Sixteen months ago, Satya Nadella took over as Microsoft CEO. Today he emailed Microsoft’s 100,000 employees about the company’s mission. His email is an icon of clarity, focus, and motivation. Thanks to GeekWire, you can read the whole email. Consult your local analyst for an opinion on whether Microsoft can execute on this vision. But regardless, you could learn…
If you were a mad scientist working on a formula for overblown, passive, jargon-ridden prose, you’d combine three powerful bullshitogenic ingredients: government, health care, and information technology. Today we’ll hear from someone who did just that, and revealed how a long immersion in bad writing can overwhelm even the most diligent workers. If you’re stuck in a world like this, I’ll…
Infosys is the second-largest systems integrator in India, the epicenter of outsourcing. One of their analyst relations people recently sent a friend of mine an entertainingly baroque email. Systems integrators are huge companies that have trouble articulating their differentiation. They have various technical strengths and will build what you ask them to build. Differentiating is…
Lack of discipline pollutes your writing. Multiply by the whole world of “content creators” and we’re all consuming brown, dirty prose. I’ve spent time in Beijing and São Paulo. While the people were wonderful, the air was awful. A light brown miasma cast a pall on everything, making our eyes itch and making every incredible cityscape appear…
Holy cow. A phone company bought the original Internet content company. This has to have some broader significance. Look in the obligatory press release and you find . . . nothing. Except for some indigestible chunks of verbiage (thanks to Barak Kassar for pointing this out): . . . the combination of Verizon and AOL creates a…
Based on the 23,000 people who viewed and shared it, you liked my post on writing tips and psychology. But those in academia were displeased. A typical comment: I can only hope that the college students whose papers I have to read do not see this. Academically, this could be titled, “How to Fail a Research Paper”. How…
Why are you still doing press releases? And why are they so awful? In 20 years as an analyst, I received 10,000 press releases. I acted on four of them. But PR pros still craft releases and send them to wire services to clutter up everybody’s inboxes. They’re not just poorly read but poorly written, like this delete-provoking…
There are plenty of folks happy to tell you how to write better, just as any doctor will tell you to “eat right and exercise.” But changing your writing (or eating) habits only happens when you understand why you do what you do. I can help you with that. That proposal or email you wrote must now compete for…
It’s not that hard. People who visit your Web site want to know what you do. If you can’t describe your company simply in a few sentences, you’re screwed. Which is why I was astounded when a visitor to this blog suggested I look at the site for Inovalon. This is where clarity and brevity…