Wednesday, October 29, 2008

I got on the soapbox, but then I found myself speechless

Wednesdays are supposed to be my work days. My mom picks the boys up from school so I can be a writing machine. Sadly, I haven't had many writing gigs lately thanks to this economy and corporations' knee-jerk attempts at expense reduction. 

But today I actually have some work to do. So I was researching these communication articles I'm writing and happened upon this corporate communications blog with an entry called, "If you can't write...don't." 

My first thought was, "Wow, this guy writes a blog on corporate communications for fun?!" But, you know to each his own or whatever. My next thought was, "Amen!" (I don't know where all these religious references are coming from lately, sorry.) 

You see, my livelihood is essentially built on the idea that writing is a skill. So, if no one at your company knows how to write, then you better hire a writer. The problem is that a lot of people seem to think that writing is something anyone can do, so hiring a writer is often seen as a superfluous expense. I mean, can't the CEO's administrative assistant just write his speech for him? (No offense to admins, I just don't think writing is part of your job description). 

Here's the thing: Forming a sentence is not the same as writing. I think it's great that companies are requiring their employees to be able to form a sentence (standards!), but there's a little more to writing than stringing words together. At least, I hope there is. Otherwise, I've been way overthinking these speeches I've been working on. 

The moral of this story? Good writing makes a difference. Writers are important. Hire one today! 

(Preferably me, as I'm trying to avoid going back to a 9-5 job until my boys are in school full-time.) 

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