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orbit words

~ creativity… communication… content

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Category Archives: words

The Twitter Circus

25 Friday May 2012

Posted by orbitwords in communication, copywriting, marketing, social media, words

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blogging, social media, twitter

If you follow me on twitter I wonder what you think of me? Not very much probably, because I expect you are far too concerned with what I think of you. Round and round we go, filling our waking thoughts with fears of ‘unfollows’, ‘ignored @s’ or that we might mistakenly reveal our ‘true personality’ on the internet in a moment of drunken madness for the world to RT and ridicule.

Listen up friends: there is no instagram filter on the bathroom mirror.

(And more fool bathroom mirror makers if you ask me…)

Sometimes I wonder what we used to do with all these thoughts before twitter (and then I tweet that and wait anxiously for a response…).

Sometimes I wonder where we got our feelings of validity, that what we are doing, thinking, eating at this precise moment is OK BY THE REST OF THE WORLD (or at least by the 267 people/ spambots/ hookers in America that follow our accounts).

Sometimes I wonder if any thought really counted before it was painstakingly spelled out in 140 characters.

I know a lot of people IRL (in real life) that I follow on twitter who seem to manage concurrent lives; one is overwhelmingly confident, beautifully filtered and never really that hungover, the other is… well… drunk.

If I am being honest one of those people is a little bit me.

But it just seems to beg the question: why? Why does it seem like we are putting more effort in to our online personas than our ‘real life’ ones. Maybe if we can fool our followers into believing we have a perfect life full of early morning jogs, green tea and fancy cocktails then does it really matter what our own mothers think of us?

Or is it more the fact that we need to fool ourselves?

The world of social media has definitely made it more difficult to hide. If you want to be a part of the online community you have to give something of yourself, blogging, twitter, another Facebook photo album… You’re either in it or you ain’t, and if you are then it seems like you can never give enough. But with the giving comes the judging, the reflection and the justifications, from complete strangers, your best friends and yourself. Who can blame us for creating a digital fantasy version of ourselves? Maybe in the world of online, where words and pictures exist forever, it’s essential.

The internet holds a mirror up to our lives. Sometimes it’s a distorted mirror, like you would find in the circus, but if we look hard enough we can see it is still us standing in front of it. And no matter what you want others to believe about your reflection, just make sure that you, at least, know the truth.

 

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Raise Your Hand if You Know the Answer

02 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by orbitwords in communication, copywriting, report, words

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education, south america

I wrote the piece below after thinking about one of the most powerful and unforgettable experiences in my life.

One day I will go back.

In 1989 UNICEF reported an estimate of 100 million children growing up on urban streets around the world. 14 years later the true amount was unquantifiable: “the figure almost certainly runs into tens of millions” (UNICEF, 2003). A study in Lima, Peru found 3% of children living on the streets are under 6 years old and 97% of street children use drugs (Consortium for Street Children, 2010).

It is hardly surprising that schooling is not high on their list of priorities. Yet NGOs working in South America know that education can be a way out of the street lifestyle, for every child, one child at a time.

Brue Peru is an NGO that goes into the poorest communities where the highest concentrations of out of school children can be found. Volunteers from around the world enter some of the most dangerous shanty towns to recruit the most in need, and not just the children. Women are encouraged to become teachers and social workers in self- built schools constructed out of corrugated iron or in borrowed spaces. Children get access to teaching, their childhood and a future; the community gets hope.

Organisations like Bruce Peru don’t have time to make excuses for parents who have let them down and don’t believe that the best place for a child is automatically with their family. There are too many years of bitter experience behind them for that. They define their mission as intervening to provide the child who has been ‘let down’ with basic rights. But when it is right, when a mother is not so impoverished that they would sell their child into slavery again, or too intoxicated to realise they are there, Bruce Peru will move heaven and earth for them as well. Essentially though, it is about basic rights for children, in practice it is about education.

Child labourers become students.

But, perhaps more critically, in the shanty towns of South America, children are rescued from a path of self and community destruction before it is too late.

