September 6, 2012 · 23:01

How to write badly (5): “Let’s make up some bland quotes!”

We carry on with our master class on writing badly, which commenced not too long ago and has intermittently continued since then.

As a bad writer, you may find yourself in a bit of a quandary when you have to quote people. You’re supposed to include the voice of the customer in marketing case studies and press releases. You might need to quote the CEO or other executives and won’t get a chance to talk to them. In the company blog, you have to quote business partners that comment on your products and services. If it’s news you need to perpetrate, readers will expect that you give them an impression of what victims, bystanders, offenders, fans, crooks, and thought leaders are saying. The problem is that people usually don’t speak nearly as horribly as you write. They can be lively and interesting, whereas your inclination is toward the bland and predictable. That means you have to make up properly bad quotes, or you will have to explain the odd quality gap between quotes and other copy. I understand this is work and therefore unwelcome. To make your life a little easier, here are a few standard quotes you can use with minimal adjustments.

People talk. For you as a bad writer, this presents so many opportunities to ascribe lame, warmed-over quotes to them.

When you use these quotes, be careful not to insert too many specific references. Their charm largely depends on vagueness and intimation. Busy readers will appreciate that they can scan over a couple of lines without missing anything. You save time that way, too. But you still need to apply your restrained, unmistakable touch. Have you heard that silly story about the joke club, where people have simplified joke telling by calling out the numbers of known jokes instead? A visitor wonders why anybody still laughs if the jokes are so familiar. “It’s in the way it’s told,” somebody explains. It’s like that with these quotes. With practice, you will be able to slip them into your copy as if they came naturally.

About a technical product or service

  • “[product or service name] is an end-to-end solution for the issues we were facing. I would recommend this to anyone.”
  • “[product or service name] stands out because of the innovation incorporated in it. Its rich feature set makes it extremely valuable.”
  • “I don’t know what I would do without [product or service name].”
  • “[product or service name] is a best-in-class offering that will add value for years to come.”

About a company

  • “[company name] demonstrates true leadership by innovating in its industry.”
  • “[company name] leads the pack of comparable vendors because of its track record.”
  • “We are proud to partner with [company name] in advancing innovation in our industry.”
  • “Risk-taking innovation and thought leadership are in [company name]’s DNA.”
  • “[company name] has practically re-invented [category].”

About a person in a new role

  • “[name] expects to hit the ground running and deliver results rapidly.”
  • “Her leadership experience makes [name] a great fit for this challenging role.”
  • “As a natural communicator, [name] will not have any problems in meeting the expectations of [people in whatever roles].”
  • “Numbers don’t lie. [name] has delivered strong results in her last position and we expect her to do so again.”

About a problem

  • “We welcome the opportunity to address this challenge with confidence.”
  • “Circumstances are never quite fair. But we will address the concerns promptly and get to a satisfactory resolution.”
  • “[problem] has been blown out of proportion. While we don’t expect that [problem] will cause any issues for our customers, we are closely monitoring the situation.”
  • “[problem] came at us out of the blue, but we’re ready to take action. We will face this issue with resolve and resourcefulness.”

About something horrible somebody did or said

  • “A diligent review of all the facts will present a very different course of events. In the meantime, I should refrain from commenting further.”
  • “I always strive to maintain the highest standards of integrity. I apologize if some people have the impression that I may have fallen short in this situation.”
  • “I regret if I offended anybody. That was certainly not what I intended.”
  • “I’m reviewing the situation and will have more detailed comments presently.”

About a murderer

  • “He usually kept to himself, but seemed like a nice guy. We didn’t know him well.”
  • “He seemed like an angry guy and always had arguments with people. We didn’t know him well.”
  • “This clearly shows the need for strengthening gun control.”
  • “This clearly shows the need for empowering more law-abiding citizens to carry guns.”
  • “He gave my wife a strange look the other day.”

About a weather-related or natural-disaster situation

  • “I knew we were in for something terrible.”
  • “This is really too bad. We all feel the same way.”
  • “When we were young, we never had events like this happen.”
  • “We will pull together and get through this just like we did through other situations like it.”
  • “We are getting desperate and very concerned this might get worse. We’ve never seen anything like this.”

You’re welcome! More soon.

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August 28, 2012 · 20:35

Grinning Idiot at the edge of disaster

Have you seen him? He stands by and watches, often with an eyebrow raised and the hint of a smile, when horrible things happen to other people. I’ve come across him way too many times.

