Emily Triplett Lentz

“Business writing” isn’t what it used to be — no one starts a letter with “Dear Sir/Madam” anymore (or even writes letters, for that matter). Advice about professional writing in the workplace, however, hasn’t caught up to the new realities of distributed working and asynchronous communication.

Mathematically speaking, only 50% of us can possibly be above-average communicators. And even if you're within a desirable percentile, the truth is, developing strong communication skills is a lifelong practice, and we all have room for improvement.

Digital marketers have a responsibility to learn to spot the biases that frequently find their way into online copy, replacing them with alternatives that lead to stronger, clearer messaging and that cultivate wider, more loyal, and enthusiastic audiences.

Is it more important to acquire customers or to satisfy the customers you have?

The first step (always the hardest, right?) in solving a problem is recognizing you have one.

Habits -- whether personal, organizational, or societal -- are a subconscious loop.

Most customers can name at least one “missing” feature that would improve their experience with your product, but you can’t acquiesce to every feature request without your product turning into a bloated, unusable mess.

No one was talking to the dudes in the middle. At least, that’s how Andy Forch and Richard Greiner felt about the online retail offerings geared toward men: You could find plenty of high-end designer products hardly anyone can afford, and plenty of hardcore performance gear that’ll help you summit Everest. But the options in between — the options for regular, active guys like them, who bike to work in the city and hit the trails on the weekend — were hardly anywhere to be found.

As much as some progressive companies love to claim “unlimited vacation” among their benefits, there’s really no such thing. If there were, employers would be paying people who never show up.

Some would argue that chasing “stretch goals” may do more harm than good — after all, what happens when we don’t hit them?

It took more than a year and three distinct attempts to get Google Docs in Basecamp ... and still, the damn thing almost didn’t get built. Why was it so hard?

Conclusions are often the most challenging part of any piece, and there’s a lot of conflicting advice about how to handle them.

A great business doesn’t just champion its own values — it champions its customers’ values. Thinking a couple steps ahead and focusing on those solutions is what will set you apart from your competitors.