By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 30 January, 2012 Many South African courier companies are extending their reach into Africa, and see it as a major potential growth area. Tim Steel, MD for South Africa at TNT Express, says global customers are eyeing Africa as an attractive emerging market, with enquiries coming in every week. [...]
Examples are a powerful way to clarify what you are saying when writing any type of article, because human beings don’t think in words. They think in pictures. So making strong statements in your articles and then qualifying them with examples, will help to create a clearer picture in the minds of the target audience you are writing for.
Examples will also help to put your viewpoints, or those of a spokesperson, into context. For instance, when writing an article in which you are promoting a concept, idea, approach, methodology, product, or service, it is useful to include brief examples of how it has benefited those who are already using it or have applied it.
In another scenario, you might want to get the message across that your company operates across different sectors. In this case, you could use specific examples of how customers in three or four sectors have benefited from the solution you are promoting, in different ways.
If you don’t want to mention customer names, you can just say something like, “A customer of ours in the retail sector….etc.” The examples will still be useful to the reader, and will help to get your message across in the article you are writing.
Examples of how a product or service works, and how it can benefit the target audience will also help to create a clearer picture. Varied examples can also be useful. For instance, you might want to get across the message in your article that the product you are promoting can be used in different ways, in which case you can give examples that will illustrate this in words.
Every article should have an objective behind it, it should focus on a clearly defined topic, and it should be written with a specific audience in mind. Without a clearly defined topic, you are likely to end up with too many ideas in your article, which will confuse your audience, and writing it will be a major challenge. Similar problems will arise if you don’t have a clear objective.
Once you have established these basics, put yourself in the audience’s shoes and think about what they would be interested in knowing about the topic, as opposed to just what you want to tell them.
It is worth remembering that your audience may be made up of people that have varying social and educational backgrounds, perceptions, cultures, and levels of understanding of the topic you are writing about. Some may also have a limited vocabulary and grasp of the English language.
This is particularly applicable with articles you are planning to publish on a website, because anyone could stumble across them while searching for information. It is therefore wise to write the article in plain English with the lowest possible common denominator of the audience in mind, and not use unexplained terminology or assume any prior knowledge of the topic.
Have a conversation with the reader, making sure you haven’t left any questions in their minds, because if you do this will frustrate them, and they will not enjoy your article. To test this out, once you have written your article, you can apply the So what? technique.
Read the article through and ask “So what?” after each sentence and make sure you have answered this question in the next sentence or two.
By Santie Pretorius Soon after we got together in 1986, my partner bought me David Attenborough’s Life on Earth (The Reader’s Digest augmented and enlarged edition). I was bowled over. It was undoubtedly my best birthday present ever. Better than my first little radio, my bicycle and my Volkswagen Beetle. It went deeper and further [...]
The Scientist Magazine has just published its annual Top 10 Innovations contest, which showcases the coolest life science tools to emerge in 2011. These include a number of the latest advances in microscopy—from a pocket microscope that can be connected to a cell phone’s optics to tools that smash the resolution limitations of traditional scopes, [...]
One of the prerequisites of a good article writer is to have an enquiring mind and not take anything on face value. This is the only way article writers can develop a real understanding of the topics they are writing about, as opposed to just regurgitating information they have gathered.
Good writers probe deeper and deeper into their topic, asking questions like: Why did this happen? What were the influences behind this? Where, when and why did this all start? What are the origins of this trend? Who will be affected, and how will they be affected? Which of the various opinions about this is the most credible? Is the source of the information reliable and knowledgeable?
It is difficult for article writers to ask leading questions of the spokespeople they are interviewing that will provide rich content for their articles if they do not understand the topic. If article writers only have a superficial or fragmented understanding of the topics they are writing about, it will be reflected in the articles they are writing.
When this happens, it will confuse the reader, and leave a lot of unanswered questions in their minds. As a result they will stop reading it and go and look for another article that is more enlightening, and is obviously written by an article writer who knows what they are writing about.
By Jennigay Coetzer Did you know that Steve Jobs did not invent the latest and greatest Apple products? It was British born Jonathan (Jony) Ive, who is to be knighted by the Queen. Among other things, Ive is credited with designing the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iMac, and was the lead designer behind various MacBook [...]
Media training helps spokespeople to interact with journalists and other media interviewers more effectively. However it is important to choose a media trainer who has in-depth experience in this field and has a journalistic background.