When I went to school in Germany, violence and bullying were pervasive. Until I grew out of it, I was an obese child and mercilessly bullied for it. Grinning Idiot always stood around when people were beaten or otherwise abused. He never said anything, never participated, and never lifted a finger to stop what was going on.

When we students demonstrated against the Vietnam War or marched for other political causes, Grinning Idiot could be right there with us, as if we had dragged him along. Or, he stood on the sidewalk, watching. He didn’t start smiling until the police started arresting people. But then he hung around until it was all over and the vans hauled folks off to the precinct.

Later in life, I was sometimes in workplaces where groups of people were laid off at the same time. Grinning Idiot sat around doing work or screwing off, trying to figure out who would remain. He never showed any empathy for people who were let go and didn’t have any critical or other comments to share. When it was time for lunch, he ate.

Grinning Idiot can hide in a large crowd, finding comfortable anonymity…

I’ve seen Grinning Idiot many times in pictures and news footage. He stands around when the Nazis beat up on Jews, communists, gays, and other trouble-makers, for example. Never takes part unless forced, never helps anybody. Just watches and smiles a little. He seems to love watching people being loaded into railway cars—that’s when he shows up in a crowd, feeling safe because it wasn’t his turn. Of course, for him a crowd to disappear in can be as small as three or four people.

Which reminds me, have you seen photographs of lynchings in the United States? There are the perpetrators, who often stand and laugh proudly next to a dead black man, hanged or beaten to death on the ground. Grinning Idiot is right there, just a little off-center, often looking slightly away from the camera’s eye, with his little smirk.

In groups of friends at dinner, a party, or some other event, Grinning Idiot never provokes a conflict or disagreement, but doesn’t mind when somebody else does. He keeps quiet and watches what other people do. As soon as he has figured out who is on the winning side in an argument, he nudges over there to share that person’s shadow.

Do you know who I’m talking about?

…or in a smaller gathering, like at a lynching. Take a look at people’s faces, if you would.

If you know Grinning Idiot, how do you relate to him? Are you his friend, neighbor, trusted interlocutor? Have you ever been this person?

Sometimes it seems as if much of the world’s trouble would be impossible without Grinning Idiot standing by and letting it happen. He provides the silent chorus of approval for misery. He’s done this for many centuries. Isn’t it time we got rid of him, one by one? Even if he is you or me?

Grinning Idiot is not brave or smart, and often he knows that. He never leads and never starts a song. Sometimes you can shame him, send him packing, or provoke him into taking a stand. Whatever you do, you need to account for him, because in his idiotic way, through sheer inertia and ineptness, he is extremely powerful. Don’t ignore him, or he’ll stand and smirk when calamity comes for you, not the least bit inclined to help. You don’t want to wait that long.

Do you know of any good ways to deal with Grinning Idiot?

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August 17, 2012 · 00:01

PC: Post-Cleveland, or: Visit Cleveland now, before the crowds catch on

I mentioned a few days ago that Evelyn and I were headed to Cleveland and didn’t quite know what to expect. Ten years ago Cleveland was beautiful and tough to love, with lots of potential.

The news is mostly good. You can’t do a U-turn on Euclid downtown anymore. There’s too much traffic and now a dedicated bus lane with elegantly designed stations goes all the way out to Case Western Reserve, where you find some wonderful museums, a fine university, Severance Hall, marvelous architecture, and a whole district occupied by the ever-expanding Cleveland Clinic, one of the best healthcare facilities in the world. People milled across previously dormant Public Square every time we came through. And those department-store buildings that were boarded up and looking like demolition would come next? They have all been renovated and are full of commercial and residential tenants. One of them, right by the Terminal Tower, houses a casino, which opened a few months ago. I hear the casino plays a key role in bringing people, cash, and investment to downtown. I’m all for it. Maybe in time, there will be some other businesses and venues doing their part, so the downtown area doesn’t become too dependent on the casino.

The old-school Italian deli and grocery store, Gallucci, at Euclid and 66th, boasts a renovated location with picnic tables outside. In the Cleveland area, they’re still one of the best resources for cooks and people who eat. The neighborhood around them used to be a waste land of rusting industrial properties and falling-down warehouses. It’s turning around and becoming interesting again. A Slovenian restaurant not too far away is re-creating itself for different times, with live-music and other events. Cleveland State University is expanding slowly toward the deli; more and more faculty, administrators, and students will find out what value they can get for a small handful of cash.

