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Why hello, 2010

Happy New Year everyone! Another year done and dusted, another Christmas been and gone. I can hardly believe I’ll have been freelancing for two years in April.

So, what do you hope this year holds for you?

I’m planning to focus my efforts more on issues that matter to me – they all pretty much fall under the topic of ‘environment’. I’m on the hunt for new clients in that broad sector, building on my current experience in engineering and construction. Anything, from sustainable housing to renewable energy. If that’s you, get in touch.

And to bolster my knowledge in that area, I’m excited to be starting an MSc Architecture in Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies in March (to complement my BEng in Mechanical Engineering). It’s a distance course from the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) (Europe’s leader) and the University of East London (UEL).

The on-site course would be even better, but that would be a bit tricky seeing as I live in Mallorca. On the plus side, Spain is an exciting area for renewable energies, so I’ll get the best of both worlds. I’m also taking the part-time option, which means I can continue to work at the same time.

What else?

I’m going to keep improving my Spanish and work on my German. I’m also going to get more involved with my local Friends of the Earth group (for which I currently volunteer) and finally buy the camera I’ve been thinking of throughout 2009.

Oh, and so many other things but the above are all I’m going to commit to on (virtual) paper for now. What about you?

Social media: not so shiny anymore

Because I’m a web copywriter, it’s almost an obligation to be involved with social media. It’s one of those things that we should understand and ‘get’. I have profiles on the standard hat trick of networks: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. And I’m starting to get a bit, well, bored. Of (gasp) Twitter in particular.

It’s a bit like a relationship that seems great at first, then gets a bit dull, until finally you realise you’re putting a lot in, but not getting much back. You really thought you would, of course, and you’ve ‘met’ (hey, let’s not forget this is virtual) some really nice people…

But I only use it for business; unless the person’s an extraordinary writer, I really don’t want to know what people are doing right now. I’ve made some interesting contacts, but now I read their blogs, not their Tweets.

I’ve tried to provide useful links for my ‘followers’, which has worked as their number has grown organically and they say nice things to me (yes, that’s certainly one of the good points). But while this helps me to keep up to date with my industry, I spend more time than I’d like searching out these links.

On the plus side (as well as the nice things they say), as a work-from-home freelancer it’s kind of comforting to have this online network available for those little chats you might have over a cuppa in the office.

So, should I stay or should I go? I’m been mulling over this for a little while but am worried that if I call it a day, I’m going to miss out on something. Y’know, something HUGE. But then, nothing very exciting’s happened while I’ve been using Twitter, so why should that change? Oh, what to do.

Is bad English better than no English at all?

I’m really not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if the end result is the same: nobody finds your website.

I’m talking about the English content offered by many websites that have a different primary language. The internet’s great because it opens up your business to many more people, who speak many different languages. But it really doesn’t matter if all the other languages on your site are written beautifully if the one they’re reading is just not very, well, good.

Of course, this is great news for me because this is something I can help with – ironing out those grammatical lumps and bumps. But perhaps you need a bit of convincing as to why it’s so important, so here are three reasons (and for argument’s sake, I’m going to refer to English) for starters…

Help people to find you

If you want English speakers to find you, you need to provide words they’ll use in the search engines. It’s no good having an English version if everything’s spelt wrongly or grammatically incorrect. If you’re offering something that ‘is respectful with the medioambiente’* and your English speaker searches for ‘respects the environment’, your website isn’t going to come up in the search results.

Make them think you’re really very good…

Well-written copy makes a company look professional, credible and genuine, and builds trust with a site’s readers. Text littered with errors and spelling mistakes makes it look as if you can’t really be bothered to get it done properly. And if you have that attitude towards your own business, then perhaps you’ll act the same towards their project. That’s what they’ll be thinking.

…and make sure they keep reading about you!

Complicated English copy with lots of long words does NOT equal good copy. Saying ‘we are in compromise with the sustainable development from the deepest convinction’* will not make your visitor think, ‘Hey! This guy knows what he’s talking about’. It’s hard work to read that sentence; it needs reading and rereading to work out what’s actually being said (which, I think, is  ‘sustainable development is really important to us’).

There are probably lots more reasons (add them in the comments!) but I think these are more than good enough to start with. Y si necesitas ayuda con tu página en inglés, contáctame!

*Both from a real website. Really.

Choosing a ‘green’ laptop

We all need to play our part in moving towards a ‘greener’, more sustainable lifestyle. This covers every part of our daily lives, including work. I’m in the market for a new laptop, so I’ve decided to try to go green and I’ve been researching my options.

I’m not a computer expert but I am technically minded, so I’ve been hunting down information that strikes a balance between the two. I thought I’d share these with you, in case they can help you too.

What I’m looking for

Firstly, my considerations:

  • I have a limited budget (as far as laptops go) but realise I might have to pay a bit more to meet the environmental standards I’d like (which, by the way, I’ve only identified by reading the following articles – my initial standard was, well, ‘better’).
  • The majority of my clients are corporate and are therefore using Windows. My new laptop needs to be compatible with the technology my clients use.
  • I don’t just want the ‘green’ offering from a company that’s targeting that area of the customer market. It’s no good if it otherwise falls down on its other products, or fails to be a ‘good corporate citizen’.
  • (Yes, it falls in with ‘corporate social responsibility’, which I know lots of people are sceptical about. But customer demand drives business strategy, and if this is towards a more community-focused one, then that’s a good thing in my mind.)

Sources of information

I don’t think these are too much to ask of a modern organisation. So, on to the sources I’ve been using to help me make my choice:

Trusting what I read

I’m not going to pretend that this is a particularly scientific piece of research, but I’m simply doing my best to make a decision based on the information available to me. I think this is how many members of the public would try to make their choice, and they’re the ones who will be buying much of the technology.

Do you know of any good articles or have any words of wisdom to share that will help me to make the right choice (for now)? If so, please share them below. Otherwise, stay posted – I’ll let you know which I decide on and my reasons why.

Book: ‘Biting the wax tadpole’

I decided some time ago that I’d share some of the interesting writing- and language-related books that I read. Unfortunately, I’m very good at starting lots of books at the same time, but not always great at finishing them…

One I did complete a while ago (and, yes, I should have written about it while fresh in my mind) was Biting the wax tadpole (Penguin, 2008) by Elizabeth Little, a self-proclaimed ‘armchair linguist’. This book was a very readable, light-hearted and interesting foray into linguistics for a beginner such as myself.

The one area that stood out in my mind, in comparison with similar books, was an in-depth chapter on the origin and meaning of numbers, i.e. how they’ve been expressed through the ages and why. This topic seems to be neglected in many other books on language.

Aside from discussing the many different ways that cultures do this, Liz (we’re all friends here!) makes a small point about how similar the number ‘nine’ is to the word for ‘new’ (in Indo-European languages). She suggests that we haven’t always used a base-10 number system, but a base-8 one (gaps between the fingers?).

Think about it…

  • Spanish: nueve vs nuevo
  • French: neuf vs nouveau (and even comme neuf for ‘as good as new’)
  • Italian: nove vs nuovo

Aside from numbers, the book also explores the standard linguistic fare: nouns, verbs, modifiers and speech (from pronunciation to good ol’ profanities). It’s a romp through the world’s languages that’s easy to understand but which also makes you think (with the occasional ‘a-ha!’ moment, such as the ‘nine thing’).

If you’ve stumbled into this post by accident, this probably all sounds a bit, well, dull to you. But if you have an interest in writing and language, I definitely recommend this for an enjoyable read.