The Gordon Group, LLC

New Food Wars Show Premieres on Travel Channel 3/9 (Great for restaurateurs and foodies!)

Nancy — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:59:28 +0000

A show that promises to be great for foodies and restaurateurs with a focus on local food and food rivalries premieres tonight, March 9, on the Travel Channel: Food Wars @food_wars on Twitter. This may be ideal for local restaurateurs to create a fun, healthy sense of competition in their markets in their areas of specialty! http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Food_Wars

It’s described as follows: “There’s a debate brewing across the
country, and it’s taking place in Everytown, USA, with legions of loyal
fans passionately defending… the local eateries and the iconic dishes
that make their towns famous. From Detroit’s hot dog war — Lafayette’s
vs. American Coney Island’s — to one of the most famous battles in the
country — the Philly cheesesteak war between Pat’s and Geno’s — it’s
time to end these rivalries once and for all as Travel Channel presents
Food Wars.

Host Camille Ford, travel enthusiast and lover of all things food, sets
out to find the country’s most celebrated dishes — foods that define
destinations and create local rivalries spanning generations. From
family feuds to stolen recipes to secret ingredients, Food Wars pits
the nation’s most famous culinary rivals against one another for a
final showdown, where a blind taste test will settle the debate: Who
makes the Best Dish in Town?”

Good Grammar IS Hot… It’s National Grammar Day Today, March 4!

Nancy — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:32:51 +0000

While it may sound a bit comical to some, National Grammar Day and other events and sites promoting the importance of good grammar actually do mean something worth noting.

Check out Facebook and you might be surprised to see how many groups exist that are dedicated just to the promotion of using the language properly and making it clear that more people notice typos, poor style, and bad punctuation than you may think. Here are a few of these Facebook groups… and there are legions of others elsewhere on the Web:

Good Grammar Is Hot
Martha Brockenbrough, National Grammar Day founder and founder of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG)
I judge you when you use poor grammar
I know the difference between “there”, “their” and “they’re”. (now that one has punctuation issues as commas should go INSIDE the closing quote mark, but THEIR hearts are in the right place!)

The host of this year’s National Grammar Day, the bright and clever Mignon Fogarty—Grammar Girl herself–has posted the following on her site:

As National Grammar Day’s Language is something to be celebrated, and March 4 is the perfect day to do it. It’s not only a date, it’s an imperative: March forth on March 4 to speak well, write well, and help others do the same!

It’s a good day to reflect on the caliber of your written communications, including e-mails, blog posts, Tweets, brochures, trade-show collateral, and all of the rest, including your business cards, which don’t have a lot of real estate but are critical to messaging who you are. Hiring a professional to do your graphic and Web design is key, as well—but the messaging that goes with it can make or break how you are perceived. I have built strategic partnerships/alliances with some amazing, professional, and truly creative designers specifically to ensure that the messaging and look and functionality of any communication are all working in concert with each other without any of those elements disabling the impression you make.

The National Grammar Day site, http://nationalgrammarday.com/, even has games and other celebratory events…My suggestion? Have fun with it while not disregarding its importance.

In honor of National Grammar Day, March 4—More on the importance of using proper grammar in business communications!

Nancy — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:15:59 +0000

I came across this short piece entitled Using Proper English Grammar Is Important for Businesses at http://tinyurl.com/ya55w9f that warrants a look. It emphasizes one key point, which is that while many business owners think that they don’t need to be overly concerned about the grammar, punctuation, and style used in their business communications as if “close” were good enough—poor written communications can actually disable the impression you are working so hard to accomplish.

Of course, as helping clients with refining their messaging on the Web, in advertising and printed collateral, press releases, and in e-newsletters is one of the most-important services I offer, it’s wonderful to see others opine (and evangelize) on the importance of using the language properly.

Though I’ve mentioned Mignon Fogarty—Grammar Girl—in other posts, I still heartily recommend buying her CD set Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips to Better Business Writing that is featured on the Resources page of my site at http://www.thegordongroupllc.com/resources/ as one of the easiest (and actually fun!) ways to brush up on some of the quirks of the English language that can stymie even the best of us. She also has a free e-newsletter that features a language challenge (such as the difference between “flesh out” and “flush out,” which was addressed a couple of weeks ago) and current thinking on the subject, often with amusing examples. She has lots of smarts and humor, and her podcasts are among the most popular in history!

More cool Facebook pages for grammarians…

Nancy — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:13:42 +0000

It’s an interesting phenomenon to see the groundswell of grammarians creating special homes (pages) on Facebook to not only learn how to handle certain grammar and style issues but also express their frustration with people who don’t seem to care if they make mistakes. One of the pages I just came across illustrates with its own name how correct punctuation can save lives! ; – ) Granted the name is a bit odd, but the absence of a comma really puts “Grandma’s” life in jeopardy with the first version below featured on the Facebook page entitled as follows:

‘Let’s eat Grandma!’ or, ‘Let’s eat, Grandma!’ Punctuation saves lives.

http://tinyurl.com/yhxom7u (Ironically, there’s a bit of an issue with that title as those quoted statements should be enclosed in double quotes and not single quotes as they aren’t being used inside another quote–but the page founders get credit for their efforts and for their passion about the language. I posted a note about it–perhaps it will be fixed by the time you visit the page.)