Looking toward downtown Cleveland from Tremont: Magic even on a rainy Tuesday.

Ohio City, celebrating its centennial this year, sparkles with lovely homes and lots of new businesses. I like that it’s not all about food and drink, although there’s a lot of that, too, especially around the Westside Market, which now rivals the market at San Francisco’s Ferry Building and Seattle’s Pike Place Market for outstanding, local vegetables, fruit, bread, fish, meat, and other edibles, in a spectacular setting. Real-estate prices are still extremely reasonable—do the research with a soft towel around your chin in case your jaw drops. Right next to Ohio City, the Tremont neighborhood is worth your time, too. I found it once again extremely hard to get to—lots of roadwork and misleading detour signs on top of the already difficult access caused by the freeways that effectively make this place an island—but I’m glad I persevered. A while ago, a restaurant called Fat Cats was just about the only nice spot to eat there. Now they have a bunch of others and, just like in Ohio City, many artisans and craftspeople set up shop there. A small farmers’ market offered lots of fresh produce; I hope it gets enough traffic to make it worth the vendors’ while. There are so many catholic, Russian orthodox, Greek orthodox, and other churches there, I find it hard to believe they are all viable as the population changes—will the younger people moving there (very affordably, yes) maintain the traditions? Who will take the place of the older residents from East European communities that are quickly melting away? I hope the lower-income folks who now live in Tremont and Ohio City don’t get gentrified out of their homes and environment—they must be included in whatever creative developments happen over the next few years.

Speaking of, Cleveland could really use some more interesting businesses to add diversity to its commercial portfolio. It should be the perfect location for biomedical entrepreneurs. Or software companies that draw on the talent among local youth who need something worthwhile to do after graduation. How about some Microsoft Dynamics partners who could bring ERP and CRM systems to local businesses and help them be more successful at what they do? Directors and producers, take note—Cleveland is full of fascinating, old-industrial and post-industrial environments and intriguing vistas. The view from Tremont toward downtown, for example—that’s magic.

Sure, a lot of work remains to be done, just like anywhere. There are still huge green fields where properties burned during race riots in the 1960s, but the areas surrounding them are much more livable now than even ten years ago. Huge industrial wastelands on both sides of the Cuyahoga river are fascinating to me because I’m like that, but they aren’t really an asset. One could redevelop some of these areas as parks, with walkways along the river, even, maybe with a few contemporary businesses locating nearby. It’s simply intolerable to have these huge areas that are so hostile to human beings.

Elsewhere, Lake Erie is still mostly cut off from the city by freeways and commercial development. It’s too bad, but will be hard to change. I think it will probably be easier to bring the Cuyahoga back into the city, inch by inch. The Flats aren’t enough, but their areas of influence are growing, especially east of the river. We should remember and appreciate that the businesses and people who took a chance on the Flats were brave and, largely, successful. A food-and-drink place there, Shooters, is 25 years old in 2012. To most people now, it’s nothing all that special, but when they opened back in 1987, they took a huge gamble on a trashed part of town. Nobody could have reasonably predicted that they would pull it off and bring along a handful of follow-on businesses. Still, there are even today large parts of the Flats nobody seems to care for or remember that they own it, which is too bad.

For our few days there, we had a lovely and very inexpensive house, courtesy of Shaker Rentals, in Shaker Heights, and it was interesting to learn about that community and its history. It was nice to see that Shaker Heights, except for a few fat-cat stretches along Shaker Boulevard, is mostly integrated. On one sunny Sunday morning and the rainy Tuesday that followed, we spent a few hours at the Cleveland Museum of Art, which has for years added to its building as well as its already outstanding collections. When the new atrium opens (it’s a bit reminiscent of Foster’s re-built British Museum), there’ll be a huge splash in the media. People will go on about how Cleveland is making a turn for the better and is getting back on the map. But really, it’s been splendid for a long time.

If you’re more traditionally minded, there’s Little Italy, in spite of all the fake-y folklore a real community with strong ties to the old country, and the Cleveland Orchestra, one of the world’s best. Of course, lots of live theatre. And the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame. I won’t go on—do a simple search and you’ll find buckets of things to interest you.

