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The clock is ticking. You've got 10 seconds. Make them count. Be Brief, Be Succinct JOHNSON'S WORLD Huh? I've never read Modiano (I don't know French), but I'll bet dol- lars to donuts that his writing is much clearer and more readable than that meaningless drivel quoted above, word for word from the Nobel Prize press release. The prestige of the Nobel Prize, though tarnished, is still enough to incent me to investigate Modiano's works. The press release, on the other hand, tells me nothing. In his new book, Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less, author Joseph McCormack observes, "It can be frus- trating for people to visit a company's website, read it, and leave without knowing what the company does. And that happens all too often." He goes on to note that this happens …"not just online, but in meetings, presentations and conferences. People talk, but say nothing." I related to this passage immedi- ately. I frequently receive spam emails and "junk-mail" letters (the medium doesn't seem to matter) of introduc- tion that leave me scratching my head. Unlike the Nobel Prize press release, I have no context in which to place these missives, so I promptly discard them without a further thought. An introduction should leave me with a clear understanding of who and what you are, and why it should mat- ter to me. An announcement should clearly state what exactly is being announced. A sales solicitation must contain a clear call to action. I'm not talking about mediocre mar- keting efforts in which I'm not effective- ly persuaded to buy. I'm talking about sales campaigns where I can't even fig- also self-destruct 10 seconds (or less) after opening, Talk about the need for brevity and clarity! By the end of this decade you'll be doing business with my daughter's age group. If you have something to say, could you summarize it in 31 characters? That is this sentence's length. Don't be fooled into thinking that these Gen Y kids have short attention spans. They've read all 4000+ pages of their older siblings' Harry Potter books and then sat through 20 hours of Harry Potter movies. What they won't tolerate is pompous or meandering prose. They will only read or watch or listen to you if give them a darn good reason. No matter what you are promoting, be it a product, a service, or just yourself as you look for a date, take some time to hone your introduction. Make it clear, concise, succinct, and brief. You've got 10 seconds. Make them count. ◗◗ Steve Johnson is president of Copresco in Carol Stream, IL, a pioneer in digital printing technology and print on demand. Contact him at MyPRINTResource. com/10362516. ure out who they are or what they are selling. This is pathet- ic because these missives have over- come the biggest hurdle; i.e., persuading me to actually open and read their message. Once I've done so, the world is their oyster. All they need to do is present me with a unique selling proposition and they've got me. It is difficult to sell when the offer is not unique, but it is impossible to sell when I can't even tell what the proposition is. Ah, the Irony Bites I'm sure you see the irony of a litera- ture prize being announced with empty, bombastic phrasing. It is not any less ironic to market your marketing services with poor marketing? It isn't surprising that McCormack, the author of Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less, has a university degree not in business but in English litera- ture. We can learn from great literature how to improve our own marketing communications. My daughter, a member of the Mil- lennial Generation, is forced by her high-school English teachers to read the great authors of the last century. She detests John Steinbeck but enjoys Ernest Hemingway. That's no surprise. Uncle Ernie was the master of the succinct sen- tence. She also enjoys F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose entire body of work would fit into one of Steinbeck's longer novels. She eschews Facebook and Twitter in favor of Snapchat, which has a 31-character limit. Snapchat messages By Steve Johnson L ast month the Nobel Prize committee announced that it was presenting the 2014 Literature Award to the French author Patrick Modiano, "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncov- ered the life-world of the occupation." 38 Q U I C K P R I N T I N G / N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 4 w w w. M y P R I N T R e s o u r c e . c o m A, B... ??