Scapple at work with my mind.

Scapple. Sounds fun so that’s a good start. This is a tool that is brought to you from Literature and Latte, the makers of Scrivener (and of course Scrivener for Windows.) It’s a way of getting all those notes and sideways scribbles that you used to shove on a notepad onto the computer where you can edit them and move them around.

Having a big (and I mean BIG) new project with lots of moving parts to tackle it seemed only right to have a go. First brilliant point: it is a 30 day active-use trial, meaning if you download it, go wild for 4 days then don’t touch it for the rest of the month, you still have 26 days of your trial left. This is a trial designed for the wondering mind and looming deadline lifestyle of a writer.

So did Scapple do it for me?

I started using Scapple properly yesterday. I already have five Scapples? pads? documents? – whatever you want to call them. I am a massive fan of the notebook and the whiteboard, but I think Scapple might just have won me over. Here’s why:

• It looks and feels super simple, but every time I wanted to do a ‘thing’, there was a way
• It really is a blank piece of paper – no formatting rules or weird shifting and alignment. You can type things down where and how they come to you.
• You can format your notes as they start to come together around topics – so all green blobs are ideas about metrics, or all purple is social media. This is as opposed to your piece of paper where you have to scan through every note to find ones relevant to what you are focusing on next.
• You can group notes and links together (by making them ‘magnetic’), so what was a bunch of ideas can become the centre of a more focused brainstorm on the same pad or dragged and dropped to a new one.
• The formatting options means creating a hierarchy of ideas or points becomes easy, and quickly visually accessible. The core of a project becomes obvious and requires no ‘magic-eye’ sessions staring at a big mess of handwritten notes searching for the hidden meaning.
• It’s intuitive and easy to get to grips with. Yes I had to look up a couple of things in the manual, but on the whole things are labeled sensibly, there are obvious keyboard shortcuts, and it is built to be very Mac-like in its mentality, ie things just work, click and drag just does, and it looks nice at the same time.

The kicker

The biggest reason Scapple seems to have done it for me though, is that within an afternoon, what had felt like a monolith of a project was broken down into six central sub-projects, each with distinct to-dos. The scale of each sub-project was comparable with another by its sprawl and connections on Scapple.

And all of this occurred without me drowning in paper, or cutting things out or taking pictures of my whiteboard to record one version before cleaning it to create another.

Life before Scapple: restructuring my dissertation three years ago…

So, I’ll keep you posted on whether it’s so good after 30 active days that I feel it’s worth $14.99 to keep Scappling…I have a feeling it will be.

Avoiding hype, jargon and unnecessarily long words has been a constant plea on Bad Language. Using overly long words makes you sound less trustworthy and more stupid. Hyped-up marketing waffle means nothing at all.

Just 1,000 words

The Up-Goer Five, built by Theo Sanderson, takes this thinking to another level. It is programmed to recognise the 1000 most common words in the English language and it challenges you to explain a complex idea using just those words. Every time you use a word that is not in that list, it flags it up as not allowed. It is a lot harder than it sounds.

I started off with a concept close to the heart of Bad Language: how to write well.

Good writing is clear, to the point, and does not use long words for no good reason. In order to write well you need to consider the person who is reading your work. How much time do they have? What do they already know? And how would you talk to them if you were talking in a coffee shop? The point is to sound relaxed and like yourself and use words that are used all the time and are easy to understand.

Expressing complex ideas in simple words

So that was not so hard. The idea behind it really isn’t so complex. Then I tried something a little more tricky. What is the patriarchy?

For a long time men controlled the way we lived, worked and formed ideas about things. Part of that control meant they got to decide what it meant to be a man or a woman. This meant you had to act or dress or think the right way or you would not be accepted by everyone else around you. So for women this meant that they were not able to have any say in what made them who they were.

Today although things have changed that mean women can work and have a say in how things are run, thoughts and ideas are still stuck in a made-up way of thinking about what it means to be either a man or a woman. And this means women still have to fight to have the same power and control as men.

This was really hard. And I’m not even sure I express the idea properly even after quite a while searching for simple ways to explain it.

Learning to write simply

This tool might not be the most practical aid for producing good copy, but it is a very helpful exercise in bringing you down off your verbal pedestal when your language is getting a little flowery. It also helps to highlight when a longer or more complex word really is extremely useful and appropriate. We should not be afraid to use long words when they mean exactly what we want to say. Or short ones for that matter.

