Was at a city farm at the weekend, enquiring about sponsoring an animal as a present for someone. This is an organisation that runs on donations, but because they were currently fully subscribed the person on the desk couldn't even be bothered to get off her chair and talk to me at the counter. I think I was interrupting her important work on her computer.

Me? I would have taken down a few details of this potential donor and either said I 'd get in touch if an animal needed sponsoring or solicited a donation. But hey, I'm just a copywriter, not a farmer!

If you want to, as the Reader's Digest says, "Increase your wordpower", try this daily e-zine: A Word a Day. You also get a longer newsletter with subscribers' reactions.

One of my favourite quotes, "Nobody ever lay on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at work."

Conversations with a client. No. 1 in an occasional series.

Andy: So do training courses work? I run lots and the more I run the less I'm sure. I think you can raise awareness of skill gaps but the only way to secure long-term behaviour change is through coaching.

Miss B: If they don't, why do so many people in business continue to run them?

A: Maybe it's because there's not enough time to do the right thing, so people fall back on doing the quick thing. I think writing is a craft skill, like joinery. Are we seriously saying we can teach someone to be a great joiner (actually, this is a great metaphor - joining words/wood to make lovely sentences/furniture) in six hours? You might get them to recognise the difference between a dovetail and a lap joint, but not much more than that.

What's missing from the equation is practice and thought.

I'm a partner in a writing training business called Write for Results. Together with Scott Keyser, I've developed a set of principles that define good business writing. Chief among these is the need for plain English. What do we mean by plain English?



Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs help. So does a preference for Anglo Saxon over Latin and Greek. Saying what you mean without recourse to metaphor, simile, euphemism and other figures of speech is important, too.

The answer to last Friday's puzzle: children, brethren and oxen.

Are you interested in igniting growth in your business? (Maybe not if you run a fireworks factory.) Check out my friend Charles Kingsmill's site for his strategy consulting business. Charles is from Mars (OK, not the red planet, the sweetie company: he worked there in seriously heavy-duty European strategy roles) and knows more about how to develop high growth business than anyone else I know.

How bad are Romeike, publishers of the PR Planner media directory? Let's put it this way - I am posting this while listening to their sales department's phone ring. I paid the best part of a thousand pounds for this product (on behalf of a client) and they aren't answering the phone.

Do they want my business? I have to wonder.

I write a monthly newsletter about copywriting and marketing communications. In July, I wrote an issue on how to write a press ad. It had my highest ever readership and clickthroughs to my website. You can find it here.

Heard a great new word today, from Faye Doherty at Emap.

'Dotless.'

It's how you tell someone your name in your email address isn't 'Andy dot Maslen'. You say, 'It's dotless'. Cool, huh?

I have just spent two hours with my essential IT man - Rob Stokes of Rascom IT - fixing ftp and other networking problems. The cause? Norton Anti-virus 2005. 'Helpfully' they supply a firewall, which 'helpfully' blocked half our network functions. Don't buy it! If you're on Norton 2003 and get asked to upgrade, my advice is don't.

Quick puzzle for you. Can you think of three plurals in English formed by adding '-en' (but NOT men or women)?

Thought I should add my ugly mug to the blog so there's a bit of that 'engagement' I kicked off with.

You can also find out more about me on my copywriting website.

I publish a free monthly e-zine on copywriting and communications. It's called Maslen on Marketing and you can subscribe here. (It's free and you get a free book on effective writing when you sign up.)

Why is it that you can sleep through other people's babies crying, but not your own? What makes you prick up your ears at a busy party when someone says your name? Apparently it's something to do with the part of your brain called the RAS. A kind of filter between your conscious and unconscious minds. More? See www.sentis.com.au.

This is my opening post.

Why The Anti-blah League? Because a lot of the so-called communications we get sent by companies large and small are just rubbish: blah blah blah. That's just not good enough.

As a corporate/marketing copywriter, as well as a writer of short fiction and poetry, I think language is too important to be left to the uncaring, the idiotic and the incompetent.

Let's start with a core belief that shapes all my writing: you have to engage your reader. Only then can you start communicating with them. And that means paying attention to the emotional impact of your words as well as the intellectual content.

You also need to be able to handle the tools at your disposal. You wouldn't commission a handmade writing desk from someone who used a kitchen knife to make dovetail joints.

Le's start a debate, a movement, a league against poor communication in all its forms and, more importantly, FOR good communicaiton wherever it occurs.