Only an experienced journalist will be able to give spokespeople insight into what the media look for in a good spokesperson, and provide them with the skills to become one.
The right form of media training will equip spokespeople with techniques that will help them anticipate any eventuality in any interview scenario, prepare accordingly, organise their thoughts, and share knowledge clearly and concisely in a two-way discussion with a media interviewer.
Anyone who interacts with the media or is planning to do so will benefit from media training. Natural spokespeople do exist, but they are few and far between. Interestingly, these spokespeople are usually the first to jump at the chance of honing their media interaction skills.
At the other end of the scale are those who spurn the suggestion of media training because they consider themselves to be great spokespeople already with no room for improvement.
Meanwhile they are often the worst spokespeople to interview, due to their inflated egos, arrogant, know-it-all attitude, superficial knowledge, and a tendency to speak at the journalist instead of engaging in a two-way conversation.
In South Africa, progress of fibre infrastructure is being hindered by environmental regulations.
Video conferencing services available over the internet at a reasonable cost.
A single undersea cable provides the equivalent capacity to that of all the satellites put together globally.
The growing popularity of e-readers has sent the book publishing industry into a long-term decline as significant as the changes impacting the music and movie businesses.
Some 100 wireless access service providers across South Africa are providing connectivity services in areas where other broadband infrastructure is inadequate.
In South Africa, operators and service providers want to own their infrastructure, but the customer does not care who owns it.
Companies need to optimise their LANs to benefit from the increased bandwidth capacity that will become available.
Satellite is becoming an increasingly viable contender as a broadband communication technology and its global footprint extends way beyond that of any other
A lot of activity across South Africa to build high-speed terrestrial fibre infrastructure to join up with the undersea cables.
Minister says he is aware South Africa is slipping behind other African countries with broadband communication and that this needs to be addressed.
Half of the undersea cables that were planned to land along the east and west coasts of Africa by 2012 have done so.
Infraco’s terrestrial network and its links to multiple undersea cables allow it to cross-link data traffic from east coast to west coast of Africa.
$6bn of investment in terrestrial fibre networks just in East and Southern Africa.
Mobile operators caught off guard by the rapid growth in the demand for mobile data capacity.
Mobile operators can restrict access to their networks and bundle content in with their services at prices that make it difficult for anyone else to compete.
The volume of data produced globally will have increased from 800,000 petabytes in 2009 to 35 zettabytes by 2020.
Free search engine technologies can be used in conjunction with business intelligence tools
The volume of data being generated worldwide is estimated to have grown 10-fold over the past five years.
Moving to a hosted call centre solution can reduce costs by 30% to 40%.
Organisations are taking a more holistic approach to business process design in their call centres than in the past.
Many companies are adding a social media customer interaction channel to their call centres to allow them to monitor what is being said about them and their products on the internet and address customer complaints.
Companies can save up to 50% on their overall IT costs by moving their IT infrastructure to the cloud.
The mobile device becomes a window onto applications and data, allowing users to interact with them over the internet
Smaller companies may balance the risks of software as a service against cost.
Cloud computing encompasses any service that is accessed over the internet that provides near infinite capacity to meet the current demand…
Small and medium sized companies need a payroll system that is quick to implement and easy to use so they can get up and running in a couple of days.
It has become more feasible for companies of all sizes to access ERP and payroll applications online on a software as a service or hosted basis.
Most companies are looking at implementing talent management systems, and will need a mechanism for updating information.
The days when Windows was the de facto standard platform have gone and more and more operating systems are emerging, which poses challenges for software suppliers.
New tax regulations for company cars and travel allowances in payroll legislation will come into effect this year and represent a significant problem for businesses.
ERP solutions are available that will suit the pockets of smaller companies, are simpler and quicker to implement, locally supported, and will produce real returns.
There is increasing interest in Islamic banking in South Africa, with industry players reporting good growth and new players coming into the market.
The final draft amendment to the South African tax laws for the provision of Islamic banking transactions has been issued.
The Muslim population in South Africa is a fraction of that in many other African countries, yet it has the most Islamic banking entities.
Smaller courier operators can make bulk deliveries for clients to multiple customers over a specified area, for example for a marketing campaign.
By Jennigay Coetzer – first published in Business Day newspaper, 28 January 2011 Most leading South African courier services companies have been focusing on areas like on time deliveries, reliability, and streamlining their distribution processes. But these should now be a given, says Andy van der Velde, MD of Berco Express. He says, the next [...]