The English language is vast and full of wondrous words. What Up-Goer Five really shows, I suppose, is that good writing is not about keeping individual words simple, but about breaking ideas down to their simplest parts in order to communicate them effectively.

Sometimes, it’s better to use a single word for that small stick with a black middle that leaves a mark when you rub it on things, even if it isn’t one of the 1000 most common words around.

How people read

People don’t read text continuously. Instead, their eyes jump forward a few words at a time, every quarter of a second or so.

But about 15 percent of the time, their eyes jump back, often when they don’t understand something or if they trip over some page furniture like unnecessary punctuation.

How people read online

It’s even worse when people go online. Now their eyes are hopping about the page like a barefoot child on hot sand, as you can see in this eyeball tracking heat map of a typical webpage:

Avoiding punctuation speed bumps

Our approach is to minimise everything that gets between our words and the reader’s brain. This means:

• Replacing punctuation marks with words.
• Only capitalising proper nouns and the first word in a sentence or headline. Yes, this includes the internet.
• Not using full stops in abbreviations such as Mr, Dr, eg or ie.
• Not using an ‘Oxford comma’ before the ‘and’ in a list.
• Writing dates without superscripts (eg 12 July 1969).
• Avoiding acronyms wherever possible.
• Avoiding trademark bugs wherever possible.
• Not using italic text because it’s too busy.
• Using single quotes for speech not double quotes. It’s half as much punctuation!
• Only one space after a comma.
• Spelling out numbers from one to ten.
• Choosing short words instead of long ones. (This is good for other reasons too.)
• Ruthless editing. (See: Ten ways to slim down obese copy.)

We know that some of these choices are controversial. But we have a good reason for preferring our choices: we want to make it easier for people to read what we write.

Learn more

If you want to learn more about business writing, come along to one of our evening talks in London:

• Copywriting secrets for business and career success
• Ten ways to improve your website (without hiring a design)

We’re huge fans of Basecamp. At Articulate, we’ve been using it intensively for the last six months or so to manage more than a hundred different client projects. My colleague Clare reviewed Basecamp for our Turbine blog and shared some of our Basecamp productivity tips.

All my Basecamp tasks in one list

But one thing has been bothering me all along.

It’s very hard to get a single view of all your tasks that shows priority and urgency at the same time. In other words, it’s hard to get Basecamp to tell you what to do next.

Other task tracking tools take a different approach and I’ve always had a geeky soft spot for Pivotal Tracker which has a really strong emphasis on ‘what’s next’. But it’s not really a tool for non-developer civilians.

So I thought, ‘why don’t we build a tool that makes it easier to manage Basecamp tasks the way I want?’

Mojicamp: a better way to manage Basecamp tasks

And we did. We created a neat little app that pulls in all your tasks from Basecamp – all your accounts, all your projects, all your to-do lists – and displays them in a single list. See more details about the app and sign up for early beta access at: www.mojicamp.com.

Prioritise, filter and view Basecamp to-dos

But it goes beyond a listing your tasks. It lets you do cool stuff including:

• Assign priorities. You can assign a priority to each task using emoji characters (e.g. ne: :two: and :three:). Mojicamp displays the priority tags.
• Tag tasks. As well as setting priorities, Mojicamp lets you tag tasks with emojis. You can apply as many tags as you like.
• Filter tasks. You can filter and view your tasks instantly by priority, emoji tag and due date. For example, I use the little hatter hamster (:shipit:) for blog posts. So now I can see all the blog posts with priority one that are due today.
• Upload changes. You can add emoji tags, priorities and mark a task complete in Mojicamp and upload the change to Basecamp. You can also sort tasks back in Basecamp in order of priority.

Free beta test

We like it so much that we’re inviting other Basecamp users to beta test it (free) and give us their feedback. Together we can make it even better.

Sign up for our newsletter and early access to the beta on: www.mojicamp.com.

Digital wizardry is wonderful, but if you are anything like me, nothing can replace the pleasure of truly lovely stationery. Clipping to Evernote and brainstorming on Scapple is great for work, but emotionally and aesthetically it simply doesn’t compare to sitting in the sun with a steaming cup of strong coffee, the touch of your newest and most favourite notebook and a good, solid pen.

If that sounds familiar, then there is now more fuel for your paper-fetish fire, in the form of Papelote. A Czech stationary company that blends the practical with crafted and meticulously designed detail.

