Trends are hot. Jump on one soon and you may gain an advantage. But some of the “trends” you read about or hear about at industry conferences are hogwash. I’ll explain how to tell the difference and what to do about it. Millennials aren’t having children! Police are predicting crimes before they happen! There’s a reason you…
I blogged every weekday for 6 months (150 posts). I got lots of advice and didn’t listen to it. I did popular posts on writing, politics, social media, and corporate doubletalk. And damned if I didn’t create an identity for myself. My friends told me that I shouldn’t use bad words. They said daily blogging was…
The estimable Ben Kunz recently blogged about Modeling the Human Projection of Bullshit. He has a three-part framework, and I think it provides a good way to think about things. Here’s the main idea, from his blog: So why does everyone, including me, craft levels of BS? My suggested framework for bullshit has three vectors: Level…
No topic has more bullshit than people writing about diets and nutrition. I learned that from my favorite food expert, Kerri Hawkins. Today, I interview her about the way diet companies, food companies, restaurants, and media bullshit us about food. Kerri is the the past president of the Massachusetts Dietetic Association and has helped people to lose…
Jon Stewart inspires me. In my moments of absolute fantasy I imagine I am in some small way contributing to the work he began. So it gives me great pleasure that he devoted the final moments of his final show to the theme “Bullshit is everywhere.” He cites, for example: The bullshit of infinite possibility:…
Don’t lie. Don’t deceive. Be honest. But if you must lie or deceive, do it the right way, for the right reasons. Let’s be frank. You cannot occupy a position of any responsibility in a business and be perfectly honest and transparent. Don’t believe me? Here are some examples: A client requests that your work with…
Say what you will about NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, but he finally figured out how to publish something clear on deflategate. Or putting it in the terms that the Wells Report used, it is “more probable than not” that you can actually figure out what Roger Goodell is saying. Look, Goodell is a mess. It took…
I wrote yesterday about the Times’ journalistic lapses and passive-voice innuendo in reporting about Hillary Clinton’s email account. Later on Monday, Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times‘ public editor, explained how the paper screwed up in an article called “A Clinton Story Fraught With Inaccuracies.” While her explanation clarifies what happened, it uses passive voice to allow…
If you opened your New York Times on Friday, you got the impression that the Justice department was opening a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton. Actually, it isn’t. After the newspaper recognized its errors, it papered over the original article and headline with passive voice. You’d expect this sort of innuendo from outlets with a conservative…