TNT has introduced a cheaper service that gets parcels from London to Johannesburg in 48 hours instead of 24 hours, and is available globally for other starting points and destinations.
Hyundai is currently converting a 2.4 litre petrol driven panel van to a hybrid vehicle that will run on natural gas or petrol for a customer.
Some courier services companies use subcontractors to deliver parcels where their networks do not reach. But these operators don’t have technology to allow customers to track their parcels.
Companies are outsourcing their vehicles because they do not want to have to manage a team of drivers, and they can save up to 20% on the cost.
South African courier companies are following international trends by automating their delivery processes.
Challenges for the courier services industry this year include the knock on effect of reduced manufacturing volumes, credit risk, motorway toll charges, and exchange rate fluctuations…
With the growth of the internet and consumer demand for instant gratification more items are being delivered directly to end customers.
Being a media spokesperson is often seen as a grudge role that is out on a limb, far removed from priorities like dealing with customers. But if approached in the right way media interaction can complement rather than detract from customer interaction, and vice versa.
For example, by broadening their understanding of the markets in which they operate to give good value in a media interview spokespeople will be able to feed this knowledge back into their customer base. Similarly, they can gather rich market intelligence while interacting with customers that will elevate them to the ranks of sort-after spokespeople.
During the media training workshops I run, I always stress how important it is for spokespeople to support their viewpoints with key market statistics when discussing trends in media interviews. Journalists like me love statistics, because they quantify and give the audience a reference point, or measure that will enable them to judge for themselves whether a trend is significant to them or not.
Companies go to great lengths to get the maximum editorial coverage in the media, but often neglect to consider the risks associated with this exposure. These include factual errors in published articles, spokespeople’s comments being taken out of context, and negative speculation after a “no comment” statement or nobody being available for comment.
Media exposure is always a case of risk versus reward. Media training will help spokespeople to be aware of the potential risks, anticipate them and have tactics up their sleeve for dealing with them if they arise.
It is difficult to rectify negative publicity after an article has been published or comments have been made to a live audience on radio or TV. Even if an article is retracted, the damage will already have been done.
When being interviewed by the media, spokespeople should have some key statistics up their sleeve to support their viewpoints. Journalists love statistics, because they give them and their target audiences a reference point or measure, for example by which to judge the importance and credibility of what the spokesperson is saying.
When I am running media training workshops with three to seven spokespeople, I always ask them what statistic comes to mind when I say the word “most,” and I sometimes get a different answer from each of them, ranging anywhere from 51% to 99%. Interestingly, many people think “majority” and “most” are interchangeable – it’s all about perception.
If a spokesperson makes a vague comment like “Most companies are moving in this direction……” the audience will interpret it in their own way. Meanwhile, the spokesperson had a definite statistic in his mind as to what he meant by “most,” but he omitted to share it, and clarity was lost.
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 30 July 2010 By the end of next year almost three times as many consumers globally will use their mobile phones to make person to person payments than those who will use them to conduct traditional banking functions, according to ABI Research. The developing world is embracing mobile payment [...]
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 30 July 2010 Internet banking is available at all hours of the day and night, from anywhere, and is a cost efficient service to deliver. However, it is vulnerable to malicious practices such as identity theft, phishing, and pharming – whereby a user gets redirected to a bogus website. [...]
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 30 July 2010 In South Africa the number of internet banking users users has doubled over the past five years to about 3.2-million to 3.5-million, across all the banks. Mobile phone banking is growing even quicker in the country, although off a lower base, with a total of about [...]
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 30 July, 2010 The use of mobile phone banking is growing across Africa and will continue to do so because a large percentage of the population have cell phones and no formal bank account, and live far away from the nearest bank or ATM. Mobile banking presents a great [...]
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 29 July 2010 Internet and mobile phone banking is expanding its reach into non-traditional areas. For example, today anyone can transfer money to a recipient anywhere in the world by internet or mobile banking through Absa’s local agreement with Western Union, which provides cross-border payment services across 200 countries, [...]
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 30 July 2010 Mobile banking offers a convenient way of transacting from anywhere at any time, and can be delivered at a lower cost to the bank. “But if a bank is not offering a good price, customers will move to one that is, especially at the lower end [...]
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 29 July 2010 The progress of the upgrading of the telecommunications infrastructure in SA is being followed closely by international industry analysts. Will Hahn, principal researcher for communications service provider business strategy at Gartner says it is important to note the changes that have already happened in the market [...]
