Infernal Comms: the Write the Talk blog

Me, myself. Why?

“It was not an auspicious start. The lift containing myself and two French guests was standing stock still on the ground floor, refusing to budge.”

Prompted by a comment from a Twitter friend today, I’ve been scratching my head about the growing misuse of myself in conversation and writing. The quote above is a perfect example, from a published article that I dug out earlier.

There are several factors at work when it comes to this mishandling of me and myself. The first is the uncertainty that exists around me and I.

“My wife and I went to a party. Quaffing two bottles of cabernet in an hour was a record for my wife and me.”

The different treatment of the two is easy, as you’ll see if we just describe my drinking exploits:

“I went to a party. Quaffing two bottles of cabernet in an hour was a record for me.” (and what a record ...)

So, me-fear is an issue. There is also a sense that myself has more formality, that in polite or exalted company using myself is more, well, educated. That’s a shame, because being yourself is more natural, never mind the fact that using myself like this is wrong:

“Myself and my partner are going to see the Queen.”

Quite apart from the impoliteness of going first, using myself in this way is like wearing an overly fancy hat or tie to a royal garden party. Much better to keep it simple and smart. “My partner and I ...”

The final factor at play is the use of myself for effect. We do this when we are highlighting our role in something:

“When the builders didn’t turn up, I moved the bloody slabs myself. I gave myself a hernia.”

This is absolutely fine. Just make sure there’s an I in there somewhere to emphasise.

In summary, use myself when you are doing something to yourself (it’s called a reflexive pronoun – from the Latin for reflect, as in a mirror).

“I hit myself on the head with a lump hammer, knocking myself out.”

If someone else is doing the doing, it’s me:

“My wife hit me on the head with a lump hammer, knocking me out.”

That opening quote would have been better as “the lift containing two French guests and me ...”. Perhaps it was the French company that put our correspondent off.

Groupon: get a grip

There's news today that Groupon is being investigated by the OFT over its advertising practices, among other things. One suspects that the story will run and run, so some positive PR would help along the way.

Sadly, Groupon fell into a common trap and wheeled out someone to spout unhelpful gibberish:

"Groupon constantly strives for business practices that are in the best interest of consumers. We are constantly evolving business process to ensure customers receive the best possible experience at the highest standards."

Forgive me for intruding, but that's not going to help. The only people at whom that message can be directed are Groupon customers. You could make an argument for shareholders being the target audience, given the calamitous drop in the share price recently, but they're as interested as anybody in public sentiment towards the company.

So, in the circumstances, consultancy guff is not what's needed. "Constantly striving" sounds more like the effect of a severe bout of constipation than a genuine commitment to getting better. The only redeeming feature of "constantly evolving business process" is that it's an all-in-one winning line in Bullsh*t Bingo. As for "the best possible experience at the highest standards", repetition doesn't make misplaced hyperbole any more effective.

There are 32 words of emptiness, a banal vacuum where there should be a nugget of confidence and humility. It would have been much better to say something like:

We're always working on doing things better, but sometimes we might make a mistake. We'll work with the OFT to see if there's a problem, and we'll make sure our customers get the service they expect.

It might not be perfect, but it only took two minutes to sound like a real person instead of a spokesbot. In their position, I think Groupon could have done with taking a moment before jumping at the PR version of Buy it Now.

Writing a Personal Bio

For many, it's one of the most difficult things to write. Whether it's a few sentences for a social networking site, or a few paragraphs for a conference programme, writing a personal bio is the equivalent of being discovered in flagrante by your grandmother or remembering too late that, as a family film choice, Shakespeare in Love has too many booby moments.

Of course, it's actually worse than that. Because the big psychological issue is the fact that people will read what you write.

The fundamental question is this: "How can I write something about me without making it look like I'm a conceited buffoon, full of my own marvellousness and lacking in all self-knowledge and humility?"

Well, the first defence that people erect is that mysterious companion, the Third Person. Writing your bio as if someone else has penned it comes across as less boastful, doesn't it?

Sorry, it doesn't. In fact it probably does the opposite. Only the most famous and detached-from-reality get to have their bios written for them, so a third person approach makes it look like you're pretending it's an independent write-up. Falseness is no basis for a relationship.

Neither is lack of personality. Third person or not, stilted lists of achievements peppered with impressive, but unsubstantiated, adjectives will not make you any friends. Boastful and boring at the same time? This is going really well.