Anyway, visit and love Cleveland now, before the tourist crowds catch on and rub their sweaty hands all over the bloom. Autumn and spring are beautiful there. Winter can be harsh, gorgeous in its own way, and summer is hot, but you get spectacular thunder storms to help you cool off and disrupt the languid mood. Enjoy!

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August 8, 2012 · 18:58

BC: Before Cleveland

Tomorrow, Evelyn and I will get on a plane from Seattle to Houston, then on another one from there to Cleveland. We didn’t find any practical, affordable direct flights to get there, although we managed that for the return trip. Many flights route you through nearby Detroit or Chicago. When we went to Cleveland the last time, ten years ago, thunder storms caused our plane to be parked on some distant Chicago runway for a few hours, with us sweating inside. When we got there, a lot of construction around the airport made getting around difficult. The African-American gentleman who managed the crowded line for the rental car shuttle joked in a way that still made me squirm. But I suppose it is possible that he was actually being sarcastic in response to a (white and white-shirted) business traveler’s obnoxiousness.

Back then, downtown Cleveland seemed mostly quiet.

What will Cleveland’s Terminal Tower complex and Public Square feel like tomorrow, I wonder?

You could make a U-turn on Euclid Avenue, the main thoroughfare, without waiting for traffic or bothering anybody. Splendid old department store buildings were boarded up and had obviously been so for many years. Public Square in front of the Terminal Tower was mostly empty of pedestrians. People moved around in their cars; I don’t think I saw a single bicycle commuter. Some innocuous public art didn’t much alleviate the sense of loneliness at the center of the city. Yes, at the Terminal Tower lots of people changed trains, caught buses, and rode elevators up into their offices, but very few of them seemed to walk anywhere from there. The theater district only came alive at night. Except for a few restaurants and drinking places, the place was dead after about 5:30pm.

And, you know what? Everybody was incredibly, genuinely friendly. It wasn’t like the “Seattle nice,” where people smile at you while they’re often seething in their skin. Folks were engaged, ready to have conversations, and helpful; they reminded me of people in Italy, where you never know if the next person you meet will be one of your best friends and patron saints. They didn’t try to run you over when you were crossing the street, the way I see it here at home all the time. The most passive-aggressive driver behavior I saw, if that’s what it was, was a slow, barely noticeable roll forward while waiting for red lights.

Huge areas of the city felt like stony deserts, with barely maintained residences, potholed streets, and almost no retail outside of gas stations and depressing convenience stores. Somewhere in the east 40s, I remember leaving an old-fashioned Czech or Slovak restaurant and seeing a bunch of black kids up the street throwing rocks at cars and windows. They didn’t look aggressive or angry. I think they were just bored. Just a few driving minutes away from them, there was the excellent art museum (which also had wonderful air conditioning, a huge asset). On a weekday, very few visitors had come to see the collections.

The communities right outside the city—Cleveland Heights, Parma, Shaker Heights, Garfield Heights, and so forth—that’s where middle-class and wealthier people seemed to make their homes. Bonus points for any place name with “heights” in it, of course. I expect that hasn’t changed, but maybe now a few more people actually live in downtown? I also have high hopes for a district called Ohio City, just west of the Cuyahoga River. In 2002, it had a wonderful indoor market, surrounded by a lively, intriguing neighborhood. Throughout Ohio City, many residents had obviously moved in recently and were working hard to maintain their homes and gardens beautifully. The area was still a little incoherent and somewhat intimidating then, but I get the impression that much has happened since. It sounds like many more people have taken advantage of inexpensive housing and were willing to get to work. The district now boosts a huge variety of artisan businesses, restaurants, and services for residents. I’m looking forward to spending some time there.

When I talk with Seattle friends and colleagues about visiting Cleveland, they quickly volunteer a few clichés, probably much like people elsewhere have at hand about Seattle. I don’t think any of these pat statements, about any place, are ever true anymore, but maybe there was a notion of some actual perception in them a few generations ago. It seems that hardly anybody is disposed to like Cleveland, but they have no idea why. We really need to get out of the house more.

I might not get to the blog while I’m traveling, but will report again when I’m back, late next week. Please visit again!

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July 31, 2012 · 23:44

How to write badly (4): Rocking the flow

We continue our summer class on writing badly, which started to minor acclaim quite recently.