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 29 July Telkom has an installed base of about 5-million residential copper telephone lines that can potentially support ADSL connectivity. But this represents a small portion of the population and not all these lines are of the quality required for ADSL, says Aingharan Kanagaratnam, head of network solutions at [...]
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 29 July 2010 At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the biggest mobile event in the world, the spotlight was on mobile applications and online application stores as opposed to the usual announcements of new phone models. “This shows suppliers are focusing more on to the experience the [...]
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 29 July 2010 Broadcast, IT and telecommunication are all moving to the same IP (Internet Protocol) based network delivery platform. This will pave the way for new services such as interactive TV whereby it will be possible for friends to chat on social networks such as Facebook or Twitter [...]
By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 29 July 2010 Frustration abounds in the local telecommunications market about the lack of progress with bandwidth availability and costs. Service fees are perceived as inflated and the stability of the infrastructure is questionable. The situation is expected to improve as more competitive entities build infrastructure in competition with [...]
It is important for media spokespeople to understand the difference between their agendas and those of the journalists that are interviewing them.
Spokespeople need to have rich knowledge of the topic being discussed to give value in a media interview.
A free ebook version of A Perfect Press Release – or Not?, a guide to writing press releases, can now be downloaded from this website.
Press releases fail due to: lack of information, not enough value for the target audience, lack of focus, superficial views stated…
Good listening skills are vitally important when being interviewed by the media.
Every press release should have an objective behind it, regardless of whether it is going to be distributed to the media or posted on a website….
Most press releases contains the same marketing jargon, so where is the differentiation? To avoid this…
Good content is like a sculptor’s clay – it can be molded and massaged until it flows properly as you write and rewrite the article.
The saying “To assume makes an ass out of you and me.” is particularly apt when being interviewed by a journalist or any other media interviewer.
As the functionality of smartphones and PCs converge, an increasing number of PC manufacturers will move into this market.
Smartphone handset manufacturers are turning their devices into services platforms, which includes extending users’ desktop tools to the mobile phone
Those located near to undersea cable landing points will get the best benefits until national fibre network upgrades are more advanced.
Icasa’s definition of broadband is anything over 128 kilobits per second, while the rest of the world rates anything over 2 megabits per second (Mbps) as broadband.
Broadband Infraco will become a major wholesale provider of national telecoms capacity, which bodes well for increased competition in South Africa
Africa is the last continent to be reached with affordable high-speed broadband connectivity
Across Africa, there are already 60 WiMAX operators
When being interviewed by the media on a topic or market trend, be authoritative, don’t go into sales mode, go with the flow and don’t get personal
The better spokespeople are briefed before being interviewed by a journalist or other media interviewer the better equipped they will be to prepare for the interview.
Whether being interviewed by a journalist from a print publication or on radio or TV, imagine you are speaking directly to the audience.
Companies appoint spokespeople to interact with the media to get their marketing messages across, but journalists have a different agenda.
Three fundamental technology shifts are happening that affect the telecommunications market and relate to bandwidth, computing power and storage capacity.
Industry players comment on the advent of new Seacom undersea cable.
Seacom’s open business model is already having an effect on the South African market in terms of the transparency of its wholesale bandwidth prices and the fact that operators and service providers alike can buy bandwidth directly.
An increasing number of advanced mobile voice recognition applications will be available for downloading on the internet.
Once WiMAX coverage is broad enough it will provide a viable alternative to 3G and the next generation 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) for mobile connectivity.
The number of global mobile connections has exceeded 4 billion, according to the international cellular industry association (GSMA).
Analysts predict that smartphones will double their share of the mobile handset market by 20% to 23% over the next four years.
The netbook is becoming an increasingly popular device for connecting to the internet, with hundreds of different models on the market varying in functionality, size and cost.
The combination of the new undersea cables and the national fibre network will enable users to do a lot more with the internet.
Operators worldwide are outsourcing the management of their network infrastructure in a bid to increase efficiencies and save costs
Mini devices are challenging the supremacy of PCs and laptops.
Satellite could play a more prominent role in the broadband communication market in South Africa.
In recent years, the number of mobile network subscribers across Africa has grown at 35% a year, with Nigeria experiencing the largest growth at 58%.
Infrastructure providers are emerging that dig trenches in the ground, lay down ducting and fibre cabling and rent it to many operators and service providers at a price per kilometre.
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