How to ask the right questions to deal with dodgy copy briefs

The Copy Collective’s Mr Romance, Jim Butcher, delves into the world of dodgy briefs and hands out some helpful suggestions for navigating your way through.

 

Dealing with dodgy briefs (Pic source: Hoopla)

There’s nothing worse than those cold sweats from fretting over a brief to which you just can’t respond. You’ve spent way too long pondering the job but you still can’t get into the swing of it.

Behind the brief

This could be because the brief is inadequate. It happens frequently; so don’t be too surprised. And there are many reasons for it:

• Perhaps there was more than one person working on the brief. Too many cooks spoiling the broth and all that.
• For some, creating a watertight brief isn’t important and they just want it off their desks, so what you’ve received could just be a bit of a palm-off.
• This might be the person’s first brief, you never know.

Whatever the reason, don’t worry. As long as you’ve caught this early enough, there are things you can do. 

Asking the right questions 
As you read through your brief, which you should do thoroughly as soon as you can, make sure the following questions are answered. If they’re not, then ask the client:

• Audience - who are you writing for?
• Tone - does this need a conversational tone? Is it a report or an emotive piece?
• Purpose - is this going to be a letter asking for donations? A blog post? A promotion or sales pitch?
• Additional material - is there reference material that hasn’t been provided that may support the information that is attached? Make sure you ask for all relevant material.

If there is a lot of background information, it’s OK to ask for direction on to the specific focus of the piece. Sometimes a client will just give you everything, which is great. But trawling through a 900-page document for a 300-word piece isn’t going to work for you or the client. 

Getting the job done 

Ask your questions and plan to ask as many as you need to at once. By planning, you will save your client time on separate phone calls or emails. And if you’re still not clear, ask again.
Your client won’t mind fielding your questions. Deep down, most people know when they’ve written a brief that may be missing the mark. 

Tell us your tricks

So,what do you do if the brief you’ve received isn’t up to scratch? Comment away...

Feathers in the Wind: 6 life lessons we can all learn from the rise and fall of Flappy Bird

By WILL SKIS

A few months after an inconspicuous entry into the Android and Apple app stores, the simple 2D platform game Flappy Bird became an international success, storming its way onto smartphones across the globe at the rate of millions of downloads a day.

Abruptly, however, the game disappeared from the digital marketplace, with creator Dong Nguyen announcing that the game’s success had become too overwhelming.

I am sorry 'Flappy Bird' users, 22 hours from now, I will take 'Flappy Bird' down. I cannot take this anymore.
— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014

This left users such as myself (who had jumped on the flappy bandwagon during the height of its popularity) to be part of an exclusive club of those with a copy of the game on their devices. Moments after the game was pulled, smartphone owners flocked to eBay and other online auctioning sites in droves to sell their now ‘collector’s edition’ devices containing Flappy Bird.

This story is not particularly new or exclusive (the hubbub all happened over a month ago), or even that interesting (unless you are so addicted to this insane game that you crave anything with the word ‘flappy’ in it). However, to those who saw this brave little bird flap upwards into our collective consciousness, only to hit the inevitable green pipe of reality and come crashing down, I put this to you: there is definitely something worthwhile to be learned from this whole ordeal.

As such, here are six life lessons that I thought were worth taking from Flappy Bird, in no particular order. Enjoy, and flap on, my friends. Flap on.

1. Simple is better

You touch the screen to flap up, you don’t touch the screen and gravity sends you soaring back down. It’s that easy, and that difficult. The beauty of Flappy Bird lies within its simplicity, and it’s this simplicity that has made gamers red with rage and indie developers green with envy. The lesson is simple: Simple is better. We live in a world of noise and clutter, and the newly unlocked digital marketplaces and app stores are no exception. Flappy Bird was a rare minimalistic jewel in this world of $2.99 micro-transactions and inconveniently placed pop-up advertisements.

Hell, even the name ‘Flappy Bird’ is so insanely simple it permeates your brain almost instantly. Go ahead, say ‘flappy bird’ aloud right now. I bet you feel happy. ‘Flappy’ even rhymes with happy! It’s a fun word to say. And really, there’s no other name this game could ever have or need. It’s a flappy… bird. Flappy Bird. Simple!

2. Don't be afraid to borrow what works

Ok, let’s talk about the pipes. Whether intentionally or not, creator Dong Nguyen’s green pipes look a hell of a lot like another, side scrolling, globally beloved, plumber-saves-princess kind of game. These pipes, plus our hero Flappy, are pretty much all this game features (see point 1). Flap up, flap down, and don’t hit the pipes. Though they don’t contain secret dungeons filled with coins or Venus fly-traps, they are this game’s villain.