Good writers always make a big deal of sequencing their thoughts just so a reader can follow along easily and a paragraph is a sort of organic entity that becomes part of a larger, beautiful whole, like a leaf on a tree. Well, if you’re aspiring to bad writing, it’s always fall for these leaves, and they’re dropping off the trees in an unpredictable manner.

Have you noticed how the truly righteous, when they go on and on about something, leave out the vital connections between their thoughts? That’s part of the quality we’re looking for when we disrupt the logical flow of your writing. You can find many good examples in letters to the editor. It doesn’t matter whether the topic is political, religious, cultural, or food-related—most highly opinionated writers are having a hard time keeping up with the syntax and logic, because they have so much to say, so quickly. They usually feel that smart folks like themselves will understand well enough, because they have a strong message to share.

If you place the equivalent of verbal rocks into your flow of copy, readers will stay with you and only eventually realize how confused they are. You need to exercise restraint in this practice.

The problem with such disrupted writing is that it often goes overboard. You lose the reader altogether instead of seeding gradual confusion. Don’t be heavy-handed—the right touches will knock the flow of the copy sideways and your audience will follow along for paragraph after paragraph. For example, if you change just the right word in the right place, you will ensure reader fascination along with befuddlement. Try a “what’s more” when you are really not continuing a line of thought. If you feel sure of your steps, use a “however” when you are not actually expressing an opposing concept. To soften the impact, you might experiment with “as well, however…” Even the occasional “also” inserted in completely inappropriate locations will advance the obscurity of the copy.

Reader still with you? You can pile it on. Try frivolously switching tenses in the middle of a paragraph. If you use a compound tense, such as the relatively rare past perfect, the flow will slow—I guarantee it! A fine trick is using the future tense for something that is going on right now. A lot of presenters and public speakers love doing this. Most listeners eventually catch on, but initially, yes, this is very confusing and will distract from what you’re actually talking about. It works perfectly well to make written copy more nebulous.

Assuming your readers are tenacious, you can mine your content in a more texturized manner. For example, consider demonstrative pronouns without clear antecedents—such an innocent, every-day practice. But this can work wonders in your bad writing. You can try obfuscating with personal pronouns if you dare, especially if you could refer to more than one person of the same gender. Who knows what she was trying to tell me, or who this was.

Finally, and I see this done gracelessly and very often in user manuals and other technical documentation, even in cookbooks, and in the recipes the newspapers crib from them. It works like this: Write perfectly fine paragraphs without using any of the simple tricks we just mentioned. Then, when you’re almost done, cut a sentence here and there. Don’t overdo it, or you’ll give yourself away. A missing statement every four or five paragraphs or so will do the job. People will read and follow along, maybe even try the steps you describe, and then—kapow! The conceptual trap door opens and it’s a steep drop down.

Just a few simple hints that help you rock the flow. If you like, you can work them in just like the last bad practice—write beautifully, then edit down. That way, you will avoid making the copy too obviously poor.

More soon—I promise.

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July 27, 2012 · 21:41

Facing the great good-bye: How will mass extinctions affect us?

Even if you squint away from some of the worst news and some predictions are exaggerated, extinction is happening. Right now, while you read these words, entirely unknown as well as familiar species of animals and plants are becoming extinct. Over the next few years, extinction events will continue. Some of them will involve well-known animals—tigers, orangutans, lemurs, rhinoceros. Many zoos and some sanctuaries are trying to keep these species around, but they’re already having a hard time maintaining enough genetic diversity to maintain viability. It won’t get any easier—animals don’t breed on command, and captivity is generally not a good inducement to procreation. The poachers and traders won’t quit, however—body parts and substances from the bodies of elephants, chimpanzees, tigers, bears, rhinoceros, leopards, and other animals will continue to be much sought after. Habitats will become ever smaller. The human population may eventually stabilize, but probably not soon enough for most of the animals already at risk. Cloning might maintain the hope of reviving certain species, but if habitats are overly compromised or no longer existent, it’s a frivolous waste of time and resources.

What will happen to us when animals disappear that have been with us since we became sentient? People living now will remember and some of them will grieve. Eventually, the memories and stories will fade along with the anguish associated with extinctions. Tigers, for example, will be known much like dinosaurs—fascinating and worth studying, but not real. The mythological tigers one finds in works of Borges and other writers will have more emotional impact than the faint recollection of the animal that once lived. Except for some areas of science and art, we will be oblivious to the vanished animals. We will never know them any better than we do today.

