Short. Sweet. Targeted. Apparently, President Lincoln’s effective, persuasive writing technique owed to his skills as a lawyer. Legal History Blog links to this article by  Julie A. Oseid called The Power of Brevity: Adopt Abraham Lincoln’s Habits. The article discusses his legal background, his writing and editing habits and his use of persuasion in three of his presidential speeches. Food for thought. And for legal prose. 

Another hat tip to Lifehacker, check out the following video and see if it speaks to you about your own practice as much as it spoke to me. Feel free to insert any noun in place of dance to get the full import:

Lifehacker has this news bit about optimizing any source with an RSS feed, such as your blog, for your iPhone using an application called Intersquash. I won’t get all technical with the details of how it is done, but I can say that Intersquash will redirect you to an optimized version of your feed when using your iPhone browser. The “squashing” effect does yield an interface on the small screen that is more pleasing to the eye and easier to organize. Yup, one more reason to “Embrace the Shiny.”

Although this is a blawg and I am a blawger, I don’t generally write about how to write a blog. I don’t claim to be an expert on the topic of how to write a blog. But there are plenty of others who are experts, or at least fancy themselves to be. And I know that there are some blawgers / bloggers out there that read my blawg (thank you very much) who might be interested in the best practices of blawg / blog writing.

So, for that group, here is a list of ten mistakes blog writers make compiled by Leo Babauta over at Write To Done, a most excellent blog about the craft and art of writing. Some of his hot spots include writing useful posts, posting at a good rate (4-5 times per week), avoiding flashy and annoying ads and permitting too much clutter, as well as other pitfalls. There are other tips as well and I recommend the jump above for a quick blawg / blog tutorial.

As if there wasn’t enough reason already to adore the diminutive package of technological goodness, developers are recognizing the need for apps that take full advantage of that technology. Law.com has this article about PhoneTopp, which will permit mobile web conferencing. From the article:

PhoneTopp’s application first connects users into conferences, then delivers optimized versions of presentation slides, loading them onto iPhone and BlackBerry screens more efficiently than a typical mobile browser would. Barsi says slides that might take 25 to 30 seconds in a browser can be launched in three to five seconds via PhoneTopp’s system.

‘Course, you might need to strengthen your prescription glasses to make out your co-attendees’ facial expressions. But we can leave that development need for another technological innovator.