Dear Investment Writing subscriber

Happy fall!
I hope your autumn (or spring, if you're in the Southern Hemisphere) gets off to a great start. If you live in the U.S., you can brighten your September by taking advantage of Smithsonian Magazine’s Museum Day on Sept. 17. You can register, select one of the many museums from across the U.S., and download a ticket good for free admission for two people. In Massachusetts, for example, 10 museums are available.

Help your clients volunteer during retirement
Most of you don’t think that retirement will be like an endless vacation. That was clear from your votes on my LinkedIn poll (see below).
Volunteering is a great way for retirees to stay active. There are national organizations that can help. The Taproot Foundation is an organization for skills-based volunteering that I learned about recently. The Taproot Plus platform helps people volunteer their professional skills to nonprofit organizations. The website says, “Users connect virtually or in-person for focused projects with clear deliverables or consultations to troubleshoot, brainstorm, or diagnose current organizational challenges.”

Your clients might also consider AARP’s volunteer programs.

Free books from The Wall Street Journal
Do you subscribe to The Wall Street Journal like many of my readers? If so, you can participate in the free WSJ+ program. It lets you download one free e-book and one free audiobook a month from among four choices. The books use the Glose reader, which I never heard of before using it, but it’s easy enough to use. I’m currently reading the e-book of Becca Levy’s Breaking the Age Code and I am listening to William Ury’s Getting to Yes with Yourself while I satisfy my Fitbit’s demand for me to take 250 steps every hour during the business day.

Happiness is a fresh beet
I grew beets from seed for the first time this year. I’m delighted to report that I have harvested and cooked both the beetroots and their greens. This thrills me. I love seeing things grow.
Beet in pot
Harvested beet with huge greens
Recent topics 
I took most of August off from blogging, and I’m considering blogging less frequently now that I’ve answered many of my most pressing questions about writing. During August, I published one regular blog post plus Mistake Monday. You can read the start of my post about how to spell OK below.

Recently, I’ve been writing and editing for clients on topics such as succession planning, practice management, marketing, financial planning, and “Focus on technology” in the August NAPFA Advisor.

Best wishes,
Susan
Did you know that “OK,” not “okay” is the correct spelling of that familiar expression?

If you didn’t know how to spell OK, you have plenty of company, as I discovered when I ran a LinkedIn poll.

Origins of OK
The term OK is an initialism. It comes from the misspelling “oll korrect” for “all correct.” Apparently such misspellings were popular in the 1830s, when this term originated, according to “The Hilarious History of ‘OK': The English language's most successful export is a joke.”

Is okay never OK?
Associated Press style says, “Do not use okay.” But AP style is not the only style.

A respondent to my LinkedIn poll pointed me to a Chicago Manual of Style pronouncement that says either spelling is OK:

“OK” and “okay” are informal, so even though we might normally choose the first-listed “OK” in Merriam-Webster (rather than its equal variant “okay”), it doesn’t really matter which form of this handy nineteenth-century abbreviation you prefer.

Does your spelling matter?

Looking for more practical tips for your marketing and writing? Visit my blog to read my latest posts!
“Susan’s particularly good at working through highly technical material very quickly. That’s very important in this business. A lot of people are good writers, but they have an extensive learning curve for something they’re unfamiliar with. Susan was able to jump very quickly into technical material.”

Photo Credit: Dave Dugdale via Compfight cc 
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Could members of your organization benefit from learning to write better? Hire Susan to present on “How to Write Investment Commentary People Will Read,” “Writing Effective Emails,” or a topic customized for your company.
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