Grammar Girl’s page is still absolutely among my favorites (go to www.facebook.com/GrammarGirl), and you can check out Mignon Fogarty’s great site and subscribe to e-mail updates. I also feature her Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing book and the clever and helpful CD set for the same book on the Resources page of my www.thegordongroupllc.com Website.

Other Facebook pages focused on grammar and style include Good Grammar Is Hot, presumably so we know we won’t be nerds for caring. Another one worth checking out is I judge you when you use poor grammar, which is also the name of a book that features photos of bad grammar as it appears in the real world on signs and elsewhere.

Yes, it’s true! Using the language properly, especially in business communications, not only impacts whether your message gets through as you intended—as Grandma found out above—but the failure to do so can have genuine impact on the success of advertising, RFPs, résumés, and other important messaging when you need to ensure that you’re showcasing yourself and/or your business in the best light.

Do you speak Nglsh or are you engaging in Social Greedia?

Nancy — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:58:57 +0000

MarketingProfs has created their new Marketing Addictionary, in which users can enter their own terms and/or definitions—some serious, some silly—and visitors also have the opportunity to rate contributions with their own thumbs-up or thumbs-down assessment. Here are two of the recent, popular terms:

Nglsh, noun, The rapid disappearance of vowels in the English language due to texting and Twitter.

Social Greedia, noun, 1. The act of abusing social media tools for the sole reason of making a profit and not giving back to the community or conversation. 2. Being overly concerned with one’s prominence within a social network whereby more time is spent “making friends” and “gaining followers” than actually engaging the community.

See more at http://words.marketingprofs.com/

Finally tracked down Dr. Wayne Gertmenian’s legendary list of 100 books to read for a lifetime of learning…

Nancy — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:49:34 +0000

Finally found the list that my former (and legendary) professor Wayne Gertmenian (former chief detente negotiator) in the Pepperdine University MBA program suggested that every educated person should read as they likely will be referred to sometime in their professional careers. This version of the list appeared as a blog post from another Dr. G student and I haven’t had a chance to verify it: http://fembajack.blogspot.com/2007/02/this-term-i-am-taking-dr.html

Thanks to Irene Kimmel of Archetype Marketing for our new site design!

Nancy — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:53:07 +0000

We still have more tweaks and refinements coming, but I wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge the unbelievably talented and creative Irene Kimmel, Principal/Owner of Archetype Marketing, for the redesign both out front and on the back end for my Website. Irene is supremely bright, focused, and energetic–and I had the good fortune of having her apply her talents to my Website (check out that chameleon that changes colors on the home page!). Visit her on the Web at www.archetypemarketing.com or contact her to learn more about what she can do for you and your business–whether it’s a refresh for an existing site or the creation of a brand-new one!

THE BANNED WORDS (AND PHRASES) OF 2010~This may be key to avoiding growls and eye-rolling!

Nancy — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:42:33 +0000

Check out the words deemed worthy of being banned for 2010 by the wordsmiths at Lake Superior State University, who released their 35th annual (deep breath) List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. (By way of a punctuation disclaimer, the punctuation of those words is theirs and not the way I would recommend it, which would be Misuse and Overuse.)

BTW, I just heard an otherwise erudite and gracious-sounding guest on an NPR program today use “Teachable Moment” more than three times in five minutes, and one of the very first callers after she spoke almost growled at the use. So, perhaps this list will help minimize growls for all of us!

The complete 2010 list:

1. Shovel-ready
2. Transparent/Transparency
3. Czar
4. Tweet
5. App
6. Sexting
7. Friend as a verb
8. Teachable Moment
9. In These Economic Times …
10. Stimulus
11. Toxic Assets
12. Too Big to Fail
13. Bromance
14. Chillaxin’
15. Obama as a prefix

Great "Pretense Alert" piece on using inauthentic speech

Nancy — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:52:23 +0000

There’s a great article at http://www.marketingprofs.com/short-articles/1437/pretense-alert/?adref=NmiT4B9 on how it can backfire when speakers and writers try to use words that are more complicated than needed in an effort to sound smart.

The article also provides the following Marketing Inspiration: “If you choose words because you think they sound smarter, there’s a good possibility they’re having the opposite effect.”

This also applies when you hire someone to write an article, speech, Web content, or collateral materials for you… it’s the art of properly capturing who you are and how you speak! There’s a proper balance to strike between being correct and not lazy with how you use the language and trying to “talk up” or sound more erudite than is needed.

Writers beware! New Sixth Edition APA style guide has dozens of mistakes and has had to issue corrections

Nancy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:46:20 +0000

This has got to be awkward. The APA (American Psychological Association) has had to issue dozens of corrections to their new Sixth Edition Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association–a resource favored by academics among others. BTW, from my perspective, still nothing beats the incredibly detailed and easy-to-use The Gregg Reference Manual (see link on my Resources page)–especially for business users.

See the Inside Higher Ed article on the APA Style Guide issues here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/10/13/apa