Gone forever, soon.

Don’t doubt that the extinctions will affect our minds. The presence of powerful, dangerous, smart animals has enriched our lives with love, fear, respect, loathing, danger, and a host of other emotions and qualities that we may never have access to again. Without them around and in us, we will become different. Some of us might notice and most of us won’t be able to tell, but our quality of living, feeling, and thinking will change. In a way, the world will be more homogenous, and the meanings of such notions as “other” and “self” will be unlike what they were so far in our history.

If you don’t like thinking about this, you’re not alone—I don’t think anybody does. Even people who work in sustainability and conservation efforts are having a hard time facing mass extinction. The scale of the coming events is simply overwhelming. And everybody’s quality of existence is at stake. But what can you do?

I think our best hope is with the low-overhead, close-to-the-ground, savvy organizations and initiatives that strive for social, environmental, and economic sustainability in practical ways. The Ugandan Village Project comes to mind, but there are many others similar to it, in all regions of the world. These kinds of efforts closely involve the people who stand to benefit from keeping species alive in a sustainable environment. Without them, nothing worthwhile will happen—instead, conservation will be a distant, useless cousin to colonization. Even if it’s possible to slow down and delay some of the extinctions already underway, that is probably preferable to their rapid process, if only for selfish reasons. We should support and participate in these initiatives as much as we can, and visit the locales where history is unfolding. The deeper we understand the people there, the closer we see the last few representatives of disappearing species, the better we will be able to render assistance.

I’m not looking forward to what’s coming, but I will probably be gone when the worst mass extinctions become part of the daily news.

But what about you? And your kids?

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July 19, 2012 · 17:38

Perfect marketing for a good cause: Have a drink in Vancouver

What happens when you provide an item everybody needs and link it to a worthwhile cause that requires no additional activity from consumers? You can raise lots of funds, for one thing.

Take water, for example. Everybody needs it. You probably drink it yourself.

In Vancouver, BC, you can help the homeless by purchasing a small bottle of water. You won’t be badgered about it, and it’s unlikely you’ll feel smug. Depending on how thirsty you are, you might not even notice what you did.

On a warm day in June, I walked into Café Bica and got some We Love Van water. They sell other water there, but I l liked the simple design. And, visiting from Seattle—how could I not? I almost recycled the bottle before I noticed the statement on the label: “10¢ of every bottle of water you purchase is used to care for Vancouver’s homeless.” The organization’s website explains how the donations work and introduces the Lookout Society through a short video. It also tells you why they chose the kind of plastic they use, and addresses some common misconceptions about plastic recycling.

When in Vancouver, drink lots of water.

If you’ve been to Vancouver, you probably do love it, so the drink’s name will appeal. Vancouver is one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in the world. As you probably know, housing is very expensive there, hard-drug addiction and alcoholism are huge problems, and a large homeless population lives right next to wealth and elegance. If you live there, you meet the homeless, day after day, unless you take steps to avoid and ignore them. The Lookout Society has a strong, successful program in helping people in a dignified, gracious manner.

The We Love Van website, Facebook page, and Twitter stream use the same, appealing visual brand and an upbeat tone. I’m intrigued by the fact that the homeless support message is treated very lightly—no images of miserable people, no exhortations, no moralizing. The Facebook page shows a few images of homeless people, but most of the content is really about one’s affection for the city and sustainability concerns.

I know that it’s very easy to judge the homeless and be bothered by them, all the more so when you are made to feel as if you are lacking in integrity if you don’t help. We Love Van entirely avoids that emotional mess by attractively presenting a necessary product and letting water drinkers feel good. Imagine what one could accomplish with this approach. After all, there are other things everybody has to have. Connectivity. Operating systems. Electricity. Gas. Think about it!

I hope you’ll be thirsty in Vancouver.

