Voice Mail Archives

Past editions of Voice Mail, Beth Dunn's newsletter on writing and voice.

The Five Senses of UX

The Five Senses of UX

I was talking the other day with some friends on the HubSpot UX team about how much we try to find new ways to listen to our users and then act on what we hear, and it got me thinking about how many more of our senses we rely on in our pursuit of good UX design at HubSpot.

Old Ladies in Big Houses

Old Ladies in Big Houses

It’s one of my favorite complaints to say that the village I grew up in on Cape Cod was utterly bereft of kids of my age. And it’s true, more or less. For most of my youth, there were maybe two or three kids who lived within a mile or so of my house who were roughly my age. Of course we all understand that the degree of forgiveness for what counts as “my age” when you’re young is very, very small. You’d have to be no more than one or two grades above or below me to qualify. Hey, I don’t make the rules.

See You At INBOUND

See You At INBOUND

I'll be speaking at INBOUND about how to refine your content strategy and strengthen your brand voice, based on what I learned in my glamorous past life as a romance novel editor. True story.

Meetings That Work For All

Meetings That Work For All

Folks on my team were sharing and discussing this recent article on Harvard Business Review this morning, which I thought was an excellent exploration of a topic near to my heart. My only real quibble is with the title, which instead of Run Meetings That Are Fair To Introverts, Women, and Remote Workers, should really be something more like "Run Meetings That Are Fair To Your Whole Team." Because when any voice is silenced, we all suffer. 

Voices Talking Somewhere In The House

Voices Talking Somewhere In The House

Just the other day I was lamenting with a friend -- on his podcast, no less -- that the personal blog has all but disappeared. That there's just not so much slow, rambling storytelling online, at least not in that old bloggy way. I actually miss reading your long, aimless posts about how you felt when you woke up today. Or about what you had for lunch yesterday. Or about that thing you almost said to that boy when you were twelve, and how the thought of that day has haunted you ever since.

Use Your Words

Use Your Words

Speaking at INBOUND is pretty much the highlight of my year. It's probably pretty exciting for my neighbors as well, since in the weeks leading up to the conference I'll spend hours walking up and down our short little street by the river on Cape Cod, waving my arms and rehearsing my lines over and over and over again.

So if you're one of my neighbors and you'd like to see what all the fuss was about, or if you missed INBOUND this year, or just want to relive the glory of me standing in front of a room of 1000 people talking about writing like a human, not sounding like a jerk, and making the voice of your brand sound the way you want it to sound — then handing out chocolate chip cookies at the end — have I got the video for you. 

Cool To Be Kind

Cool To Be Kind

Everyone these days wants their microcopy to bring the funny. To infuse some lighthearted joy into an otherwise tedious chore, spark a smile in the midst of the workaday world. It's what I love most about my job, as a matter of fact, bringing the funny to the software. But how to be funny without coming off flat? What if you strike the wrong tone? Fail to carry the joke off?

You guys, it's actually really pretty simple. What it all boils down to is You've got to be kind.

And Then I Napped: A Memoir

And Then I Napped: A Memoir

This was my first week back at work after a month-long paid sabbatical that my company has just started offering folks who have been with them for over five years. I started at HubSpot back in January 2010, so I was one of the first people to become eligible for such a glorious thing.

And glorious it certainly was.

A Need For Speed

Lately it occurs to me that I've been doing a heck of a lot of griping to myself that I didn't have enough running blogs to read -- not enough people are writing about running, dammit! -- and yet have been doing exactly zero writing about running myself.