Thanks to new media commentator Jeppe Kabell for linking to this intriguing post about how a course in business writing led to dramatic improvements for the author.

Written by the creator of the Dilbert comic, Scott Adams, the post urges people to remember the art of simplicity. Advice every writer should take on board.

But the post also got me thinking about why people should try and improve their writing skills.

What is the actual benefit?

We take it for granted here in the office that good writing is something valuable in itself. But what is its value to businesses?

I’ll try and get the ball rolling and then I’ll leave it to my colleagues - and hopefully some of you as well - to fill in the blanks.

I guess the title of this post gives my arguments away! For me, it’s all about clarity. Communicating something, whether it’s the benefits of a new product, or the values of a company, is optimized through clarity.

Simple, easily understandable language should be every writer’s first goal. Striving for that powerful, hard-hitting message can wait. Start simple, and then hone. Often, the most powerful text is the least confusing!

Now, over to you.

Thanks to all of those who came to our housewarming party yesterday.

The sun shone, the food was tasty, and the wine was flowing.

We have plenty of pictures from the event and we will get them posted up early next week.

For now, have a great weekend!

We’re almost ready with our preparations for our big housewarming party later this afternoon.

We’re looking forward to welcoming many of the great friends we’ve made over the past few years - I hope we didn’t forget any of you!

I’ve even brought my trusty camera and i’ll be uploading some snaps which you’ll find on the blog tomorrow - hangovers permitting!

Cheers!

Some of you take pictures, I’m sure.

Some of you might even display those pictures on Flickr, the community photo-sharing website.

Yet more of you might have recently discovered Street View from Google Maps.

Whether or not any of you ticked those boxes, I am sure you are interested in staying in touch with potentially revolutionary developments that might impact your business.

If so, you should check out this astonishing video demonstration of new software from Microsoft - Seadragon and Photosynth.

I won’t go into too much detail, but Photosynth will eventually allow users to explore fully realised spatial models of almost anywhere on earth using pictures and satellite imagery stored on places like Flickr and Street View.

Now, why am I blogging about photo software on a business communications blog?

Well, as The Register hint at in their article about the software, it will eventually lead to a scenario where people will be able to browse their laptop or PDA for images of almost anything they are thinking of checking out, be it a restaurant, bar, business or city.

With Photosynth, they will be able to go inside that restaurant and take a virtual tour before leaving the house!

Businesses take note - the era of ultra-informed choice is here. Those of us not delivering top-notch services, or not paying attention to the rapid pace of technological advancement, risk getting left by the digital roadside.

My colleague Anastasya blogged last month about some of the marketing phrases that had amused her.

Expressions like ‘blue-sky thinking’, and ‘reinvent the wheel’ are commonplace in certain sectors of the business world. Personally I can’t stand them. There is a word in English which sums them up for me. . . corny. It means trite, or needlessly dramatic.

Another bugbear of mine is jargon. My one self-imposed rule as a copywriter is ‘keep things simple’. But all too often I encounter text that looks like a set of random words that have fallen out of a dictionary.

It can be quite amusing sometimes trying to deconstruct sentences as obtuse as: “Expediting this value chain requires optimal synergistic leveraging of the entire back-end processing systems.”

OK, I made that one up but the Plain English Campaign has some real-life examples that will make you smile.

Something else I came across this week was Apple’s hilarious corporate jargon lorem ipsum generator.

A must for graphic designers with a sense of humour!

We’ve been installed in our lovely new offices in the heart of swanky Svanemøllen for two months now and the debates about the office layout are continuing at a furious pace!

I’m optimistically viewing the process as ‘organic’. By which I mean that we’ll eventually arrive at a consensus if only because people will lose the energy to object to each other’s ideas!

Realistically, though, I know the girls will have the final say. I’m just trying to put up a fight for as long as I can!

It would be interesting to hear your stories of office moves. What tips can you pass on that might make things a little easier for companies about to relocate?

My suggestion? Outsource the job to a good interior designer!

I was just trawling through some of my feeds (I use Google Reader to keep track of the dozens of interesting sites that make up the bulk of my online reading) and found an interesting piece about whether Google might be planning to buy Salesforce - the popular CRM software company.

We use Salesforce here at Eye for Image, and the point the author makes about Salesforce not having a complete email solution is valid. Imagine the time you could save if it had a fully integrated email client?!

Google helps me streamline my IT to the extent that, outside of work, I’m hardly using any paid-for software these days. I use GMail for email, Picasa for picture storage, and I’m now even beginning to use GoogleDocs instead of Word - and all in one browser!

The thought of transferring the usability and simplicity of these applications to my work IT environment is certainly an enticing one!

I’ve just read that Denmark has retained its position as the world’s fifth most competitive economy.

What do you think really makes this economy tick?

Flexibility? Educated workforce? We’d love to know your thoughts.

As copywriters working in everything from shipping to pharmaceuticals, we’re always on the look-out for ideas or advice that can give us an edge when it comes to formulating hard-hitting, captivating text.

A writer – irrespective of the genre – should never rest on their laurels. You can always improve. Earlier today I came across some great words of advice from an author I greatly admired – Kurt Vonnegut.

You can read the full text here, but the one tip I’d really endorse is number three on his list – Keep It Simple! Whenever I approach a new text, I always start by trying to distil the message into a single, clear sentence before building the rest of the document around that thought.

And if I was to distil that garbled sentence into a more concise message it would probably be: Do whatever Kurt says!

As you can probably imagine, communications is a pretty hot topic of conversation here in the Eye for Image office.  This morning, a colleague and I were discussing some of the most effective ways of convincing non-native English speakers that something they have written really isn’t very professional. 

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes, there may not be a sound grammatical or messaging argument you can use. The problem might be that it just doesn’t flow that well. Often, only a native speaker will be able to pick up on something like that. But convincing a Dane – especially one adamant that there is absolutely nothing wrong with their English – is a different matter! But when your company positions itself as the communications experts, you want to be ready with a range of arguments why that dogmatic Dane should take our word for it. 

In the end, we agreed that sometimes it really does come down to a matter of taste. And if our combined experience as English-language communicators in a range of industries is not a good enough reason to trust our judgement, then there’s not a lot more we can do!