Writing for School Districts, part 2

At the same time I was doing interviews on the AVID program from the June 5 post, I also spoke with principals and administrators at several schools that have implemented a behavioral framework called Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS). It focuses on what kids are doing right, instead of on what kids are doing "wrong." This article sums it up.

PBIS: Changing the Culture of School Behavior and Discipline

Posted at Federal Way Public Schools on June 7, 2014

Traditionally, teachers have focused their classroom management skills on students who were not following rules. Educators at schools across the district and state questioned the effectiveness of this approach, and asked, what if you instead focused on students’ positive behavior?

A big shift, it turns out. Moving from classroom to classroom at Meredith Hill Elementary, a district pioneer in this approach, it’s hard to spot a student not engaged in learning.

(see the rest of the article on the Federal Way Public Schools website)

When Matchy Matchy Is Important

Matchy Matchy? 

Interior designers often tell you not to flank your couch with two matching tables, topped with two matching lamps and to use different upholstery to add interest to your room. While I've never been a fan of anything "matchy matchy," there is a time when your company should be working toward making things match.

Consider
Company X tells prospects and customers they are all about creative ideas, embracing new thoughts and encouraging innovation. But in reality, Company X  requires employees to dress conservatively, work a strict schedule, limit cross talk, and only present ideas up the standard corporate chain of command. Internal communications is written in the third person and passive voice with a tone that delivers messages from the top down. The result? A deep disconnect between the internal and external brand.

Congruence
In recent years, I've had the chance to work with organizations who want to step up their communications programs. Some are focused outward and planning to only improve interaction with their customers or prospects. Others understand that the internal understanding of "who we are" and "what we do" drive the success of their external efforts. The second group are the ones I believe will be most successful.

Why? 
A simple explanation—it's not enough to simply change your ad campaign, website and marketing materials. Those items need to be backed up by a corporate culture that connects what you say with what you do.

Back to Company X
If instead, Company X created an atmosphere that welcomed any employee to email, stop in or call  management with their ideas, held regular group brainstorming sessions with people from different departments, and encouraged informal conversations to boost collaboration, Company X could SHOW their values of  creativity and innovation value. Their employees would likely be more flexible thinkers and come up with some outstanding ideas.

Your Turn
The example is extreme, and of course there is more to building your brand than making your internal workings match with your external brand, but it's a starting point. Think about the messages your company uses in public. Now think about what you say to your employees and how you want them to work. Do they match? If not, it's time for some changes. After all, your employees are some of your best brand ambassadors. 

Writing for School Districts

AVID in Federal Way Public Schools 

Working with school districts brings me in touch with some fascinating education programs. This spring, I had the opportunity to write about the Federal Way High School AVID program and some of the students who participate.

The story is posted on the Federal Way Public Schools website at  Federal Way High School AVID program.

contemplating options

As I work on my new website, I'm contemplating my blog options. Link to a Blogger blog? Do one using the website software? Some other option?

If I link to Blogger (which can be done easily), do I use Write as Rain or Cloudy with Sunbreaks? Until I decide and get the website launched, I won't be doing much blogging.

Tina

Marketing Your Own Business

Work in Progress

My website project has been underway for several months. We (my in-house geek and I) have tried a few different designs, and I keep writing content. The problem? When I re-read that content, it’s just not right. Frustration ensues—I do this for other companies all the time; why can’t I do my own?—and I “take a break,” which really means I move on to other projects.

After talking to other writers, I realize it’s not just me. For many of us, writing about our OWN company is much harder than writing for clients.

But why? I can’t tell you for sure, but I’ve explored websites and books and come up with a few theories. I’m not sure these apply to men, but they seem to be common themes for creative, talented women.

 

Details, Details, Details

We get bogged down by the details. When you know absolutely everything about your company—all the things you can do, all the things you have done, the different companies you’ve worked for, and your goals and challenges—it’s hard to get out of your own head and look at it from the audience perspective. Why do people want or need to know about your company?

 

It’s Not Real Work

We don’t treat writing for ourselves as being just as important as “paid” writing for a client. We’re wrong. Engaging your audience, who in time can become clients or refer clients, means this work IS paid. It’s not a direct do-the-work-bill-the-client-get-paid income link, but in the end, getting new clients is the biggest payoff of them all.

 

The Big Scary

Oops, sorry to mention that “biggest payoff of them all” thing. Once we start thinking about the desired outcome, our own materials start to take on an exaggerated role. Subconsciously, getting it wrong can be too scary to contemplate. “After all,” our ever-helpful brains say to us, “without a good website or leave-behind, we will never get any clients ever again and then our business will fail, and we won’t be able to pay bills. We are going to end up as bag ladies.”

 

It’s Bragging

When we were growing up, we internalized the message “don’t brag. People don’t like you if you brag.” Women especially got this message. Learning to promote ourselves and feeling comfortable doing it means unlearning or overcoming our early programming, and replace that recording with one that let’s us talk about our work with excitement and enthusiasm.

 

In This Case, It Is All About Me

In my case, these four challenges have one thing in common—me. Those creative voices in my head that help me turn out good copy for my clients are not my friends when it comes to self-promotion.

(Don’t freak out about the voices. When I write, I hear the words in my head, and I’ve also taught myself to hear the questions the audience will have. The key messages for a project float around in there too. It gets kind of noisy sometimes.)


Next week: So what are we going to do about it?

Intentions for the new year

With a new year, many people make resolutions or set goals, both personally and professionally. Instead, I'm setting intentions for the year. Somehow, that seems friendlier and more likely to happen.

Resolutions seem to have become a joke—something you decide to do to make yourself "better." These often get abandoned even before the end of January.

Goals, strategies, objective: those all seem to have mixed meanings and be used somewhat interchangeably by different people. For example, what comes first, the goal or the strategy? Do strategies support goals or goals support strategies? Where do objectives fit in? Is an objective part of a goal or is it the overarching thing that everything else should support? 

When you are on over-thinker, which I am, it just starts a circular session that devolves into internet searches, multiple outlines trying to make objectives support goals and/or goals support objectives, plus evermore granular tactics. The result? No end point where something actually gets done. 

An intention though—that seems workable. We'll find out at the end of the year if that is the case. (To quote my dad, "What's this 'we' jazz? You have a rat in your pocket?") By we, I mean me and any of you who end up coming along for the ride.

Back to intentions. 

According to Meriam-Webster online:

in·ten·tion 

noun\in-ˈten(t)-shən\: the thing that you plan to do or achieve : an aim or purpose

Of course the first entry in the longer definition provides "resolve" as a synonym, but I'm ignoring the reality that I'm using a different word for the same thing. While the two words are related, they have subtle differences.

My intentions are the things I am turning my attention to this year. That means when I'm not doing client work or the accounting and office tasks involved in being a business, I should spend time on those intentions. Client work always comes first, plus I volunteer on my professional board and with a local nonprofit, so having a focus for the times I'm not working billable or volunteer hours will hopefully let me feel I'm accomplishing something.

Case in point: I intend to do more writing this year. Part of that intent is to add a regular schedule of blog posts, of which this is the first. The blog will eventually end up linked to my website. (Intention 2 = get new website launched.)

That's all the time I have right now, and this first post already seems long, so back to the work I get paid to do. 

Happy New Year! Do you make resolutions in January?

T