Sprezzatura is me, Ellen Lawson (formerly Ferlazzo), for the most part. I have been in the consulting business since 1991 and incorporated as Sprezzatura Systems, Inc. in 1999. My skills include writing, search engine optimization and user interface design. I have worked in a variety of industries, including web conferencing, virtualization, data communications, PDA (handheld touch screen), convenience store/retail software, transportation and logistics, programmer tools, network security management and Internet service providers. My LinkedIn profile is here.
Specialties include:
- Web copywriting—persuasive online writing, usually for high tech products or services
- Search engine optimization—natural (organic) search engine optimization for your site
- Software application design—for web applications, client-server applications, and handhelds
People often ask “What is sprezzatura?” I ran into the word years ago and when I incorporated I decided to use it for my company name. It’s essentially the art of making the difficult look easy, something I strive for in user interface design and aim for in my web copywriting. Many years ago, I also ran into a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay that I think expresses the challenge of making sense of things:
Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts. . . they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun; but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric;
My role in both writing and user interface design is to arrange and communicate, question and combine such that complex things make sense to others.
For fun I play music (fiddle, guitar and mandolin mostly), grow food and cook it, and I’m learning to weld and build things.