning is not widely known, if not actually murky.

The Word of the Day at Dictionary.Com is “listless”:
Having no desire or inclination; indifferent; heedless; spiritless.

Reading the definition this Sunday morning, I saw this interpretation: without a list.

I had been traveling and working so much in the past 2 months that I could not keep up with my posting here and, as time went by, I felt even more listless about posting.

Then I got it into my head that I needed to make a list of possible topics before I could even make one post. But I made my list yesterday, and still… listless.

So what hit me this morning was the thought that our busy lives are managed by lists. But what happens when you have no more lists?

Who wants a retirement that is listless.