Outraged cries of plagiarism flooded the internet as this game became popular, but whether Dong wanted to borrow such a recognisable video game icon for his tiny little indie app or whether all pipes kind of look the same is a moot point. Seeing these pipes activated the working memory in our brains from the moment we all started flapping, and brought a sense of calming nostalgia which would ease the pain of playing the damn app all day and not making it past level 20. Call it an homage, call it a pastiche, a mockery, a travesty. Call it what you will; it works. And borrowing a little bit of what works from others you admire is what all of the greatest artists do anyway.

This, of course, leads us directly to the next piece of sage wisdom from the Flappy Bird saga, namely:

3. Success isn't always what you thought it would be

I could try to go into the detail of Flappy Bird’s ultimate demise, but YouTube comedian ‘chonnyday’ sums up the story quite nicely (and hilariously) in this video. (Warning: NSFW language.)

Watching the success of Flappy Bird piled upon this humble Vietnamese game developer, it is always wise to remember to plan an end goal for your creations. What was once a hobby and a dream career path quickly turned into a nightmare for Nguyen as he suffocated under the constant bombardment of media attention, greedy advertisers, indie developers looking to him like a guru, and of course, enraged fans who were feeling frustrated with their own motor skills.

Life constantly pressures us, to force us to want to be successful. However, if there’s anything to learn from Dong’s downfall, it’s that you have to be careful not to get overwhelmed when all that success comes in one fell swoop, much like an uncoordinated, pixelated bird would. This leads us to…

4. People will always want more even when you do a good job

People are perpetually unsatisfied. Couple this indisputable fact with the rise in wireless Internet, and the term ‘customer complaint’ has been well and truly taken to a whole new level. The opinions and rage, which were once relegated to a person’s co-workers or immediate family, can now be forcibly expelled into the great big world of social media in the forms of angry Tweets or YouTube comments, over private messages or public channels.

Another lesson poor Dong learned the hard way (and you, my dear reader, are learning the easy way – by reading this blog) was that people complain more than they praise. Way more. And even when they like what you put out there, they rarely voice their satisfaction in a healthy way (i.e. “Love your game, Dong! Do you think there could be a Flappy Bird mode where the pipes were further apart?”). It really is a terrible flaw in human behaviour. People usually only dream that a single person could make as much money, in as much time, with so simple a product, as Nguyen did with Flappy Bird. I have a superstition where I believe my bird flaps particularly well only when he is red in colour (it changes every game in a nice little visual touch.) I love this game, but I want to be able to pick Red Flappy on demand. And then I realise: “Who the hell am I to think I have any say with this app?”

When someone does succeed in this spectacularly individualistic, sky-rocketing manner, naturally our next question to them is: “What else you got?” (After a few hundred failed attempts at cracking our top score, of course). This immense pressure broke down Dong, but we can learn from it. Don’t let the fickle nature of humans, particularly 21^st century consumer humans, get you down on your quest for the best.

Some good news, however, is that you as a content creator can use the next lesson against those same fickle, consumer robots.

5. People want what they can't have

The ridiculous eBay prices of devices with Flappy Bird installed and the shocking rate of clone ‘flappy’ apps appearing to fill a perceived gap in the market (a Flappy-App-Gap, perhaps?) makes very clear a life lesson I learned a long time ago from an episode of South Park, entitled ‘Cartmanland’.

In this episode, Cartman, the show’s sociopathic anti-hero, inherits $1 million and uses it to buy a financially struggling theme park, which he names after himself, boards up, and declares to everyone that no one is allowed in.

In turn, he unwittingly creates an insatiable demand for the theme park, for people now want to get in simply because they aren’t allowed to. This phenomenon is currently working in Dong’s favour, and has been working for the diamond industry for years. Use it cleverly, and it could be the most important life lesson on this list in terms of generating demand for your product, artwork, or service. People have accused Dong of restricting his app for this very reason, and, you know, they may be right…

6. Invent at the right moment

The final life lesson which I found poignant in the Flappy Bird saga is both uplifting and depressing at the same time (again, like Flappy Bird. What a timeless metaphor this little guy will be). Despite his simplicity, his borrowed icons, and his flawlessly frustrating gameplay, Dong’s real success came from his timing. Such an unlikely hero was the little bird, who probably never dreamed of living up to, let alone surpassing, the success of his cousin, the Angry Bird. But, like a feather in the wind, he was carried on a wave of hype straight into smart-phone superstardom. Timing, context, and luck are three variables which will make or break whatever you are trying to achieve in life, and unfortunately, you can rarely control them. 

