Business writing

• Business writing: a sampler of my commercial writing & fiction (PDF, 88-pages)
• Tips to help you achieve a Better Business Writing Style

Business writing & copywriting:

Business writing for IBM Canada and IBM Corporation:  IBM distributed “IBM Visions, the magazine of high performance computing.” This 24-page magazine ran from 1992 to 1997. Robert Fripp created the concept, managed production, edited and wrote the magazine.

 Thermospot® (pro bono)

• Thermospot ~ Introducing Thermospot
• Thermospot ~ Medical journals report (PDF 3-pages)
• Thermospot ~ ‘It’s Hard to do Good’ gives background & challenges (PDF 9-pp.)
• Thermospot ~ Appropedia.org gives more information
• Thermospot ~ BBC News item (2005)
• Thermospot ~ An innovative neonatal medical kit for Pakistan
• Thermospot ~ Maternova, Agent: source of products for mothers & newborns
• Thermospot ~ Maternova: product supplies from

Business writing. (Papers are shown with clients’ permission)

Bettering communities through innovation This feature ran in the supplement distributed by Research Infosource in the National Post and the Ottawa Citizen in November 2008. It starts: “Innovation is gaining a sharp sense of urgency as an economic, social and environmental imperative for Canada. Before it can thrive, innovation that leads to economic development needs support from four key sectors: a region’s business community; a municipality or regional authority acting through its economic development office; its post-secondary education community.”

Restoring Our Economy: Great Expectations for R&D This editorial for Research Infosource calls for review and revision of research and development funding policies in Canada. Supplement in the National Post and the ‘Ottawa Citizen.’ November, 2009).

Future of Healthcare: 2012 Information technology will play four key roles in providing healthcare in a U.S. context: in administration, in diagnosis, in tracking and ongoing care, and in prescription. IBM’s Healthcare Industry asked Robert to interview the 13 members of its specialist panel on evolving eHealth technologies and then write first drafts for a white paper.

Colleges: Open to Business This feature ran in the supplement distributed by Research Infosource in the National Post and the Ottawa Citizen in November 2012. It starts: “Administrators at Canadian colleges and polytechnics are sounding happier – even if their happiness is marred by the fact that they can’t move forward faster…”

The Teraplex Experience: Pushing the limits of Business Intelligence Discusses scaling up test systems by loading them until they deliberately break, fixing them and scaling up again. The story starts… “The present experimental stage of exploiting information technology (IT) in pursuit of business intelligence (BI) recalls an earlier age of commercial exploration. Magellan, Hudson and Columbus set out…”

Insurance: the integration imperative for Best Review (an insurance industry journal). The story starts… “It is tough to tell a circular story in a straight line. But we confront that situation when dealing with change in the insurance industry today. The major components are…”

Science, Deep Computing and the RS/6000 Commissioned for a fall launch. The story starts… “I want to use this paper to map out what scientists, researchers and engineers can expect from IBM in the next few years. The news is good and getting better. Briefly, IBM is rapidly overtaking…”

Caring for Health Care: data mining improves care and cuts costs Commissioned for Health Management Technology The story starts… “Florida Hospital, the largest private, not-for-profit hospital in Florida, wanted to institute new patient care procedures, but needed…

Feature articles published in technical trade journals:

• “Importance of Automated Summary Tables in Large Data Warehouses.” Commissioned for publication in IEEE Spectrum magazine. A launch brochure for a high-end laptop graphics chip, targeting end-users.
• “Data Warehouse versus Data Mart” Discusses the relative merits, depending on user requirements. Published in two parts in the e-business trade journal DS*.
• “The Role of TPC-D* Benchmark Results in Selecting a Server.” Commissioned for the monthly subscription e-business journal DS*. “Putting sales information where it needs to be.” For the first edition of Front Office magazine.
• “Business Intelligence Gives Complete View of Customers” Commissioned for publication in Data Management News.
• “Strategic Directions: education in data warehouse management.” Commissioned for publication in Data Warehouse Management.
• “Migrating From VSE to OS/390: The Mass Conversion Approach.” Commissioned for NaSPA Technical Support.
• “The Need for Privacy Policies in e-Business” An op-ed piece, commissioned after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act opened up the banking and finance environment in the U.S.
• “Channel leadership drives bid to become Number One in UNIX.” Commissioned for a launch campaign.
• “Standardizing UNIX.” Making [UNIX] an ultra-fast, versatile tool in the computing market for e-business.
• “E-Business Growth Steers IT Purchase Decisions.” Discusses why U.S. community banks are reverting to mainframe computers.
• “Running your data warehouse on System 390” (Parts 1 & 2) Columns in the e-trade journal DS*.
• “Billing systems: converging, not converged.” A “think-piece” on possible developments in e-billing systems.
• “First things first: the methodology of planning a data warehouse.” Commissioned as a guide for prospective clients.
• “IT’s poor cousin takes center stage: key roles for storage in healthcare.” Published in ADVANCE for Healthcare Professionals.
• “Storage Area Networks: Come-from-behind solutions bound for beyond.” Published in Storage Management Solutions magazine.
• “Exploiting Web Space Thoroughly: BI database marketing probes deep.” For Direct Marketing magazine.
• “E-business opportunities obscured in a sea of change” Published in Best Review (Insurance).
• “Two Million Songs for Digital Radio: IBM’s Storage Solution” A 22 terabyte storage solution enables the launch of a 100-channel subscription digital subscription radio service across the U.S. Byline, Robert. Published in Storage Management Solutions. Vol. 5, Issue 6
• “Land of Lincoln Linking Distance Learning Nets” Written in the style of small-town papers. The Illinois Board of Higher Education had decided to deliver distance learning to every campus in the state.

Case studies, a staple in business writing :

• From a client’s point of view a case study (success story) is the most versatile tool in his or her marketing portfolio. Typically it will show the client’s product or service fixing a customer’s problem. A well-crafted case study is a win-win business tale with two happy endings: buyer and seller. A good writer can angle a case study many ways. Remember, a case study is not advertising. It is news, your news. Positioning case studies: A single case study can be put to many uses.
• Case studies: A page of case study titles.

Photo: Google Data centre: by A4Games via CC BY NC4.0