Yesterday, Rich Rowe, CEO of Arkema, warned that his chemical plant near Houston might explode. Today it exploded. When you know something like this is going to happen, you need to get right to the point. Rich Rowe didn’t. The Arkema plant is in Crosby, Texas, about 25 miles from downtown Houston. Houston, of course,…
New research from Ben-Gurion University shows why you should never use an emoji in business communication. Researchers Ella Glikson, Arik Cheshin, Gerben A. van Kleef tested emojis with 549 people from 29 countries. Here’s what they found: Participants who received emails with smiley-face icons rated the sender as less competent. While smileys are supposed to make…
President Trump tweets lots of spelling errors. In the New York Times, Farhad Manjoo says this is just a sign of the times. It’s fine to spell things however you want on social media your friends, but when you’re communicating with people who matter — like, say, the entire citizenry of the United States —…
One of my simplest and most powerful tips is to use “I,” “we,” and “you” in your business writing. Now researchers at the A. B. Freeman school of Business at Tulane have proven my point. As described in the Wall Street Journal, Zhenhua Chen and Serena Loftus of Tulane conducted pairs of simulated earnings calls. One…
James Damore, a Google engineer, published an internal manifesto about gender and discrimination at the company. He’s either a sexist tech bro or a First Amendment hero bravely proclaiming forbidden truths, depending on your perspective. His generalizations about how women think are the problem here — they’re what got him fired. A fresh look at the…
Marketing automation company Marketo had an oopsy last week — they forgot to renew their main domain name. This caused a day’s disruption for their customers. The CEO’s passive apology fails to be direct and honest. Why is this so hard? Let’s take a look at the CEO’s email to customers. In what follows, I’ve…
After 25 years of calling out corporate business jargon, Lucy Kellaway, columnist for the UK’s Financial Times, has posted eight rules that generate bullshit. The motivations that drive those rule reveal the fundamental theorem of corporate bullshit — all bullshit comes from either people hiding problems, or attempting to make what they are doing seem new…
In May, mobile Gmail added “Smart Reply,” which reads your email and suggests replies. But hitting a button that says “OK” isn’t much easier than typing “OK” and hitting send. Given the progress of Google’s A.I. technology, it’s going to get smarter. Here’s a peek into the near future: Meeting request From: Project leader To:…
After VC Justin Caldbeck admitted to harassing women entrepreneurs, The New York Times published a piece about the harassment culture of Silicon Valley. Dave McClure and Chris Sacca, venture capitalists mentioned in that piece, have now responded. Both were genuine, but they took widely different approaches. Their actions now will determine whether the culture of…