The Importance of S#!t Giving

In a previous post, I mentioned giving a shit because not enough of us do. The impetus for that statement was a particular experience last year, though it has occurred enough times over the past 10 years that it’s worth addressing.

With a background in journalism and copywriting, my belief that writers are just about the most important part of the team isn’t super surprising. Even though I am more often in the role of experience designer than writer these days, I am both aware and stalwart in this bias. That’s because I agree with Howard Gossage, who said:

“Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them & sometimes it’s an ad.”

Sometimes it’s a blog post or white paper or video or comments in an online forum.

A well-optimized site is a usable site that is accessible to everyone

Without getting too granular, writing for the Web requires a basic understanding of user experience design, information architecture, content strategy and management, social media, development (i.e., coding), data analytics and SEO. Why care about controlled vocabularies, page title attributes, meta data, and keywords in headlines, subheads and body copy? Because not caring can result in the utter failure of a website—from its project management to its interface design to its development to its visibility online to its usability to its maintenance.

While mistakes in a copy deck are to be expected, it’s the writer’s job to ensure consistency in voice, style and formatting. The first two responsibilities are in any good writer’s wheelhouse. But formatting? Especially when it comes to marking up heads and subs, and keeping track of character counts? And unobtrusively weaving keywords into copy in a way that’s beneficial to users and search engines alike? Well, many copywriters just don’t give a sh#!t. And that can wreak havoc on a large-scale digital project.

The tale of two young copywriters

More often than not, I’m responsible for onboarding writers and walking them through a style guide. Within the first few minutes of the initial meeting is when you can spot trouble. A positive attitude, natural curiosity and excitement at learning something new (if it is new to them) are the hallmarks of clear skies ahead/smooth sailing. Counter that with disinterest or outright dismissal and you can be sure that creating, presenting, editing, uploading and publishing content will be rough going.

In this instance, of the two contract writers assigned to help integrate ~20 existing sites into a single, responsive CMS-based website, only one was digitally savvy—ostensibly from a stint creating tweets for a brand. The other was fresh from college and eager to establish himself.

Though I knew immediately, it became clear to the team within a month of content development which writer was going to work out. The one with the least experience, but greatest interest in the task at hand and requisite attention to detail, stayed on the project, worked hard, saw the site through to launch and made everyone’s jobs easier, thus gaining the appreciation and trust of the entire team. And a permanent job.

The other? He made it through a few rounds of revisions and disappeared/disappointed. Pretty sure the team didn’t give a collective s#!t about that.