Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Are You An Enabler?

Given the number of times I see the word “enable” in company product descriptions and press releases, there’s a lot of enabling behavior out there.

I find this word rather awkward, and while I admit I’ve used it from time to time, I try to find a way around it.

“Enable” seems to crop up when the writer wants to communicate the idea of help, support, empowerment, etc. But “enabling” someone to do something is too passive to create a really strong message. The implication is that the company or product is somehow giving you permission to do something.

Here are some examples I’ve found on the web and my suggested revision (in red) to both eliminate this cumbersome word:

Cellfire is a free service that enables savvy shoppers and value-conscious consumers to save money by delivering coupons directly to their mobile phones.

This could be snappier:

Savvy shoppers save money with Cellfire – a free service that delivers coupons directly to mobile phones.

The OpsXML™ technology enables the Enterprise to fully integrate its various network management systems onto one tenable platform, with the flexibility to adapt to changing needs.

How about this instead?

OpXML™ technology fully integrates network management systems onto one tenable platform, with extended flexibility to adapt to changing needs.

Parallelized data access using unused cycles in the computing grid enable customers to increase usage of existing computing bandwidth, while reducing the time taken to retrieve critical information for real-time business process applications.

Another approach (although I’d try to find more vivid words to replace “maximizing” and “reducing”):

Parallelized data access takes advantage of unused computing grid cycles to boost performance of real-time business process applications by maximizing bandwidth and reducing information retrieval time.

NetApp FlexVol technology enables true storage virtualization to lower overhead and capital expenses, reduce disruption and risk, and provide the flexibility to adapt quickly and easily to the dynamic needs of your organization.

My suggestion:

NetApp FlexVol technology delivers true storage virtualization to cut overhead and capital expenses, reduce disruption, and mitigate risk – with complete flexibility to quickly adapt to dynamic needs.

My ideas may not all be on target. After all, I don’t have access to the original messaging strategies. But I think you’ll agree that these revisions add a bit of life to the copy without sacrificing any of the main ideas.

What’s more, I whittled these passages down from a total of 115 words to only 88 words – a 24 percent reduction. After all, I like to do my best to enable readers to save time.

Posted by Richard Bloch

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