When most people (usually Uber drivers) ask what I do, and I answer that I write about technology, they look at me with pity. I suspect they imagine me hunched over a laptop writing endless dry proposals and user manuals, or impenetrable acronym-packed ‘how to’ articles.
Thankfully, writing about technology isn’t like that for me - or the rest of the One Little Seed team.
1. We write for people, not androids
Good writing is an essentially effortless conversation with your reader. One you could imagine having over a coffee or a cold beer. It’s an opportunity to share interesting ideas and stories, to inform and educate, challenge and intrigue, and even entertain. And open the door for a two-way exchange.
You may wonder why, if your target audience is interested in your topic (as in need-to-know-because-it’s-their-job), it’s important to put more effort into ‘humanising’ your content, not less.
This: Just because your audience is interested in technology and its impact on their business doesn’t mean they gravitate towards impenetrable and functional content. Business and technology professionals watch Netflix, laugh at dad jokes, and read trashy airport novels at the beach – just like the rest of us.
And you’re competing for their attention with a lot of other content.
According to First Site Guide’s article on Blogging Statistics 2022, around 7 million blog posts are published per day. Right now, there are approximately 500 million active blogs on the web. So, you can pretty much guarantee that what you’re writing about on any given day is also being tackled by someone else at the same time. This means that for your content to shine, your writing needs to be current, relevant, searchable, valuable, and readable.
When your audience is time-poor and bombarded by content, the more digestible it is, the more likely they are to read it from end to end. I call it the carrot-and-chip-combo approach. A bag of artisan crisps can disappear in no time (especially with a beer), whereas a bag of carrots, worthy though they may be, takes some real effort to get through.
The trick is to make your content highly palatable and nutritious.
2. We stick to plain language
Despite every intention, you can rarely limit your audience to precisely those who are guaranteed to understand it. While you could ‘gate’ every whitepaper and demand name, organisation, job title, and email address in exchange for a download link, even that doesn’t give you surety of target audience readership.
And this is a good thing. We’re after enquiring minds, people keen to expand their knowledge. The wider the readership, the greater the opportunity to attract interest – even if it’s just a straight ‘sharing because I thought this might interest you’ action from CTO to CFO.
What this does mean is that you can’t afford to use so much industry jargon that only the exceptionally technologically literate can understand what you’ve written. A quick sentence clarifying a concept never goes amiss. And there’s no shame in forgetting exactly what an acronym means in an industry which has over 1000 of them in daily use.
3. We use humour and sparkling wit to make our point
Admittedly, we’re fond of puns and wordplay. For those of us who write as a profession and appreciate a neat turn of phrase, it comes with the territory. And again, it signals that we are talking to real people who welcome an unexpected opportunity to smile.
But not only do we enjoy clever writing (where and when appropriate), we do it for a reason. The benefits of writing with humour are well documented and range from improving cut-through and engagement to making your business more relatable and authentic.
The proviso (because there’s always a catch) is that you shouldn’t shoehorn humour into your content for the sake of it. Humour is subjective and can walk a fine line between offensive and obscure, so tread with care.
4. We love what we write about (and we think it shows)
Unsurprisingly, we’re all a bit geeky at One Little Seed.
Every day, we take delight in learning something new. We talk to people who are inspired and inspiring, and truly passionate about sharing what their business has to offer the world.
We interview our clients, their subject matter experts and gurus, and often their clients. We deep dive into their technology offerings and brand, and research everything. Technology is constantly evolving, so we’re often at the coalface of new and fascinating innovations. And we can visualise and, most importantly, articulate how our clients can help other businesses evolve or reinvent themselves.
So, when that Uber driver asks me, ‘what do you do?’ and I tell them, I often suspect they wish the trip were shorter. Or that I found my job less interesting.