Papelote is new Czech stationery, where paper is not a simple base for writing but material full of flavor, scent, sound and colour.  - Šachová, co-founder of Papelote.

A very grateful hat tip to Cool Hunting for pointing me in their direction. And let me just say, one can love both words and paper, but David Nicholls‘ quote from One Fine Day, does make me wonder if I can truly love both at the same time…

She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas for stories with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it’s going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery.

To celebrate the launch of Articulate Training, we’re hosting a series of Articulate Talks. The first is on 6 June at 6.30 PM at Club Workspace in Chiswick, London. Prices start at a very reasonable £15 if you book in advance (or £8 for students and under-26s with the promo code ‘student’)

What               

This short, informal and insightful talk reveals the secrets of professional copywriters.

Proposals, emails, websites, CVs…. Whether you’re selling yourself or your business, writing matters.

Give us a couple of hours and we’ll give you powerful techniques that you can use every day.

Why

Get expert tips to help you:

• Write more persuasively
• Stand out from the dull, corporate claptrap
• Express yourself confidently in writing
• Avoid pitfalls that make you look unprofessional
• Proofread and edit your own work
• Adjust your writing style for print, the web or social media
• Find your own authentic voice
• Get over writer’s block

Who

This talk is primarily for business people who want to improve their marketing but these skills can be used by anyone to enhance their career or just get better at their job.

The speaker is Matthew Stibbe, CEO of Articulate Marketing. He has spent the last 12 years copywriting for clients including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, LinkedIn, Symantec, eBay, HSBC and HM Government.

Where

Our hosts are Club Workspace Chiswick, 10 Barley Mow Passage, Chiswick, London, W4 4PH

When

Join us June 6 from 6.30pm to 8.30pm. Post-work beer or soft drink included!

Book online

(If you can’t see the tickets, just click through to Eventbrite directly: http://copywriting-secrets.eventbrite.co.uk/)

Hat tip to Fast Company and their Co. Design article on the same.

Monica Vinader is an innovative UK-based company that designs, produces and sells elegant jewellery. We talked to head of operations (and sister to designer Monica) Gabriela Vinader about how she uses cloud-based tools to run and manage their modern and collaborative business.

Monica Vinader describes itself as ‘the brand of choice for elegant and wearable jewellery’. With outlets in Harrods, Liberty and Selfridges, as well as a dedicated store just off Bond Street, it seems they most certainly are.

Monica Vinader regularly receives coverage in magazines like Vogue and Elle, and numerous celebrities have been spotted sporting a Monica Vinader piece. It’s not just the jewellery that’s beautiful though; thanks to Grabriela’s commitment to making the most of modern business technology, its internal operations are pretty stunning too.

Why modernity matters

‘Using cloud-based tools is a no-brainer for me,’ says Gabriela, ‘it’s like if the internet hadn’t been invented and then someone came along and offered it to you – would you use it? Of course you would!’

Monica Vinader faces many of the challenges that are common to small businesses today. The firm has to manage a split head office, with Monica and the design team based in Norfolk, and Gabriela working in London where the majority of their outlets are.

Of the 30+ members of staff, several travel regularly between offices and need to be able to work on the road, and many also work flexibly from home. That means Gabriela has to support multiple devices of every sort and access to information on the go.

‘There are things coming on the market, like Turbine, that make it affordable now,’ says Gabriela. By embracing online tools, Gabriela not only enables remote and flexible working, but since there is no need for a server or dedicated IT staff, she also saves a great deal of money.

Take Turbine for example

Before Turbine, purchase orders at Monica Vinader were ‘a bit of a nightmare.’ Staff would email Gabriela with requests and then she’d enter the request on a spreadsheet and reply with a made-up PO number.

‘It wasn’t really working, and nobody knew what was going on,’ says Gabriela.

Now everybody has an account on Turbine, they can log in and make requests using the suppliers and accounting codes that Gabriela set up when she signed up. Gabriela can simply review and approve requests at the click of a button. Even if she misses an email, she can sign in and see all the requests in one place.

‘It’s just more efficient and cleaner,’ says Gabriela.

