Calling all poets: Digital wants you

More than 14,000 people huddled at the INBOUND 2015 conference in Boston last week to learn the latest trends in digital marketing. Marketers, salespeople, writers and designers raced from session to session and stood in long lines to hear talks on the neuroscience of memorable content, the changing face of SEO, how to use Twitter more effectively, and dozens more.

I attended the conference to learn everything I could about writing web content that people actually want to read. Not fast content that can be thrown together in a half hour and posted to Twitter-Facebook-LinkedIn-YouTube-YouNameIt based on fleeting hourly trends. Not listicles filled with fluff. You know the click bait lists ("Six ways to jumpstart your blah-blah-blah"), which often lead you to short articles filled with superficial information you already know. 

I was in good company. Many speakers bemoaned the state of writing on the web as often mediocre at best. Ann Handley of MarketingProfs addressed it straight on during her session, "Good Content vs. Good Enough Content: A Fight for Sore Eyes."

Her advice? "We need bigger stories, braver marketing, bolder writing," said Handley. "The biggest issue with content today is that people play it too safe."

Handley suggested developing meatier content and using a writing style that speaks directly to your visitors in language they understand and relate to. It's important to develop a strong tone of voice that fits your brand, she said. It may repel some readers, but if people don't like your writing style, they probably aren't your target audience anyway. 

So how do marketers create bigger, braver, bolder content? Sonia Simone of Copyblogger had a tantalizing answer in her session, "The Intersection of Content and Social Media." She said that companies need to hire real writers. "I hire playwrights, novelists, and poets," said Simone to a capacity crowd in an encore session. 

Yes, you heard it right. Businesses want playwrights. And novelists. And poets. 

Simone said she often finds writers by posting jobs with Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) programs. She likes how these creative writers can talk about a company's brand with passion and clarity. They use metaphor, humor and succinct language to evoke emotion and be persuasive. Creative writers also help cut through the web copy clutter that too often sounds like a sales pitch from an infomercial. 

Strong writing is emerging as a real asset that can be used to create a competitive business advantage by developing loyal communities. This is a happy intersection for those of us professional business writers who are creative writers on the side. Our narrative skills and ability to develop a unique tone of voice may be more desirable than ever in a world where always-on digital channels need to be fed continuously. 

So if you are a poet, playwright, or novelist, it turns out that your day job could be more fun (and lucrative) than you thought.  As strange as it may seem, the digital business around the corner may just be looking for you. 

Eyes wide shut

Reading my work aloud to an audience still makes me a bit nervous. Though I've gotten better over the years. I've learned to speak slowly and with intention to be sure my words are loud and clear. I vary the style of my speaking voice to avoid sounding monotonous. And I look up from the page once in awhile to engage the audience.

Most of these techniques are for a listener's benefit. I want them to hear each word and not be put off by a boring tone. But the last technique is really for me. When I look out at the audience, I can see peoples' body language, particularly their eyes, and know how they are reacting to a piece. Are they smiling? Thoughtful? Intense? Falling asleep?

The last time I read to an audience, though, something shifted. When I looked up to engage them, I couldn't see the whites of their eyes because most had their eyes closed. Some of them were squeezing their eyelids tight. Many had their heads tilted back with their chins up as if they were expecting the words to dribble down from the air and wash over them, like a rainfall of story.

It took me some time to realize why this audience was so different than others. But it made sense when I thought about it. These were my colleagues at an artist's residency and they were almost exclusively visual artists. They were not particularly interested in seeing me read. They wanted to ingest my words and process them visually,  as only they could see them. Like on the television show The Voice, they were reacting to craft in its purest form, using their own creative judgment to react to my work without the artifice of appearances. 

It was a raw moment of peer-to-peer creativity. And a reminder of the elasticity of writing. People take in writing using whatever tools or filters they possess. I read the words; they saw the stories. Over in the blink of an eye. Magical.

Rediscovering an endless summer

When I was a kid, I took summertime for granted. Sprung from school at the end of June, I felt set loose onto what seemed like a vast, timeless stretch of sunshine and relaxation. I slept when I chose, woke when I felt like it, and swam and read at will. I ate fresh peas and corn and tomatoes as the season progressed. I dug earthworms and caught perch and sunnies off the dock, which my father skinned and my mother cooked. I generally lounged around with a freedom I didn't even know I had.

This summer, for the first time in more than thirty years, I feel like I am having that same sort of old-fashioned, child-like summer. On sabbatical in Santa Fe at a writing residency for the entire month of June, my schedule was my own. My basic needs were met with a blissful ignorance. Returning home to a full work schedule, I figured my carefree days of 2015 were behind me. But New England had other ideas.

It rained in New Hampshire for much of the month I was gone, and I was met by a lush, flowering landscape on the cusp of the July 4th holiday. American flags were flying everywhere. Orange daylilies lined stone fences. The pink and white astilbe in my front yard reached straight up with a feathery exuberance.

Now, entering mid-July, the summer is ripe and will be for at least a few more weeks. The cicadas and their sizzling end-of-summer serenade have yet to gain full strength. Nothing is waning; there are no school busses on test drives, high-school football players at practice, or bittersweet Labor Day plans. The dog days are stubbornly, deliciously here. It makes me think of earlier summers: of my first dive off the deep end, of learning to dance to Motown, of men walking on the moon. Of what miraculously still feels like effortless, endless possibility.