Anybody can create information. Successful communicators design information. My information design rule for the day? Become an information architect and construct user experiences—every time you put words on a page, screen, or slide. When we design information—be it in a resume, report, PowerPoint, white paper, sales pitch, text book, social
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The information design rule I’m capturing today is critical: design for how people feel. Even in business and professional settings, it’s important we get in touch with our feelings. Or, more importantly, it’s important we understand how our audiences’ feelings will be affected by what we create. It’s not uncommon
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People like pictures. A lot. And there is overwhelming research-based evidence to suggest that it’s not just a personal preference or that it is a cultural phenomenon. The human brain loves pictures. It processes pictures faster than any other form of communication and it remembers pictures far, far more than
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It’s not exactly news anymore: people just don’t read like they used to. To be an effective writer-communicator these days, we need to learn how to adapt. In the olden days, we used to sit and read the same piece of content for extended periods of time (and by “extended,”
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You’re a business professional. And, perhaps unexpectedly, your job requires you to create communication designs all the time–PowerPoint presentations, data visualizations, sales reports, user’s manuals, web pages, instructions, marketing collateral, fliers, business cards, you name it. But chances are pretty good that, unless you specifically took courses in graphic design
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If you’re writing any kind of paper—essay, report, legal document, proposal, etc.—and you reference ideas that are not original to you, you need to be citing your sources. Citing sources gives credit to the people who developed original ideas and research. Citing sources will keep you from plagiarizing and help
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Design isn’t just for graphic designers and marketing gurus. If you’re good at design, you’ll succeed in ways you never thought possible. Business professionals: we live in age where there is no excuse to not be more design-conscious. And it has never been more important that you become so now.
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Somewhere every June, in the far dark corners of the earth, a unique gathering happens: over 1,000 high school and college English teachers from across the United States meet to score AP English exams. It’s a mysterious part of my career that has consumed nine days of my life every
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So, I’m kind of a lover of languages. Whenever I’ve had a chance to travel around the globe, I’ve been fascinated by the differences in, say Czech versus Polish, when the two countries are right next to each other. And languages like Khmer (Cambodia) are so foreign to me, yet
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All-you-can-eat sushi! All-you-can-eat “sushi”! What’s the difference between the two phrases above? It’s the difference between real, quality ingredients made from fresh, edible goodness and, well, some mysterious concoction that may or may not do your bowels any favors four hours after eating it. Those quotation marks make a huge
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