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July 16, 2012 · 19:34

Golden revenue opportunity: Enable vacationers to take time off from digital living

Many of us, when we go on vacation, move our bodies from place to place, but our attention remains as attached as ever to the devices that connect us to our social networks, news, email, and work-related online resources. We become traveling digital ghosts, much like the walking ghosts who are so absorbed by their smartphones that they stroll straight into traffic accidents. Digital ghosts can be everywhere in what we used to call cyberspace, but they are really nowhere in conventional reality. Or at least, they’re not aware of being in the older world. They may have lots of digital fun, but find it hard to relax. Vacation stresses them out, because the risk of being disconnected from digital life is much higher than when one is at work and in high-bandwidth environments. They return fatigued and grouchy, but quickly forget about this when they are once again completely connected and distracted. After years of this, the mind crumbles, the body screams for relief, the family moves on, and the dog goes for a lonely walk.

Help is on the way, however. In the next few years, hotels, resorts, timeshares, and travel agencies will offer a new type of travel. It’s a little like joining a nudist camp, only digitally. Your vacation service provider (VSP) will make it possible for you to take a complete break from your demanding digital life—and nobody will need to know! To your followers and all the world online, you will be as clever and connected as always. Maybe even more so. If your VSP’s digital concierge knows what she’s doing, she will keep up your Twitter stream, Facebook updates, LinkedIn status, photo and video shares, and other online presences with the brilliance you wish you could maintain all the time.

If you want to go a step further, you can park your smartphone, laptop, and other devices with your VSP for baby-sitting while you enjoy time off in the old world. Of course, the VSP will contact you if there’s an emergency, unless you paid her not to do so. If you are miserable in digital withdrawal, you can book a session with the concierge to review your postings and get the highlights of what’s new with your followers and friends. If you lose your job during your vacation and your boss tells you so through email or a Facebook message, you can at your discretion rely on the concierge to keep this news hidden from you until your non-digital off-time is over.

Bed-and-breakfast places will offer their own, homespun and charming versions of disconnected vacationing. Your children will be able to go to special offline summer camps. Once the business and civic leaders in the areas tourists flock to understand how much revenue the spending from VSPs and their out-of-touch guests can generate, they will do what they can to support the business. You can expect entire districts of Rome, Paris, or Barcelona to go non-digital for entire weekends during tourist season to enhance their visitors’ experiences.

Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon and other monasteries offer you a retreat from your digitally demanding life. But VSPs will catch up with the opportunity soon.

Some of us feel shy to admit our desire for disconnection. Others are already signing off at times. Monasteries are leading the way for VSPs by offering retreats where you can take a break from the digital avalanche of your day-to-day life. The Monastery of Christ in the Desert (which, years ago, thrilled the world with one of the coolest and most beautiful websites ever) will gladly welcome you. So would Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon. At the Society of Saint John the Evangelist in Cambridge, you can even stay close to an urban environment. The level of tolerance and generosity in these places is very high—you don’t have to be a believer. Other monastic and faith communities are no doubt offering similar opportunities and will increase their capacity soon. They should really patent and copyright their offerings today, before VSPs catch on.

In the beginning, VSPs will be able to charge a premium for taking their guests’ lives offline. If you’re interested, you should get into this line of service right now. Eventually, digital ghosts from all walks of life will be able to disconnect a least for a few days. But don’t worry, some travelers will always pay for valuable services, such as a complete mental download of all the memories of an exciting trip—without having to go anywhere at all. That, too, is coming.

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July 13, 2012 · 22:51

How to write badly (3): Accomplish verifiable pretentiousness

We continue our exploration of bad-writing skills, which began with such promise a few weeks ago.

Ingrained pretentiousness makes your bad writing much worse. To achieve true pretentiousness, you have to do some pretending, of course. That means the Potemkin villages of your spotless mind need to find a colorful reflection on your patient screen. If you do this right, it’s very likely that a lot of your pretentious blather will get past the editor, who can stand only so much and is not paid to rewrite your entire production.

If you dress up your poorly written copy just so, it can become truly, horribly awful. Accomplishing this needs practice and perseverance.

Practically, conning the reader into thinking there’s more there than meets the mind is a matter of word choices and some other good habits you should make your own. There are very many ways to go about this. Here are some of the easier ones:

