Functional illiteracy

This came to me via one of my distribution lists. I shan’t name either the list or the originator, for reasons that will become apparent as early as the subject line:

SEEKING: Guide for writing online content (not writing articles!)

Hi wrls,
I've recently been put in charge of the org I work for's website. It's not reader friendly, it is far to long and wordy for web, and aside from that.Length aside, when we ran a test it came out as being for people on a PhD level!

I'm not a writer so I need a dummies guide for writing online to give to my coworkers, I will be asking them to pair down their content and rewrite their bios (which often go over 400 words!). Ironically, I know they won't read anything lengthy (*rolls eyes*) so need to give them something *short and sweet* -- along the veins of how they *should* be writing.

Maybe I'm not searching the right keywords, but so far everything I've come across is really lengthy (so do they really know what they're talking about?) or about writing articles for online. Any guidance is appreciated!

Thanks,
XX
P.S. am I long-winded or what? ;-)

This is the sort of thing that’s eaten my lunch my entire career as a writer. Business people simply do not value writing—their fervently-held belief is that anyone can write, so why should they pay someone to do what they can get any twit who’s good with smiley-faces to do as a sideline to their real job?

No matter if said twit has no concept of the difference between possessive and plural, can’t see beyond the end of a sentence, flings punctuation around like birdseed at a wedding and thinks spellcheck will prevent you from looking like an ignoramus.

I see this everywhere—sadly, even on the pages/screens of reputable mainstream periodicals—but especially in the corporate world. At one company where I worked, before they handed over the blog to someone who knew 1)the product/market and 2)how to write, the CEO actually blogged about something that “peaked” his interest.

I’ll just bet it did.

One of my current colleagues continually amazes/amuses me with his PowerPoint decks displaying an utter failure to grasp the basics of English usage. The very few documents I’ve seen him produce (he’s a performance-art kind of guy, not an actual, you know, thinker—nothing’s real for him unless he has an audience) only reinforce that observation.

Of course, as happens all too often in the business ecosystem, no one notices or cares.

Back to our query originator—you’ll notice she wanted something quick and dirty, not anything that would require any actual, you know, effort on her part to understand what makes for good web content. Just gimme somethin’ I can copy and paste and be off to something useful.

I’d so love to see the before and after of that web site.