Children are seen as dispensible, an asset and an easy target for drug barons and criminals in the favelas. Economic disparity and rampant racial inequality exacerbate an overwhelmingly negative attitude towards children in poverty across the whole of South America. Seen as vermin, criminals and pests, children born into a street lifestyle have few options to get out. With a distinct lack of role models or awareness about alternative futures in the ‘outside world’ it is easy for children as young as five or six to play a vital role in the drug running and territorial gang warfare that inevitably leads to death or imprisonment.

NGOs working in these environments are far from welcomed with open arms. Even mothers, who would rather every member of their family was working, no matter how young, will hide their children from well meaning volunteers and social workers. Their fear of where education will take them, away from the shanty town and the money making toolkit of the family, demonstrates the power of learning. It’s intimidating, it’s unknown and it goes against the grain.

That’s why it should be embraced as one of the most powerful steps towards a solution for social development.

It can easily be proven that legislation is not enough to halt or even slow down the dramatic rise in recent years of children living in poverty in Peru. Socio-econonmic inequality and discrimination means that poverty reduction strategies put in place by the government don’t affect children’s rights nor do they adequately protect children from the day to day pressures that they face from an inherited life on the streets. Since 2005 Peru has been identified as a middle-income country based on per capita, yet women and children in particular play little to no role in this statistic.

Education is key because it combats this inheritance for children, but is only effective when combined with education for the families.

Education means intervention, collaboration and integration but it should be executed properly, safely and in the interests of the child. Families, and again the focus must be on the mothers, need to be assured of a safe, secure and stable income and this means educating communities from the inside out.

Bruce Peru, with whom I worked in 2005, practice this cohesive process of change by investing in working on the mindset of a community. Without this wider backing the shanty schools would stand empty, and the children would be washing cars, transporting drugs or begging. That’s the brutal truth.

Without community education, mothers are forced to ask (usually their eldest) child to leave the home as they can’t afford to keep them. Either that or the child are under intense pressure from an early age to sustain the family. Drugs and crime; how else would you solve that problem? Education for the child shows another way, through learning essential life skills, languages and mathematics to raising self esteem, re-introducing the concept of play, and positively structuring a chid’s time.

The children I met in Peru, who were lucky enough to be brought into the classroom by Bruce Peru, loved their education. They held their books proudly, they kissed their teachers gratefully and they raised their hands excitedly. Even the very youngest knew what the process of sitting in that classroom meant for them, it was innate in their being, to want to learn, improve, be different, to be a child that was growing into an adult with a future. It was overwhelmingly exciting to witness. It was the power of education.

It is those classrooms made out of corrugated iron and in borrowed spaces, those children who understand the blessing of learning and who believe in a different future for their communities, that is what makes education the answer. I have seen it with my own eyes and won’t ever forget it.

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The Rule of Three

28 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by orbitwords in communication, copywriting, marketing, words

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birthday, structure, thirty, writing

Yesterday I turned 30. Not one to be scared of a little thing like a number, I am embracing the new 3 in my life. I like 3: the 3 little pigs, the 3 musketeers, we 3 kings… it’s nice, it’s balanced.

I think it is a good time for me to explore the balance in my life too.  Family, work and friends; a tripod is a pretty sturdy structure and if you have strength in these three it won’t fall down.

Three. It’s a powerful number. When it comes to communication we use it a lot. Presentations, websites, emails, design… our brains like to process things in threes. Three is enough to build tension and release it, with three you can construct the joke and hit them with the punch line; three is more exciting, it’s funnier, it has more impact. Communicating in threes allows you to express a concept, emphasise it and make it memorable.

The latin phrase “omne trium perfectum” (everything is perfect in threes) applies a lot in writing. Advertising slogans regularly employ it: “A Mars a day helps you work rest and play”… “Stop, Look and Listen”… “Education, Education, Education”… The Rule of Three goes back to the writing of Aristotle, it’s the oldest trick in the book.

When you are putting together any piece of work it needs a three in its structure; a beginning, middle and end. For speeches and presentations it’s about telling them what you are going to say, saying it, then telling them what you said. And if your audience will only be taking away three messages from your words, make sure it’s the right three: plan them out, link them up, make them clear.

