Alas, smithing groans

 

Oi, Ernest - I've written something, can you just work your magic on it? 

There’s a word used used at my work I really can’t be doing with. Well, if I’m honest, there’s lots of words people use in my business that mess with my swede, most of them multi-syllable nonsense.
But the one I want to talk about today is “wordsmithing”. In my 28 year career as a journalist and internal communications dude, I’d honestly never heard of it before I came to my present place of work.
I understand that people aren’t using this word in a derogatory way. What they are saying when they ask me or one of my colleagues to “wordsmith” something is that they would like us to use our recognised skills to make their scribblings better. No offence meant.
But what I hear is that my actual skills are being ignored. Believe it or not, your communications team weren’t put in place to tidy up the messages you’ve already decided to put out. We are NOT the last tick in the box to “get a comm out”.
We should be the FIRST port of call, because we have the skills, the knowledge and the connections to take your germ of an idea and make it the best it can possibly be. Which may not be what you actually think you want, but we can ensure that your message gets read by the right people at the right time.
That means planning, and deciding what happens when. It means talking through the messages you want to send out and understanding who the audience is.
So by waving your already written comm in our general direction for us to “work our magic on it”, you are assuming an awful lot. You’re assuming you know what other comms are due to go out and when, and what priority they have. What’s more, you’re pretty much assuming your message is the most important. You’re thinking that you’ve got it nailed, and all it needs is a bit of basic admin and some fancy words to make it zing. You’re assuming you can do the job of a person who has been to college, learned their trade at the sharp end and had many years of perfecting what they do, learning what works when and how. You know, kind of like how you learned your trade. How would you like it if someone came to you and told you how to do your job?
I love my job... and part of that love comes from making the written word sing. I like nothing better than inserting a clever pun, or turning around a story so it becomes a turn-on to new ideas rather than a turn off. That does mean that sometimes "wordsmithing" is required. But I'd rather share that love of what I do with you before we even start, so I can make your content the best it can possibly be.