Steve Jobs was interested in graphic design and calligraphy and he took that interest into the early versions of the Macintosh operating system. As a result we have computers with hundreds of pre-loaded fonts and we can all be (untrained) graphic designers. If he had not had that interest maybe
Here is a tip to help you write a presentation. Every time you speak, you need to have something to say. I understand that when you are asked to talk about your specialist subject it is not difficult to find things to say so you might feel able to improvise
Over the holidays I came across an article by Jane Rosenzweig in the Harvard Business Review that happens to have been translated by HBR into this short video. {{< youtube prUqCd2R3Zw >}} If you like this video why not follow Jane Rosenzweig’s [Writing Hacks on Substack](https://writinghacks.substack.
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Here is a tip to help you write one. Every time you speak, you need to have something to say. I understand that when you are asked to talk about your specialist subject it is not difficult to find things to say so you might feel able to improvise on
tips
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. You’ve read many times the advice to keep your writing clear and concise. You get concise sentences when you take out the words you don’t need. But how
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As part of the promotion of the upcoming third edition of Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector, I wrote a list of five books about how governments collect and spend your taxes. Check it out at https://shepherd.com/best-books/how-governments-collect-and-spend-your-taxes
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Sixty-five characters. Two and a half alphabets. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklm Good typography helps a reader to understand the writer’s message and one of the principles of typography relates to line length. A line length of about 65 characters is optimal for reading. Lines that are much longer than this are harder
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As far as financial writing is concerned I suppose what I mean is that first you need to understand what outcome the document should produce. Is it a decision? For information? To persuade someone? To sell something? To be accountable? If you want a decision from the reader — your boss,
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Getting the start and finish of your documents right. They are more likely to be remembered than the long bit in the middle. The introduction and summary contain the key messages of the entire document and the reader’s expectations are set by them. Let’s face it, this might
There are countless podcasts, articles and blogs about productivity. I’m a listener/reader of some and I don’t think I have ever come across one specifically made or written with accountants in mind. Allow me to step into that gap with (my first) three productivity tips for accountants.
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Mark Twain said “Writing is easy. You just cross out the wrong words.” Ernest Hemingway said, “The first draft of anything is shit.” Whilst we may not be the equal of these great storytellers we can learn from them and every other author. Once you have written your first draft
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Last week I wrote that perfection comes from including only the essential. Let me explain one way to apply that thinking to an audit report or similar (as taught to me when I worked at a Big Four firm). Let’s say that the work being reported has identified 10