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I sit in a square room with 5 other content writers. Would it be fair to call it a writer’s block? Ooooh. Ouch. Bad pun. That one kind of hurt. But, writing like that does have the particular advantage of elucidating an ancient question that, gone unanswered, has plagued writers since the invention of the alphabet.

What does a writer do when their writing just plain sucks?

Most writers have experienced moments when they realize their attempts at witticism have not only missed the mark, but have sailed straight into the heart of Dullsville, U.S.A. But, what can you do when you don’t have time to wait for the writing gods to point you in the right direction?

Here are a few tips for writers tangling with, dare I say it, writers block:

Start with the easy parts. If you start with the parts of your project that come most easily, the rest of your piece might just follow naturally. So, don’t be afraid of starting in the middle or at the end – you may just be stuck under the pressure of writing the perfect lead.

Freewrite. Start writing anything – even if it’s miles of copy away from your goal, you may find that simply getting into the flow will help you get writing in the right direction. (That’s what I did with my pun of dullness.)

Crappy first drafts. Anne Lamott’s book on writing Bird by Bird popularized the method of writing crappy first drafts. If you start writing with the understanding that your first draft is going to be a sloppy mess, it gives you the freedom to get it down on paper and return to it later for a beautifying editing process.

Outline it. If you know the main components of what you’re trying to communicate, start with those. Then continue to sequentially add more specific details. Eventually, you’ll have a healthy outline to draw on during the development of your final piece.

Write it as a letter. Pretend you’re writing a letter to an old friend or family member explaining what you intend to write about. This will take the pressure off and help you get the words down in a conversational style that you can revisit later.

Every writer probably has tricks like these up their sleeves. Care to share your tips for the trade?

You won’t find this phrase in any sort of a dictionary. Not Webster’s, not Scrabble, not Urban. But at PlattForm, it’s full of meaning.

Usually, when someone hears the phrase “Search4 Administrator” it evokes a response falling somewhere between a “huh?” and an unenthusiastic head scratch. Sure, it’s communicated in what appears to be the English language. And all of the parts seem to denote meaning, but what about the sum?

Let’s break it down. “Search4” refers to several of the web sites PlattForm uses to provide helpful information to people searching for schools (or, our clients). So essentially, Search4 helps prospective students find our clients and everyone is happy. Right?

Wrong! Without a team of top-notch Search4 Administrators overseeing everything, both clients and potential students would be dismally dissatisfied. They’re so important because they keep everything in order so schools and students can find each other. Let’s take a look at our team of Search4 Administrators:

Nina Tiller and Erin Bovee: These two ladies are our Billing Specialists. Nina works closely with Client Services to compile monthly billing, prepares reconciliation reports and sends daily reports out to the masses. Simply put, she crunches numbers and makes sure that clients are billed correctly.

And whenever PlattForm thinks we’ve created a student/school match-made-in-heaven on a Search4 site, but a school disagrees, Erin is our go-to girl. She researches causes for invalid leads and finds solutions. In short, she makes sure clients are only charged for quality services.

Aaron Sporn and Michael Vickery: These fellows make up our Search4 Admin team. Anytime something needs to change on to their contact form on a web site, Aaron and Michael take care of business. They set up new clients, handle a slew of updates and do a whole lot of research.

Will Buntin: Will is a one-man Quality Assurance machine. Will double checks each and every change made to a Search4 site. That means he does a ton of research and works closely with Client Services to ensure that the highest standards are met.

Mary Admire: As Director of Search4 Admin, she casts a vision and has the know-how to bring it all together in real life. Several Search4 Administrators refereed to Mary as a tireless advocate for her team.

So, all in all, the Search4 Administration team is comprised of 6 people who are responsible for making sure clients are happy with Search4 web sites. And that means more people are able to change their lives through higher education because they’re able to find their perfect school using our Search4 site as a resource.

It’s a good thing they’re good at what they do.

I recently had the opportunity to take a 4-year-old to a playground. I don’t have any kids of my own, so I hadn’t actually been to a playground for years. Things had changed … drastically.

In my day, if someone fell down playing tag, they had to dig the pieces of gravel out from the palms of their hands. These days, if a kid falls down, they just bounce right back up – the ground is made of this soft, springy material that looks kind of like burnt angel hair pasta up close.

