He’s Just Not That Into You

Oh, small, earnest neighborhood florist — I can see how hard you’re working to get this right. Here you are in the heart of college country, with scores of students strolling past you every day, never stopping to browse or buy. You know an untapped market when you see one, and you’re even willing to […]

Copy We Wish We’d Written: Blue Bell Creamery

My 12-year-old neighbor, Phoebe, returned from a trip to Houston and couldn’t wait to tell me about the ice cream she’d discovered, Blue Bell, and the company’s super fun slogan, “We eat all we can, and sell the rest.” (Phoebe’s not aware that I write copy for a living, but she knows how I feel […]

What the Dalai Lama Could Learn from Fast Company

“Is it wrong to hide the Dalai Lama’s posts?” I asked on Facebook a couple of years ago. “They’re just so frequent.”* I wonder if Tenzin Gyatso saw this recent profile in Fast Company, which featured Rufus Griscom talking about how to build online communities around your content. We liked what RG had to say. […]

Why Does This Little Girl’s Blog Have Over a Million Visitors?

Nine-year-old Martha Payne started a blog last month analyzing her school lunches. Boring, right? But, with over a million visitors in just six weeks, she has something to teach the likes of Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver. Why is her blog so successful? She pretty much sums it up in her profile: “My dad says […]

A Reminder of the Awesome Power of the Deadline

It was shaping up as an ordinary morning at The Hired Pens headquarters. I got into work and mapped out a plan for the day. Suddenly, everything changed (cue foreboding horror-movie music). The phone rang. It was the owner of a small agency that we write for. Yes, I had sent her copy for the […]

Copy We Wish We’d Written: Henkel

You know how Dan and Anna are always going on and on about writing copy that’s conversational and doesn’t sound like it was written by a robot (or someone really boring)? I saw this ad in a magazine and loved it so much that I sent a pic to Anna. (Dan doesn’t share our enthusiasm […]

Three Tricks for Tricky Word Choices

Anna’s home with her newborn, so our friend Laura Hales of The Isis Group hooked us up with this post. While Laura typically works with scientists, these suggestions are relevant for us non-scientific types too. Thanks, Laura! There are several examples of words that are misused, resulting in one of the top sources of confusion […]

Are Technology Companies Finally Turning Human?

About 10 years ago, I taught a business writing course at a local university. One of my goals was to get students to write conversationally, as opposed to writing like a corporate hack. At The Hired Pens, we’ve long preached the virtues of writing conversationally — that is, writing like you speak. Among other things, […]

Five Essential Self-editing Tips for People Who Don’t Like Self-editing

Like it or not, most of us have to spend at least part of our workday writing. You may be carefully crafting a new page for your website or just dashing off a few emails over morning coffee. If whatever it is you’re writing is important — and you don’t have the luxury of a […]

Random Thoughts on Pedestrians with Death Wishes … and Anonymous Testimonials

Two things I’m pondering on this gorgeous late summer’s day … 1) We see a lot from our offices high above Davis Square, and I want to state this for the record: Any day now, some clueless pedestrian sauntering across the street while texting is going to get injured or killed by an oncoming car. […]