Posts By Candi Harrison

Plain Language Is Good Business

(This is a repost of my guest blog for New Zealand’s WriteMark plain language advocates) I worked on U.S. Government websites for 10 years; and I learned there’s one principle that trumps all others: if you don’t communicate effectively, you can’t serve effectively. If customers come to your website and cannot understand what you offerRead… Read more »

Plain Language Is Good Business

(This is a repost of my guest blog for New Zealand’s WriteMark plain language adovcates) I worked on U.S. Government websites for 10 years; and I learned there’s one principle that trumps all others: if you don’t communicate effectively, you can’t serve effectively. If customers come to your website and cannot understand what you offerRead… Read more »

Groom Your Successors

I’m often asked, “Do you know someone we could hire for our web team?” Of course, they want the full package – someone skilled in plain writing, customer analysis, strategic planning, usability, search engine optimization, design, social media, mobile apps, marketing…oh, and can they code? Do these super beings exist? Yes – they are you!Read… Read more »

“Plain Language” Is More Than Words

Plain language is critical to great customer service. You may think that “plain language” is all about getting the words right. Well, words are a big part of it. But there’s more to it than that. “Plain” means information you can find, understand, and use quickly and easily. So, in addition to choosing the rightRead… Read more »

Transition is An Opportunity – Be Ready

No matter who wins the election in two weeks, change will come. If the President is re-elected, we’ll see some new political appointees coming onboard and certainly new initiatives. If Governor Romney is elected, we’ll see wholesale changes in political personnel and plans; and transition teams will move into agencies quickly. In either case, newRead… Read more »

Trust Your Common Sense

How many times have you sat through a training session or read a study and thought, “Well, duh – I already knew that. It’s just common sense?” How many times have you been assigned to do something that you know is doomed to failure because it just doesn’t make sense…yet no one speaks up. TooRead… Read more »

The Opportunity to Exceed

I’ve been quiet on the Digital Government Strategy because – well, OK, I’ll be honest…while I think there’s a whole lot of good in it, I also have some problems. First, it didn’t look anything like I expected it to look, after all the issues we discussed in the National Dialog on Improving Government Websites.Read… Read more »

Get Out Your Pitchforks and Clean Up That Content

The recently-released federal Digital Government Strategy lays out many promising initiatives that will, no doubt, improve the technology and infrastructure behind online services and, thus, enhance customer experience. Many talented people worked hard to develop this Strategy, and they will continue to work hard on its implementation. But we still don’t have a clear planRead… Read more »