Business efficiency? There’s an app for that

When it comes to online apps, Gabriela has taken full advantage of the multitude of services out there that can help small businesses:

• theRota.com helps Gabriela ensure that there are always people on the shop floor and covering their counters in the various department stores. It can automate scheduling and send text messages if the rota is changed.
• Customer service is taken care of with Desk.com, which is a web-based email management tool that has functionality like tagging, time tracking and social media integration
• Gabriela uses Box and Google Drive for back up and sharing files, as people can access them from anywhere, any time
• Google Apps allows real time collaboration on specific documents, and Gabriela has used Google Apps to build a simple company intranet
• She communicate with their website developers using Basecamp, which allows her to track progress and be part of the iterative design and coding process
• Looking to the future, Gabriela is exploring online point-of-sales and inventory apps as well as cloud-based accounting systems

‘We don’t store credit card data or customer information on the cloud,’ says Gabriela, ‘but for everything else it seems pretty obvious.’ Considering online tools like Turbine have saved her time and money whilst making her job easier and her staff happier, it’s easy to see why being a thoroughly-modern Monica Vinader has meant becoming an extremely successful and innovative small business.

Shutl is an innovative UK-based company that lets online shoppers get what they want, when they want it. They’ll deliver your goods within 90 minutes or in a one-hour window of your choice. But how efficient is the company behind the delivery service? We talked to founder and CEO Tom Allason to find out.

Sometimes, when you buy something online you don’t want it tomorrow, or sometime this week. You want to get it now, or at least at a convenient time that fits around your busy lifestyle. Shutl makes that happen.

It’s a delivery service that integrates with online stores, such as Maplin and Argos, to give customers fast, convenient delivery, often in as little as 90 minutes

The cost of Shutl delivery is comparable to standard delivery, meaning in many cases free depending on the retailer and the value of the order. To add to the excitement, you can watch the delivery in real time because Shutl’s couriers have GPS tracking.

Efficiency is their business

Shutl is about more than deliveries. It’s about the shopper’s experience and brand building. ‘We talk about Shutl as part of the retailer’s value proposition, their marketing story and as a way to build the lifetime value of a customer,’ says Tom Allason, Shutl’s CEO. In other words, for e-commerce companies that offer the Shutl option, efficiency is good for business.

Sharing is efficiency

Efficiency is also a business objective within the company. ‘It’s a very agile, transparent environment,’ says Tom. The linkage between the two things – transparency and agility – lets people work more efficiently. If people have the right information, they can make decisions quickly.

So, for example, the company asks every shopper about their Shutl experience and shares the survey results with everyone in the company to keep everyone focused on this key metric. Similarly, the development team doesn’t just show the directors what they’re working on, they do a demo for the whole company.

Turbine takes care of time off

Transparency is important when it comes to routine admin too. This is why Shutl uses Turbine to track who’s in the office and who’s off sick or on holiday. ‘A single view of who’s off and how much holiday time people have is very useful,’ says Tom, ‘and Turbine is very straightforward and easy to use.’

With 35 staff working in offices in Chelmsford, Shoreditch and San Francisco, having a straightforward and easy-to-use tool like this is essential.

Invest in what’s important

It’s a mistake to see Shutl as a kind of courier company. In fact, they are a high-tech software company and their product is their technology, which matches customers, couriers and retailers in real time. With such high-tech DNA, it’s no surprise that they are keen adopters of cloud applications like Turbine.

For example, they use:

• Ruby on Rails as the framework for their software (like Turbine does)
• Amazon Web Services to host their software
• Pivotal Tracker and Trello for project management
• Salesforce for customer relationship management
• Google Apps for email, calendars, word processing, spreadsheets and presentations
• Dropbox for file sharing
• MailChimp for newsletters
• LinkedIn for customer prospecting and research

In true lean startup style, they even used eBay to buy all their office furniture. This combination of frugality and innovation is typical of the most efficient companies. Like Shutl, they spend their money according to their priorities, ruthlessly focusing their investment on tools that help them grow the business. And if that means a second-hand office chair, so be it. It’s a badge of honour.

This weekend I plan to finally finish Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (keep an eye out for the review). What with reports that recruitment of women at board level has ground to a depressing halt, maybe this weekend we can all take a little time wonder why it’s still all going so wrong. Here are a few women and tech tales to get those cogs whirring…

Let’s start on a positive note and find out about a few women nerd heroes.

But then you have to consider the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ that they more than likely had to face to get where they got to.

Even women who write about tech, or just use tech to write, still seem to require permission to speak.

Did feminazis steal your ice cream?

With that in mind, maybe we should start really listening to what women in tech have to say.