Analects ink is the consultancy I started in late summer 2001 to pursue my passion as a writer. Saying something profound and compelling as efficiently as possible is precisely the kind of puzzle I enjoy assembling. As I grew in my consulting experience and I understood that many of the tools I apply to communicating are equally applicable to organization and personal improvement - and, as my clients recognized the same thing and asked me to expand my services beyond marketing, PR, and advertising - my consultancy grew to encompass a broader range of services. You can use the navigation bars at the left and bottom of the Web pages to explore those strategic services, and review examples of my work for the many clients I've had the pleasure to work with over the last decade.)
Mark Twain once apologized for writing his correspondent such a long letter, explaining he did not have time to write a shorter one. This is the essence of the challenge I've adopted for myself, a challenge that enables me to practice what E.B. White's mentor, William Strunk, Jr., counseled in his infamous little book:
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
Although I work as an independent, unincorporated consultant, I chose to name my enterprise Analects ink, which I believe precisely describes what I do. From the Oxford English Dictionary:
analects, n. pl. (ænəlεkts) [ad. L. analecta, a. Gr. άνάλεκτα things gathered or picked up, f. άναλέγ- ειν, f. άνάup + λέγ- ειν to gather, pick up. Often used in L. form when applied to extracts from the classical authors.]: Literary gleanings; collections of fragments or extracts. (Usually as a title.)
1658 PHILLIPS, Analects,..is taken for Collections or Scraps out of Authors. 1770 G. CAREY (title) Analects in Verse and Prose. 1843 LIDDELL & SCOTT Gr. Lex. Pref. xi, Antipater Sidonius: in Brunck's Analecta. 1861 Sat. Rev. 30 Nov. 563 A few of the sage's sayings, selected from thousands..to be found in the Confucian Analects.
The logo that I designed to represent Analects ink is based on the I Ching's hexagram for "inner truth."
The crimson circle that rounds off the hexagram implies a target that I aim to hit in all my writing and strategic communications consulting.
If you ever have any ideas or suggestions to improve my skills, Web site, or business, please email me.