Copywriting Kit
Enhance your copywriting game with these essential tools
Copywriters are rather versatile beings with enormous amounts of experience often across vastly different disciplines. But to complement the skills they’ve built throughout their career every copywriter carefully selects a set of tools they keep up their sleeves and are invaluable to their craft.
If you’re just starting out with copywriting it can be hard to know which tools you should use.
Here are 6 copywriting tools you really can’t do without!
An Indispensable Thesaurus
You might think that most thesauruses (or thesauri) are much the same, especially those that are online. Where they all differ are their comparable features.
Like any thesaurus, they all contain lists of synonyms and antonyms but there are a select few which also combine the powers of a dictionary, phrase book, and lexicon of phrases and idioms. …
Future of Work
What should we do with office buildings we no longer use?
COVID-19 has left the world changed with traditional business evolving rapidly to working from home.
Large organisations, corporates, and enterprises which still hold thousands of seats in office buildings around the globe are starting to realise they no longer need the space they once occupied and now face the dilemma of what to do with unused offices.
Back in April when we all started to navigate the waters of global quarantine I wrote an article where I made the following prediction:
“We may find in the future large companies with thousands of employees where the only physical footprint will be a series of racks in a data centre.“ …
A new challenger appears
For the longest time I’ve sought to streamline my writing environment, and I’ve of articles to that fact. One of the first needs of any software I use to write is its ability to strip away all other distractions.
I can appreciate the tools a full-blown word processor contains, but most feel like the strange amalgamation of desktop publishing and presentation software.
The best writing applications provide a single full-screen writing environment where you can’t waste time playing with font choice, weight, or exessive punctuation options.
A new contender to the distraction-free writing arena, Frost 3.0 brings this same appeal but also deviates from the pack. It’s not just about a place to write, but centres on atmospheric musical soundscapes to inspire while you type your masterpiece, and it’s freely available in-browser right now. …
Building your tribe is easier than you might think
Influence is one of those things that we rarely identify in the moment, yet we are influenced by the people we know, the brands we consume, and the individuals we follow on a daily basis.
It’s the intangible qualities of how we’ve been affected that is often most difficult for us to grasp, especially when attempting to build our own personal influence.
Developing influence can seem like a hard road but with the following steps you’ll be well on your way to understanding influence, and how to cultivate your own.
Be you, and remain so
When people seek to follow you they are interested in one thing… you. …
Adventures in Writing
A story of note taking, enabling tech, and me
Note taking is an incredibly personal thing. Some like paper, others record their voice, and then there are those brave souls who wade into the hundreds of applications available that strive to be the best thing since lined paper.
In a previous article I wrote a few years ago, Welcome to the Note Taking Apocalypse, I discussed the issue of app store choice when it came to finding a note taking application that had a balanced mix of key functions with an interface that feels frictionless which gets out of the users way.
I also discussed how most developers felt the need to reinvent rather than refine their features time and time again. Which perhaps has more to do with the need to produce a change log and show the progression of an update cycle than actually performing any research into how, or why, a particular feature would be useful. …
Adventures in Writing
I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately. What is it that actually motivates me to write?
It’s not something that I’ve been able to easily answer in the past, and it’s still something that I struggle with regularly.
On a good day, when I feel motivated to put fingers to keys, the reasons I write can vary from the exploration of a single thought right down to the simple basic premise of telling a really good story.
I truly love the ‘flow state’ I achieve when motivated to write, like it’s the fresh air I’ve been looking to breathe all my life.
In that moment, be it one-thousand or twenty-thousand words, it feels achievable. Its the state that I want to strive for one more word, one more sentence, one more chapter… and its something that I long for every day. …
How to escape right from your living room with this simple tip
Being at home for so many weeks on end can become a real drag while the world is experiencing the COVID-19 crisis. You’re stuck inside seeing the same four walls each day, with little escape on weekends.
But fear not, I’m here to show you how you can travel over vast distances without ever leaving your living room.
What you’ll need
If you have a decent internet connection and a Google Chromecast, Apple TV, or other streaming device, then you have everything you’ll need for this simple escape.
YouTube is a weird and wonderful thing
Yes, there is plenty of entertainment available on YouTube, but there are some beautiful things available to stream absentmindedly in the background while you’re stuck at home, and some of these are ambient experiences from video games. …
Future of Work
Remote is the new normal
It’s safe to say that the daily grind has recently been tipped on its head. The world has changed from a commuting lifestyle to schlepping a few feet from the bedroom to your home office desk, kitchen table, or living room.
Many, many people have now reverted to working from home from laptops and other devices, remotely connecting into their once physical office spaces to continue working.
In immediate response to the crisis, employers world-wide have scrambled to increase their capacity or find solutions for remote workers to keep operating from their homes.
With global news changing hourly, scientific researchers working around the clock to develop faster testing and potential vaccines, everyone in the world is facing uncertain times ahead. …
Why is it still so hard to develop great information experiences?
Think about the last time you ate takeout. We all know the dance of indecision where we have the perfect thing in mind, but have struggled to give it a name. In those moments we settle on one thing only and sometimes realise that when we have it, it was something else entirely we really wanted.
This is the very same process people go through when attempting to locate information in complex information systems. They know the kind of information they want, but cannot for the life of them put that into words, let alone think of a search term.
The responsibility of information design
When developing any kind of system it’s imperative to place people at the very heart of its design. …
How it took Apple to cut off updates to make me finally upgrade
So I’ve done it, I’ve finally replaced my trusty iPhone 6. I’ve been in this relationship for five long years and it’s one I won’t soon forget.
Initially released on September 19th, 2014 the iPhone 6 was a masterpiece to behold.
I always made the statement, “If Apple made a phone in the Samsung S3 size with a side mounted power button, I’ll go back.” and go back I did. It was like the god-like beings designing the iPhone 6 had heard my claims through the ether.
It was only a few days later I purchased my spanking-new Space Grey unit, tossing aside my then defunct Samsung Galaxy S3. …