A good bio is easier than it sounds. Here are some tips:

• Always write in the first person. "I help businesses sound like they're run by human beings." It's direct, and you can say what you want to say and sound like you mean it;
• Write what you would say in conversation. Read it loud, and if it makes you sound like a candidate on The Apprentice, it's not working;
• Remember, the bio is not about you; it's about who's reading it. It's about convincing someone that you're worth knowing/following/listening to. And you'll achieve that by being yourself. People like people, not cardboard cut-outs or ham actors or success cyborgs. Think about the people you've helped, the fun you have, the things you're still learning about;
• It's good to allow some emotion in, so long as it's not passion ...;
• If you're really stuck, pretend you're writing a bio for your best friend, where that best friend is you. That way, you won't be afraid to include their best bits;
• Get some other people to do it, preferably people who know you well or represent the audience your bio will have. "What would you lot say about me?" can be a revealing question. Leave the sycophants and acolytes out though: this is no time to be believing the hype.

Above all, forget the notion that the bio is a statement of your magnificence. It's not. It's your Mini Me: a little self-sketch, with enough left in to attract the kind of people you like, but not so much detail that all curiosity is extinguished.

With a little practice you'll actually enjoy doing them. Really.

A business lesson from modern classical music

At the weekend Alex Ross penned an article asking why most modern classical music is disliked. There's a lesson for business in this debate.

Ross points out that film, art, theatre, pop and writing all have their lauded avant garde exponents and yet the mainstream resistance to their equivalents in music remains. There's a problem here though. If the modern novel was based on Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, not many people would be reading new fiction. It's not that music audiences are clinging to the past, it's that many modern composers can't resonate with a broader audience.

Blaming that audience is missing the point.

There is snobbery in this, as there is in almost all art. Everyone's fighting for the cultural high ground, and sophistication can be attractive in that lofty, rarified environment. But sophistication for its own sake is a minority sport. It's really important for prompting change and new thinking but the skill, the art if you like, is in the combination with the familiar to make something exciting. Make the leap to something new too great and people won't bother. Most of us have more pressing things to deal with.

Modern art, punk, and the most successful strands of modern theatre and film certainly broke with tradition, but they did it in a way that made the form more accessible. The most common criticism of recent art and the initial punk explosion was that anyone could do that. And? Change needs participation, not just ideas.

It seems to me that modern classical music has become a battle between two schools: broadly, music needs tunes vs tunes are yesterday's music. Setting up conflict is not a recipe for success: it encourages entrenched views, the taking of sides. Embracing what's gone before and finding common ground for the future is the way to get people involved.

Culture change in business is very much the same. Making an enemy of the past and those who identify with it is problematic. Creating something new that is still recognisable to everyone is where the future lies. Surprise people, yes, but don't maroon them.

So, new ideas must be encouraged, and groundbreaking creativity shows us what is possible. But without followers, leadership is a lonely and rather redundant activity. And only a poor leader would point the finger of blame at the crowds left behind.

Find the real voices in your organisation

The way your business uses language is too important to be left up to the people in the top jobs.

Climbing the human pyramid of power doesn't depend on being able to excite and astonish in words; in fact the opposite is often true. Many conform to perform and encourage their people to do the same.

A business that writes like it thinks is a business that understands relationships. Without relationships a business is dead.

So if you don't have the bottle or the skills to write it like it is, find the people in your organisation who can. Track down the individuals with the authentic voices, who can talk the dialect of your business rather than the management Esperanto that no-one would dare use in public.

Get them to help convey news and ideas in ways that people will understand, appreciate and remember. You just might find that it catches on and everyone feels able to write like a human being. Pretending to be something you're not is an energy-sapping way to live a life after all.

All you need to do is support the pioneers, then sit back and take the credit.

It's restructure time, but no cuts

I admit this isn't the most regularly updated blog. Other projects take priority, I get a life, I even fall out of love with the idea of blogging.

But I keep coming back to it. Why? Because I really believe in this fight we're waging, the fight against consultancy-speak, banality, and the impersonal. So it's time for another push, and this time perhaps a bit more structure.

I've been doing some training recently, and I'm going to share some of that with you. It's about being persuasive and making the impact you want to have on your readers. So over the next few weeks there'll be a series of posts that will add up to a guide for any writing that you do. It'll be great to hear what you think.

If there's anything else you want to hear about, leave a comment and I'll see what I can do. As we're being told so often at the moment, we're all in this together. And I'm going to do my bit.

