content-page.php --c

tags: , , , , , ,

Touching the heart not the hard drive…

A while ago while wandering the secondhand book stores on and around Charing Cross Road, I picked up for a pound a copy of the Grand Old Doyen of management thinking Peter Drucker’s Technology, Management and Society. It’s a slim volume packed with clear, compelling Druckerisms that are as true today as they were when he penned them back in 1958. Take, for example, his four fundamentals of communication:

  1. Communciation is perception
  2. Communication is expectations
  3. Communication is involvement
  4. Communication and information are totally different

In exploring these fundamentals, he imparts pearls such as the importance of talking to people in their own terms (“one has to use a carpenter’s metaphors when talking to carpenters”), the pernicious nature of information overload (“it does not enrich, but impoverishes”), and the essential contrast between information and communication – “Information is purely formal and has no meaning. It is impersonal rather than interpersonal.” Communication by contrast is human, emotional, experiential. “Indeed, the most perfect communications may be purely shared experiences, without any logic whatever.” Communication touches the heart; information resides in a hard drive.

All of which put me in mind of the following poetic wisdom from e.e. cummings:

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you

content-page.php --c

tags: , , ,

Clearly different…

From low hanging fruit to pushing the envelope, as Rhymer Rigby points out in an article in the FT, there are some pretty tired metaphors out there in the world of business speak.

Yet we shouldn’t write off the form just because many of the examples are poor or past their sell-by date. Painting pictures with your words, through metaphor, simile and the like, can be a great way to make yourself clear in business – as clear as a country creek. And clarity – the characterful clarity of people using everyday words and the occasional brilliant metaphor – is the currency of commercial difference.

As business language trainer Jamie Jauncey puts it in the same article, “Business is ultimately about people and connecting and relationships. It should be using the real language of human exchange, not some Orwellian bizspeak. You can’t take people along with this kind of language. You don’t differentiate yourself and you miss opportunities.”

content-page.php --c

tags: , , , ,

Hydropathic pudding anyone?…

The summery sunshine reminds me of a seasonal culinary delight: hydropathic pudding. Hydrowhatic pudding? Hydropathic pudding. That’s summer pudding to you and me. Invented in the 19th century as a none-too appetising-sounding but healthy option for spa-residing poorly people, this delicious fruit-filled concoction was renamed summer pudding at the turn of the 20th. Armed with this appealing new name, it never looked back and today is a modern British classic.
Meanwhile over on Wall Street, Big Lots, the discount retailer, enjoyed a market-beating increase in its stock after changing its ticker from BLI to BIG. According to the FT, academic research shows that stocks whose tickers can be pronounced as a word beat stocks with unpronounceable tickers by a statistically significant margin. As the FT suggests, perhaps that’s why an agribusiness exchange traded fund chose the ticker MOO!
Just goes to show, with clear words and a good name you can go a long long way.

content-page.php --c

tags: , , ,

Dr.? No!…

Awhile ago I was asked whether or not Mr should be followed by a full stop. As you can see by the way I’ve just written it, I reckon not.

When it comes to abbreviations – eg Mr, Dr, ie etc – I adapt The Economist’s less is more rule on capital letters: use lower case unless it looks absurd. Indeed less is more is a pretty good principle to adopt for all punctuation.

Full stops, commas, dashes and so on are there to help rather than hinder understanding. Too many and you’re in danger of obstructing the flow of your communication, like barnacles on a boat.

So as a general rule I’d say that if a piece of punctuation doesn’t aid clarity or add character, leave it out. Dr.? No!

content-page.php --c

tags: , ,

Ars Amatoria…

I’ve been championing the use of clear engaging language for quite awhile now: 20 years and counting. But not nearly so long as Ovid, who penned these words of wisdom over 2,000 years ago: “Use everyday language, familiar yet flattering words, as though you were there, in her presence.” Taken from his Ars Amatoria, Ovid’s guide to finding and keeping the love of your life, this advice could equally well apply to any company seeking to gain and retain customers. Business is after all to some degree about seduction.

Lorem Ipsum? Ars Amatoria!