I’m looking forward to the next ten years with my new 3. I am spending a bit of time doing the ‘birthday thing’ and reflecting, looking at my tripod and feeling pretty lucky. Keeping those three pillars sturdy is my priority, but I know that for as long as they are I’ve got a strong foundation to keep on building.

And that’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

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Anything is Possible

11 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by orbitwords in communication, copywriting, marketing, social media, words

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business, busy, manchester, orbit, partnership, writing

It is pretty amazing what Orbit Words is morphing into after five short weeks. Sometimes it seems like it has a life of its own and all I can do is hang on and enjoy the ride.

The digital and design side of the business is really taking off as, although people need words, they need somewhere to put them too. They want them to look nice as well as sound good, and they want to make sure they are being read.

Fortunately we have some fantastic friends at Diagram Design in Warrington (click here for their website) who I have heard say “anything is possible” about fifty times since we started working together. When you sit down with one of their team at a computer you realise that’s more than just a mantra (as long as you have a packet of midget gems handy…)

So we have been busy working with business start ups, helping them with their websites, social media and marketing strategies; individuals who want creative, digital wedding invitations to wow their guests; putting together a website design and framework for a group of collaborative lawyers (learning way too much about divorce law in the process) and obsessively proofing, proofing and proofing any and every document sent our way.

As well as that we have been out and about, working in partnership with a number of charities, offering our support with funding applications and PR launches, getting our words to work for the people who are really making things happen.

There’s more too, some exciting projects emerging with Cahoona, one of the hardest working digital agencies in Manchester (more about that another time…) and a huge national initiative by Rathbone UK and Odd Theatre.

I’ve learnt that it’s not just about the words, it’s about the passion, the ideas and the “anything is possible” attitude of people I have met so far. And if that really is true, who knows where it will all lead…

Hold on tight.

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Aside

Wise Words

03 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by orbitwords in copywriting, words

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creative

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Aside

26 Miles To Go…

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business, determination, future, marathon, running, work

Starting a new business is a bit like running a marathon.
I think.
To be honest I don’t know for sure as I haven’t yet managed 26.2 miles, but I am hoping I will complete the famous course in London this April.

Training has been tough so far, I‘m not going to lie. Getting motivated to start when the finishing line seems so very, very far away; it’s cold, it’s dark and couldn’t we just have a nice glass of wine and talk about it instead…?
Then once you get out there you have to keep going.
If you get a stitch, if your feet hurt, if it starts pouring with rain, one trainer must pound in front of the other.
And it will.
Because all you can really think about is the last mile, the mile when you know it has all been worth it. You might be half the person you were: limping, crying, perhaps being carried by some super human 90 year old who puts you to shame, but what’s important is that you set yourself a goal and you achieved it.
It is the goal that keeps you going.

I have been far less physically challenged by setting up Orbit Words than my marathon training. I haven’t had to ice my fingers after too much typing and I haven’t sat at the computer crying my eyes out because IT HURTS (yet…) but I have had to keep believing in the goal. I have had to quiet the disbelieving voices in my head and be 100% sure about reaching the finishing line.

I want to provide the best words in the North West (is it too soon to say The World?)
I want to build a reputation as a reliable, flexible, creative and bespoke service provider.
I want to have the opportunity to make my words come to life.

When I suffered a knee injury earlier this month it did affect my training but mostly it affected my confidence. It is hard to believe in yourself when it’s your own body saying it can’t be done. But I have had to keep the same commitment to training as I have to Orbit Words. The moments when you don’t believe are nothing compared to the moments of excitement, energy and passion when you do.

And so I will keep on running and I will keep on writing. In April we will know if I can run 26.2 miles, measuring the success of Orbit Words will take a lot longer, but I know that I will keep on chasing that feeling of crossing the line.
Thanks to everyone who has cheered me on so far.

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Orbit Blog

  • The Twitter Circus
  • Raise Your Hand if You Know the Answer
  • The Rule of Three
  • Anything is Possible
  • Wise Words

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