Bits & Bytes from HodgesWrites
Writing for Your Business is Our Business
February 2006

Using the Media to Your Advantage
Editors need copy; your organization can supply it
How often does your firm create and send news releases? Are you quick to inform local newspapers, radio and TV stations, and relevant trade publications of your accomplishments? Whether you're introducing a product upgrade, announcing a hiring or promotion, or noting that one of your people spoke recently at a public event, your firm is making news -- and editors want to know about it.

Editors want to know because they have a "news hole" to fill, and they depend on business events to help fill it. Key to your success, though, is learning which editors are the most appropriate recipients of your news. I might want to send a news release to The Washington Post, but unless I visit the Post's web site or call the Post's
Washington Business phone number, I won't know to whom I should send it.

If you're not willing to take a few minutes to learn the appropriate editor at each publication you target, you may as well dispense with your news release. Why? Because in most cases, you'll be wasting your time. Only the smallest -- or best organized -- media sources will make an effort to see that your news item finds its way to the right editor. But if you make the effort yourself, chances that your news will be published or aired increase astronomically.

To learn more about using the media to your advantage, read William Parkhurst's How To Get Publicity (and make the most of it once you've got it), published by Harper Business.

* Order this book from Amazon

Grammar Gooofs
Mistakes We've Heard and Read

Overheard in a sales office: "Jeanine and I are old friends. Her and I her go shopping together all the time." To some folks, the second sentence sounds perfectly correct. And if it does, that's may be because these otherwise intelligent people heard others make this mistake in their conversation back when they were growing up. But as we've noted in previous newsletters, the pronouns "him" and "her" are object pronouns, not subject pronouns. And when the person referred to is the subject, as is Jeanine in the conversation above, the correct pronoun is "she." Thus, correct grammar is, "She and I go shopping together all the time."

Heard in a phone conversation: "That would wreck havoc on our schedule." In this case, the speaker is confusing the verb wreak with the verb wreck. To wreak means to inflict, or give vent to, as in "The storm will wreak havoc on our evening rush hour." To wreck? You know what that means...

* Check The Grammar Book

Another Path in Alternative Energy
News we've heard and want to share

While other research efforts focus on developing or refining fuel from soybeans, corn and other materials, Eric Cottell has invented a technology and apparatus that make fossil fuel "go further." Cottell has developed what he calls "Emulsion to Combustion," or E2C, technology that injects water into fuel oil. When installed in factories, institutions and almost any facility in which heat plays a major role in the conversion of raw materials to useable products, the E2C apparatus can reduce fossil fuel burning by from 5 to 15 percent or more, depending on the application and combustion system (boiler or engine).

"While the percentage reduction may seem small, the reductions in fuel burned and in other noxious emissions can be dramatic," says Charles "Chips" Lickson, Cotefco president and CEO. Advantages to the E2C solution also include a cleaner burn. During combustion, the internal water droplets vaporize, causing micro explosions of the fuel, leading to a much finer atomization and thorough mixing of air and fuel. This allows complete combustion using much less air and a dramatic reduction in carbon buildup.

Cotefco recently completed the installation of an E2C unit at Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock, Va., where the company will field-test and evaluate the unit over a 5-year period. Cotefco is also currently engaged in discussions with a number of potential customers, distributors and fabricators.

* Visit the Cotefco Web Site

"Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph."
--Mark Twain