Every Word Counts
by jeff on June 4th, 2008We spent a lot of time talking about the right message for Mercury Grove’s splash page before there was much to show for it.
I think that this particular task took on serious significance for Scott A. There’s a lot riding on this call to action and so it needs to be just right. We need to hit the right chord with potential customers/ community members, find our voice and phrase it smoothly enough that readers won’t give it a second thought. It’s a lot to expect from 50 words.
With several discarded drafts, it’s easy to lose site of the progress being made – however incremental. Our meeting at Dunn’s was valuable – there’s nothing like blueskying over smoked meat on rye – but the more business-minded contingent of the group shot our idea to pieces before I was hungry again. First comes frustration, then comes perseverance.
Later that night, it took a shift in thinking and a 45-minute conversation with Scott A. to brainstorm a new direction. We still had nothing concrete, but we knew what might work. Scott wanted to bounce the idea off a few people.
Working this problem through has been purley collaborative. There are a lot of really strong writers working together so a bit of a defined approach might tighten up the way we work through drafts.
That said, all this stop-start contributes to an intimate appreciation of who we are, what we do and how we’re going to tell people about it. Try having the same high-level conversation 20 times over, but explaining it in a different way with different vocabulary each time and you’ll see what I mean.
I understand Mercury Grove more today than I did yesterday. And I’ve been saying that since day one.
