Yesterday, I talked about what I did to update my website, and make it more reflective of the kind of work I have been doing. Given my background, a lot of it is writing blog posts and articles. But I’ve also steadily been improving my skills in graphic design, video, and photography, so I have included examples of those as well.
All of them are in service of supporting a business and an industry. Have I created “art” that was just something that I wanted to create for fun? Sure. I have written pieces that I enjoyed making, and shared with friends and family. A lot of the photos I take are for myself — to use as a reference (for example, I took a picture of the yard during a rainstorm, so I could see the low spots in the ground, with the idea of evening things out), or to remember a fun activity I took part in.
But my niche is in supporting “boring” industries. As I have told several people, nobody goes to their insurance company’s website for fun. And it’s likely you wouldn’t read about a new church in town unless you were a member of that church. But I have written about both of those topics, and made it interesting.
How do you do that? You “find the interesting.” Every topic, even something that appears on the surface to be dull or rote, has something about it that will catch peoples’ attention. It’s my job as a content creator to find that “something” and highlight it.
A few examples:
- Industries like health care and risk management have a lot of jargon. How can those terms and acronyms be presented? Try putting them in a dictionary-style list, with a few carefully chosen words to describe each. That makes a handy quick reference, and can be a springboard to more discussion on each individual item in the list.
- Companies often want to put out a press release about a new hire, especially someone who is on the executive level. One option is to mention the raw facts: the job title, the new hire’s past employment, and perhaps a generic quote from that new hire’s superior about being “excited to welcome them.” A more compelling press release includes something about the tasks the person will be doing (so if a reader has a question or concern, they’ll know who to go to), and a quote from the person about the job itself (to help communicate that the new hire is especially focused on some aspect of the job). I also like to add something “fun,” like the person’s favorite sports team, or if they have any pets (maybe that could be a talking point if the new hire is at a networking meeting, and the person they’re chatting with remembers the press release).
- I’ve created a number of PowerPoint presentations intended to show data: sales figures, performance measures, and so on. People who don’t have design experience seem to like clip art, or lots of colors, but usually that clashes with corporate brand standards (that’s part of the marketing role too, keeping things on-brand). Instead, using small animation, like a data table fading on to the slide, helps draw the eye without being overwhelming.
It’s easy to “find the interesting” if you know why you’re looking for it. It may not be as exciting as directing a short film or writing a novel, but it’s a way to make content that could easily be ignored into something that will be noticed.