Every week, I read stuff, find things that are both informative and interesting to working professionals, and offer it for your consumption.

For the week of Monday November 18, 2013:

To sleep better, limit your bedroom activities to sleep and sex – The Economist

Here at Leggett & Platt, we sell good sleep. We do it through the marketing of our comfortable bedding products. (Marketing example: as a copywriter, instead of writing that our products are “comfortable,” I might write that they’re “ultra-comfortable.” I learned how to do that in college.) But through the Adjustable Bed Group, we are also realistic in our marketing, knowing that the bedroom – and the bed – has become a place for many other things, such as watching TV, using a laptop, and reading. This article emphasizes that if good sleep is your number one goal, you should limit the number of things you do in bed.

E-mail vs. email – Time, The Atlantic

A few weeks ago, the New York Times announced a few style changes, and the one that seemed to cause the most discussion, at least in some circles, was its decision to drop the hyphen in “e-mail.” The Associated Press made this change in 2011 and The Wall Street Journal has had it in place for longer. This will upset a few people, including me, because “email” has such an awkward look to it. And hyphens are being phased out in other places, too, partly because of the time needed to type a hyphen on a handheld device. To borrow a phrase from William F. Buckley, I want to stand athwart history and yell “Stop!” But word usage evolves, and so must we. Two hundred years ago, even “to-day” and “to-morrow” were hyphenated.

A brand comb-over? – TalentZoo

Here’s an article about companies that try to brand themselves as something the customers know they are not. One of the examples given is Walmart and its attempts to package itself as a company at the forefront of fashion. The article encourages companies to instead “know thyself.” Here at Leggett & Platt, we regularly tout innovation, but do our customers know us as an innovative company? Lastly, have you seen any actual comb-overs recently? I haven’t. Have they been shamed out of existence?

About Paul M. Johnson

I’m Senior Copywriter at Leggett & Platt, so I write a bunch of B2B copy, mainly about wire and wire-related products. Pretty sexy, I agree. A long time ago, I wrote magazine articles about pro athletes such as Derek Jeter and Allen Iverson, and surprisingly that’s more interesting to most people. What are my credentials for writing this blog? Eh, I like reading. And learning stuff. To fill in some details you’re not asking for, as an older person I prefer reading “offline” – as in, actual hard-copy newspapers and magazines. I read at the gym in between weightlifting sets. I read on the treadmill. I read while I’m waiting in line. I “read” audio versions of articles while I drive, but before I was able to do that, I used to read while I drove, but usually only on traffic-free, curve-less interstate highways. That was ill-advised, so I don’t do it anymore. My two main sources are The Economist and The Wall Street Journal, and if I can predict a criticism of this blog, it’ll be that I rely on those two too much. I plead guilty.