Concocting something as viral and culturally permeating as Flappy Bird can only be a rare occurrence in our modern world, but it’s not unheard of. Take note of what others are creating, work on your own creations, and try your best to get the timing right when you want to show them to the world. You might just have a hit on your hands. 

Stilettos and Women's Liberation: What have they got in common?

Feminists were flat against them. Flappers were out to shake them. While Dior made them a household name. This International Women’s Day we trace the twentieth century woman’s stride to freedom and the shoes she wore along the way.

 

Who knew the well-trodden path to women’s liberation would follow the rise and fall of the high heel?

Stepping out

Comfortable, practical, and ready-for-duty heels stepped out on the very first International Women’s Day on March 19^th, 1911. Over 30,000 women gathered at the largest street demonstration in Europe, joining thousands across the globe.

1925 Sears Catalogue (Source: flickr)

Following this chorus of confidence, the heel rose in stature to enhance the glamour of the Roaring ’20s. 

The high heel gave the illusion of longer and more slender legs. And a racy frock demanded a statement shoe. 

 

Heels at war

However, it couldn’t last. The captivating allure of the 1920s faded against the harsh realities of two World Wars and the Great Depression.

The high heel trend plummeted along with spirits to a more practical, low and wide heel. 

The heel revival

Post-war in the 1950s, good times were breaking through.  The high heel revival began again. Fashion designers like Christian Dior were going even higher with their first 5-inch stiletto heel.

It was a shaken, but battle-strong woman who stepped in to this new free world.

She’d gained her confidence and independence while the men were off to war. She had demanded her right to vote, fiercely fought by The Suffrage movement in most Western nations, and her traditional role in society was dramatically changing. 

The stomping 60s

Heel fashion, like the political and social state of the time, shifted significantly in the 60s and 70s. It was no longer about height and style, but about statement and freedom. And with that came the chunky platform shoe.

At the time, her role of mother and housewife was shrugged off for that of career woman. The introduction of the pill brought freedom to plan pregnancies and gain ‘control’ over her body and future. So women flooded universities and the workforce – in industries not previously broached – in fields of medicine, politics and business.

The rising trend

Manolo Blahnki Stilettos (Source: Vogue.com)

Designers like Manolo Blahnik brought back the sky-high stiletto in the 1980s and 90s.

The modern woman found stature and authority in her lofty heel. She fought for equality in the workforce, and challenged the traditional perceptions of her role and value across all levels of society.

The heel had earned its entitlement on catwalks, department store shelves, and then the wardrobe of every woman. She was confident. She was on her way.

The Heel Debate

Now I know what you’re thinking. It’s sexist to equate high heels and women’s liberation, right?

And you would be right, according to the views of the feminists of the 1960s and many still today.

Feminist groups were flat against it. Overly erotic or a form of ‘self-harm’, they saw heels as a male-invented shackle aimed to slow the progress towards women’s freedom, both literally and figuratively.

In the last 20 years, feminist views have receded – or indeed popular view has demonstrated acceptance – that the wearer of the heels does so for themselves, and not simply to appeal to the opposite sex.

So why is that one person’s view of the oppression from a patriarchal society, so vehemently opposed to someone else’s pursuit of personal expression?

I guess it’s because the feminist movement, or path to women’s liberation, is all about freedom of choice.

And women aren’t just women, they’re individuals. Individuals who have the freedom to walk-it-out in whatever they choose –stilettos, flip flops, sneakers – you name it, girlfriend.

 

Celebrating freedom

So, whether you’re liberating the flats or the heels from your wardrobe today, there’s much to celebrate as we approach International Women’s Day.

Since that first march for freedom in 1913, we’ve benefited from the patient tread of courage and determination by ordinary women that saw extraordinary progress, change and transformation.

While the debate continues about women in leadership and on boards, and the need to turn our efforts to ending poverty for the global poor wages on. I’m grateful to follow in the footsteps of those who’ve gone before me… and consider my swagger for those who’ll follow behind.

But it seems for now, the high heel – like women’s liberation – is here to stay.

 

International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated each year on the 8^th of March. IWD is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women in the past, present and future. For information and events:  https://unwomen.org.au/iwd/about-international-womens-day

 

By Kirryn Zerna