  • Verbum latinum bonissimum. If you can replace a one-syllable noun with a more elaborate noun phrase, especially one with an expression of Latin derivation, you should go for it. You don’t choose, you make a selection. You don’t just catch up on work that your client expected the day before yesterday, you provide retroactive deliverables. Forget about having a drink. Ingest a beverage instead. Get it? This might take some practice and creativity. If you read your draft aloud and find that it’s just not compatible with natural speech, you’re probably onto something.
  • Nobility moves conceptual mountains. Take this a little further and enjoy undisciplined verbosity in a tone that is just a bit elevated above your ordinary speech. The moment is not now, it’s at this time. You don’t ask inside, but inquire within. You disembark instead of getting off the ferry, of course. Naturally, you don’t do things differently just because it’s more efficient or less costly to do so, but also because you ensure strategic alignment in compliance with stakeholder expectations. I think this is the one I excel at, if I may say so.
  • Blandness becomes flavorful. Give your prose the right flavor of determination by sprinkling in mostly meaningless filler terms such as “certainly”, “explicitly”, “decidedly”, “clearly”, “highly”, “extremely”, “definitely”, “unmitigatedly”, and the like.
  • Actions are taken. Use passive voice to obscure who did what and make it sound like more agents and forces were involved than there probably were. Add irrelevant detail to increase the level of reader perplexity. It’s not that the baker made bread. What happened was that, after all the ingredients were procured, they were mixed in the proper proportions, and then loaves were shaped, left to proof, and eventually inserted into the heated oven, where they were transformed by means of elevated temperatures into almost painfully delicious offerings.
  • Obfuscation should be respectful. When you quote people in your article, you introduce them with their full name and title. Nothing pretentious about that. But once you’ve done that, you should refer to them as Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Ms., not just their last name. This is particularly effective if you can cite several persons. Speaking of quotes, it’s nice if they’re pertinent. But in the interest of bad writing, if you can include an additional, confusing or completely irrelevant statement, you’re way ahead. “We doubled our sales volume in the last quarter,” said Mr. Crux-Levander. “More sales team members achieved a new level of sustained effectiveness.”

Now, on to practice! Find a good book, pick a paragraph, and rewrite it poorly, using these bad practices. Put your results in the comments, if you please. Fine if you wish to use an assumed name.

As always, I shall close with the threat: More soon!

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July 12, 2012 · 18:36

Qualifying evidence customers: When the love isn’t there

Certain things you never want to hear from people. When a sales manager explained to me, “I’m a numbers guy and judge a lot from the dollar results I see,” I knew I was in for harangue about my poor performance. And when a boss asked me, “How can I help you,” I could see that this was the kiss of death in our relationship.

When you are managing and creating customer evidence, you never want to hear a customer ask, “What’s in it for me?” Sure, you can try to answer the question. If your brand is strong, customers might like to be associated with it. They might enjoy telling their story and seeing it published. Although, if that were the case, they probably would have thought of it themselves. If you hear this question, you are likely talking to the wrong person at a bad time.

I have managed a lot of evidence projects and written many case studies myself, as you can see in my portfolio. If customers don’t feel so enthusiastic about your product or service that they will gladly offer to support a case study, a video, or whatever it is you want to produce, they should not be in your evidence program. More often than not, the projects will fail. They never really get off the ground, stall in reviews, or the customers will have so many change requests that the result is watered-down and worthless. Really, you only want to produce evidence with customers who would never even think to ask, “What’s in it for me?”

Your customers don’t feel like this about you? Don’t even think about evidence. Make them happy first.

I know life isn’t really like that. Too many evidence managers are under pressure from their bosses, the marketing group, or the sales organization to produce a certain number of case studies, videos, podcasts, or what-have-you, often within a short timeframe. They get barely qualified evidence leads from the field or the channel partners. They may not have time to have an in-depth conversation with the customers, who don’t always know what to expect. Then it’s time for the case study writer or video producer to start working, and there is the question you don’t want to hear. Consider the project over. Find a graceful way to let it go without making the customer feel bothered and bewildered.

Companies spend many millions of dollars on producing customer evidence that doesn’t pay off because the results are just not all that interesting, credible, or fun to read and watch. Some enterprises make participation in evidence projects part of the sales contract, but that does not necessarily mean the outcome is any better. It’s just more difficult for the customer to turn down a request.

You really want evidence only from those customers who see so much value in your offerings and the relationship with your company that they will love you for asking them to support an evidence project and can’t wait to meet with your case study writers or video producers. It’s much better to have one or two credible, enjoyable evidence pieces than a dozen that lack strong proof points or sound like PR releases. If you’re an evidence manager, your job satisfaction will go way up. The customers will be even happier than before. And your company saves the exorbitant costs of producing poor evidence.

It’s not a dream, is it? We’ll talk more.

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