Happy Slapping: when the language doesn't fit the crime

Another day; another assault on an innocent person for the benefit of a YouTube posting. This time, the incident led to the death of grandfather Ekram Haque in front of his 3 year old grand-daughter. The appropriateness of the sentence for the teenagers convicted of this man's manslaughter is a debate for another place. What I'm interested in here is the terminology.

Happy slapping appeared as a term soon after phones gained video technology. Slap your mate while someone's filming it, then have a laugh at their expense as you share the resulting clip. The only happy people were the perpetrators and it was their moniker that stuck; the victims most probably called it something else but those descriptions never got a look in.

Controlling the language around an activity or a behaviour allows people to influence how that activity is seen and makes counter-arguments much more difficult to land. Happy slapping is just a bit of horseplay, isn't it? Only a killjoy would try and put a stop to it. Video mugging would be an altogether more difficult sell.

File-sharing, legal highs, joy-riding: all are the creations of people who want to lay a veneer of inoffensiveness on something that does not deserve it.

So if you can influence the vocabulary of what you do, your competitors and detractors will struggle to make an impression.

When we is for weasels: a Raoul Moat story

There are times when either your message or your audience's state of mind is not what you would want it to be. Perhaps you're announcing job cuts or apologising for a mistake. In an extreme case you might be attempting to build a dialogue with someone who has threatened to kill your employees, as Detective Chief Superintendent Neil Adamson had to do in the recent case of alleged murderer Raoul Moat.

DCS Adamson made a personal appeal to Moat towards the end of the manhunt, and he did that with repeated use of the word "I": "I can assure you," he said. "I'd like you to know ...".

When you want people to listen to you and believe what you are saying, there is no place for the weasel "we". 

Taking personal responsibility for what you are saying and doing helps your audience pay attention to you and your message. They may not like it, but they're listening.

Using a phrase like "we've done what we can to minimise the impact on staff" only sends a signal that you are diffusing responsibility for what's happening so that no-one gets the blame.

Use the mighty "I" and you will at least be seen as a leader. It's not easy, but then it's not meant to be.

Does Your Business Writing Pass the Personality Test?

If you want to take a small but invaluable step towards corporate communication that might actually engage people rather than bore the pants off them, put all your comms through this simple personality test. You need 4 out of 4 otherwise it's rewrite time: 

• is it saying something of interest to the reader

if this is a no, stop straight away ...

• is there any sign of emotion (other than the inane jolliness or relentless falseness that many corporate communicators mistake for humanity)? 

relief, fatigue, anxiety and delirium are all valid emotions in business. Don't pretend; be real

• is there any empathy with the reader?

show some real understanding of issues, concerns or the environment people are in

• could it be read out loud without embarrassment?

too much business writing would never be said out loud by a human being. If it sounds wrong, it is wrong

Building relationships is easier with a bit of personality. It's worth the effort.

Writing a good opening

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that writing in possession of a good message, must be in want of a strong opening.

OK, so it’s a clumsy version of one of the most famous opening lines in fiction*, but the intent is valid. It doesn’t matter how good a story you have to tell, how valuable your offers are, or how insightful your opinions, if your opening lines are poor the good things that follow may never get read.

Openings have three functions:

• grabbing attention. Readers, and particularly busy ones, are always asking themselves whether they are interested in reading on, whether they have better things to do. Anything you produce has to pass this test;

• setting up what comes later. It’s tempting to draw a reader in with something compelling or very topical … but completely unconnected with what follows. Don’t do it. At best it’s naff; at worst, it’s misleading and trust-breaking. Concentrate on making a bold statement or raising an intriguing question that a reader will want to see you support or resolve;

• first impressions. Like a handshake or that head-to-toe glance to take in what someone’s wearing, your opening creates a first impression that will colour your reader’s perception of what you say thereafter. Don’t be afraid to use a bit of personality to start building a relationship, and be interested in your reader if you want them to be interested in you. Remember you should be writing as if to a single reader, so what works in a social setting works in print.

The last thing I’ll say here about openings is that you don’t have to write them first. Get the bulk of the writing done then create the best opening you can. The greatest authors do it; so can you.

* It’s no accident that I picked the opening of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to illustrate the importance of how to begin a piece of writing. Austen makes a bold statement that “a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” No messing about there. The idea is the centrepiece of the whole book and isn’t just an attention-grabbing headline. We know quickly what we’re in for, in both style and substance, and what follows does not disappoint. We can all learn from the best.