Worcester Business Journal

22 Worcester Business Journal | November 21, 2016 | wbjournal.com 10 T H I NG S I know about... Running a successful ballot initiative By Jim Borghesani Jim Borghesani is the communications director for the Yes on 4 campaign, which successfully pushed for legalization of recreational marijuana in Massachusetts. Contact him at jim@regulatemass.com. 10. Test your message. Focus groups will help you determine if the starting message is the strongest message. Effective messaging involves creativity and science. 9. Buy advertising time as early as possible. Booking TV and other media time early gives you the best value for your dollar, as time gets more expense later in the cycle. 8. Line up effective surrogates. Think about your audience, and bring in surrogates who reach them. If your key voter base is young suburban mothers, make sure you have young suburban mothers as surrogates. 7. Localize your surrogates. Newspapers and radio stations like to have local residents speaking for or against an issue. Try to line up a surrogate for every media market. 6. Build a three-week closing plan. The public and the media home in on campaigns in the three weeks before Election Day. Have your story lines and best pitches ready. 5. Don't underestimate the difficulty of collecting signatures. Ballot initiatives only move forward if they get enough signatures. Hire a firm or make sure your volunteers are trained and coordinated. 4. Create a coalition. Find as many organizations, groups and notable individuals as possible who are willing to lend their name and efforts to your initiative. 3. Utilize social media and keep content fresh. Facebook and Twitter are excellent message-delivery platforms. Apps like Hustle and Snapchat can help turnout, especially among younger voters. 2. Pitch letters to the editor and opinion pieces. Encourage volunteers to submit these to their local papers. Having a template of desired messages helps. 1. Don't get tripped up by technicalities. Initiatives are scrutinized by the attorney general's office. Make sure to stay within constitutional bounds and don't go beyond the scope of your primary goal. K N O W H O W Running to maintain a work-life balance F ull disclosure, I'm writing this while on vacation. Given the title that you've just read, you may be wonder- ing how I could possibly be qualified to talk about the importance of main- taining a healthy work- life balance. While I may not appear to be setting the best example here, I promise you that I am practicing what I preach. Let me explain Since I launched Running Start Coworking, I've spent the majority of my wak- ing hours focused on building the business. It's my passion, and I truly enjoy creating work environments for collab- orators, innovators and talented people of all types. Like many, that passion for my work drives me, unfortunately it also has the ability to run me into the ground physically and mentally. That all-encompassing fatigue is not uncom- mon, but it can be detrimental to your health, career, and personal life. On a day-to-day level, I try to main- tain a few simple practices to fend off exhaustion. Number 1 – I exercise whenever possi- ble. While I was in grad school, I dis- covered the Ironman Triathlon. It didn't take long for me to crave the physical and mental fitness that came along with endurance sport. The Ironman is a 2.4-mile swim, a 112- mile bike, and a 26.2-mile run. Given the distance of these races, training takes up a lot of time. However, I've managed to incorpo- rate it into my days, riding and/or running to and from work whenever I can. The fresh air and alone time are great for the mind and body. Number 2 – I try my hardest to get eight hours of sleep every night. I may not always succeed but I put in a seri- ous effort to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Number 3 – I keep phones, tablets, laptops and TVs out of my bedroom. While it can be very hard to discon- nect from these devices, whether they are for work or personal use, remov- ing them from your sleeping area goes a long way. Not only can the audible alerts of calls, emails and other notifications disrupt your sleep, the light emitted by the screen can prevent your body from realizing it's time to sleep. This is a tough habit to break, but I've man- aged to do so by replacing my phone with a book. On the macro level, I haven't had the best track record of main- taining a healthy bal- ance. Over the last few months particularly, I noticed that the usual day-to-day approach- es weren't having the same effect. Even though I knew that some time off was what I need- ed, I tried for a while to convince myself otherwise. Afterall, building a business takes time and focus, so how could I justify just walking away? Inevitably, I real- ized that the only way to continue being productive and enjoy- ing my work was to take a vacation. We all need time away from our normal routine in order to refresh and live life. However, a relaxing vacation doesn't have to be traveling to a far- away destination. It means doing something outside of the ordinary, something you enjoy, or something new to you. Not only are you enjoying an expe- rience that you value, but your mind is able to declutter itself. I make a living writing and editing for companies that see inherent value in presenting their brand in a clear, concise, creative and elegant way. The value of good writing – writing that is free of jargon (think "thought leader," "gaining traction," "onboarding" or "value add"), grammatically correct, and plainly understandable is imperative. In fact, Inc.com cites a May report showing that $3.1 billion is spent by U.S. companies each year on remedial writing training. Good writing is also a task easily outsourced. Here are three thoughts on why good writing is important for your company: Vague emails work against you, diluting leadership. "Do this right, and you'll get a reputation for truth," writes Josh Bernoff at HBJ.org on writing, especially in emails to employees. "Clear leadership, expressed in writing, creates alignment and boosts productivity." Certainly your email should include a greeting, but Bernoff advises managers to lose the filler in emails to busy employees, giving a clear subject line and main message. You can develop a collaborative internal editing process. One person can write a draft, another team member can check it for grammatical or spelling errors, and a third can check it for flow and readability. "You cannot proofread too many times – particularly with online writing, where errors are common," said Cathy Miller at SimplyStatedBusiness.com. This could also be a new way of having colleagues from different departments working together in a way they otherwise would not. Look for places where bad writing costs you money or time. Some areas to investigate are badly written forms that don't produce adequate answers; confusing reports; or uninteresting press releases that are ignored by the media, states Impact-Information.com. Ineffective memos are another weak link, as are unintelligible product manuals that could send unhappy customers back to the store – receipt in hand – to make a return. BY RYAN LEARY Special to the Worcester Business Journal BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal 10 1: E l i m i n a t e b a d w r i t i n g W W W Ryan Leary is the co-founder of Running Start Coworking in Worcester. P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y

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