The 4-year-old I was hanging out with was building a sand castle. He was having the time of his life running back and forth between the sandbox and the water fountain to get water for the moat. His castle was getting HUGE … There was just one problem – it was right next to a row of ½ buried tires.

Some older kids who were probably around 6-years-old started playing a rousing game of Hot Lava – that game where you can’t touch the ground because it’s actually burning lava that will melt you upon contact – and suddenly, my 4-year-old’s castle was in a precarious position.

One of the big kids met with lava doom right in the second story of the castle.

Stuff like that happens all the time, right? It did even when I was a kid. What struck me as so odd about this encounter was the big kid’s response. He stopped, pointed at the tires near the sand castle remains and said, “Location, location, location.”

What?!!! I almost let an expletive fly. A mantra usually reserved for adults used with such ease and appropriateness – coming from a child? This 6-year-old might just have a future as a PlattForm media buyer. Who else focuses on placement like that?

At PlattForm, no one knows the importance of ad placement like Media Buyers. They’re responsible for buying air time on television and radio stations, and space in newspapers and publications or inserts, line ads, display ads and advertorials for our clients. So, they have to know what works.

They track every ad, down to the minute it runs. And they know which commercials perform the best, and which time slot gets the best results. So, they can tell you exactly which commercial should be run and the approximate time it should air.

They’re constantly building relationships with the media reps they purchase advertising space from. And, they occasionally have to play hardball with those reps to negotiate better rates for our clients.

In a way, it’s kind of like PlattForm Media Buyers make sure our client’s sandcastles don’t drown in a sea of hot lava. And, everyone who was once a child knows how important that is.

There is probably one thing uniting all the people who work at PlattForm: dedication – to the final product, to our clients, to the individuals who make the decision to improve their lives through higher education. But all this dedication means nothing unless it is communicated to our clients. That’s why the people who make up the Client Services department are so incredibly important – they represent the more than 350 people working here.

They are the face of PlattForm.

No one knows this better than the people who make up the Client Services team – they work with every single department to make sure that everyone is focused on the goals and expectations of the client. And, at PlattForm, that means the Client Services team can handle every aspect of a client’s marketing campaign, including overall campaign strategy, media placement, creative, interactive marketing, remarketing, direct mail and public relations.

Orchestrating and coordinating the marketing plans for clients takes more than knowing the career college sector like the backs of their hands. It takes understanding a client’s plans, knowing what a client’s goals are and being able to meet a client’s needs at every turn.

And when the members of the Client Services department gives their word, they know that hundreds of people have their backs and that they’re just as dedicated to getting results.
 

I’m a fairly recent addition to the PlattForm team. And, to be quite honest, I don’t remember most of my first day here, even though it was less than four months ago. This is probably due to a first-day inner dialogue that consisted mostly of chanting “don’t screw up” over and over again. Even though most of that day remains shrouded in an anxious haze, I remember one observation very clearly — everyone here looks like they’re on a mission.

I was recently on a mission of my own when I discovered that this lingering notion was backed by more than a kernel of truth.

I was walking a hallway lined with offices inhabited by the folks in PlattForm’s Client Services department searching for someone to interview for this blog entry. I thought that maybe I’d chance upon an individual who looked like they weren’t too busy. Maybe I’d find a person who was leisurely eating their lunch and who could spare a few moments to answer the short list of questions I’d put together to help me figure out what made them tick.

Peeking into their offices, I quickly realized the impossibility of my quest. In one office after another, after another I found people on conference calls, doing heavy-duty research or in deep conversation about how they could best help their clients. Don’t these people ever relax?

As it became obvious that they were not about leisurely lunches (in fact, I saw that most people were eating hurried mouthfuls while they worked), I admitted defeat and turned back towards my own office. I was clearly going to have to find another avenue of discovery. I went to the most obvious place to research first, the Internet, and was surprised to find a few lines that summed up the total of what I had just witnessed.

“The Client Services team at PlattForm is not satisfied with happy clients. We are committed to earning our clients’ respect and making each and every one a raving fan.”

These are the last lines describing the Client Services team on PlattForm’s company web site, and honestly, I think that they’re telling the truth.

Before my closer inspection of this department, I might have thought they were lip-service, but after witnessing these people in action, I have come to another fresh realization – the members of the Client Services team are fanatics.

They live their mission.