Marketing Help From An Occasionally Obnoxious and Always Nosy Source

Now that I'm a full-time communications trainer, I often introduce myself as a "recovering journalist." It's usually good for a few chuckles, and my seminar attendees get the point that I used to ask strangers a lot of questions and then arrange words into something readable for a living.

But, as I discovered years ago when I struck out on my own, those decades with the Kansas City Star and Business Week and the Penn State journalism faculty left me with a professional character trait that helps my clients fashion their marketing messages. The trait is a healthy skepticism (not cynicism, as some critics of the Fourth Estate would suggest) blended with the curiosity that is essential to any reporter's day-to-day well-being and self-respect.

So here's what I've done, and I'll use a Down East example since I live in Maine. Preparing for a big trade show in New York, a bunch of high-end, recession-proof boat builders had decided to dampen their competitive urges long enough to come up with a message, a "brand," for Maine boatbuilding. My job was to play the role of a broadcast business reporter in Manhattan wandering around the show floor looking for a story.

The actual scene was the second story of a shipwright's building in Belfast. Putting one after another of them in front of the camera, I asked the sorts of questions that a reporter not versed in boatbuilding and aiming for a general television audience would ask. How much do these babies cost? Who buys them? How long does it take to build one of them?

The answers came easily, but then I started asking them why Maine and not, say, Connecticut? Sure, Maine has a rich maritime heritage, but what proof do you have that Maine boats are better than others? I mean, when you're buying a million-dollar piece of equipment, doesn't quality mean a hell of a lot more than image? Don't more populous states have more craftsmen to draw on?

Then we ran back the tapes, laughed at the stumbling responses, and discussed key points to store up for just such questions. I don't recall all the solutions, but I do know that they dealt with the skilled labor problem by agreeing to consider an apprenticeship program to attract young craftsmen to Maine. We also chewed over examples from their own yards to illustrate "quality now" and not just heritage out of the past.

The point was that the questions an essentially neutral but skeptical reporter poses don't always get asked inside firms as they shape their messages for new products or services, or nonprofits as they polish a fresh fundraising or lobbying pitch. To paraphrase a crucial point I've often heard, it's not what you know that really matters; it's the questions you ask.

An Efficient German Take on PowerPoint

According to a posting on LinkedIn, the following question has become popular in Germany: "Do you have Powerpoint or do you have something to say?" "For any generation," the writer continues, "PowerPoint can bring the risk to distract rather than to focus. I have become more cautious and only use PowerPoint when it really brings an advantage."

Taking the Arrogance Out of Bureaucratic Writing

"In a mature society, public servant is the semantic equivalent of public master."

~ Robert Heinlen, science fiction writer

That's one thought I never fail to quote when I run business writing and presentation skills seminars for government agencies as well as nonprofits and private companies. Nowhere is that arrogance -- intentional or otherwise -- more apparent than in the dense, reader-unfriendly language deployed by many government bureaucrats. I've commented on this sort of thing before in several newsletter issues, but I don't think I can articulate my feelings more effectively than Stephen Wilbers, a columnist with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Read and enjoy his rules for bureaucratic writing. I love the sarcastic tone:

• Never say please or thank you. Politeness undermines your position of superiority. As the person with power, you have no need for social graces. Rather than "Thank you for your letter of October 1, 2000,” write “Your letter of October 1, 2000, is acknowledged.” Rather than “Please return the enclosed form by October 15,” write “Return the enclosed form by October 15.”
• Say no abruptly. Don’t beat around the bush. Your reader might mistake indirection for diplomacy. Bad news delivered without preamble will make your reader feel discounted and unimportant. Rather than “Thank you for your letter requesting an exception to our policy,” write “Your request for an exception to our policy is denied.” Can you hear the difference?
• Quote policy rather than provide rationale. The best no is an arbitrary no. If you must offer a reason for your decision, quote policy rather than explain your decision. An effective technique here is to quote long policy statements and to present them in single-spaced text, indented from the left margin. If possible, find some rule or regulation that, on closer examination, doesn’t apply to the situation at hand.
  
  Note that policy manuals, often drafted by committees, are a wonderful source of bureaucratic language. Accomplished bureaucrats have memorized any number of useful passages that they can slip seamlessly into their own writing as the occasion demands.
• Don’t explain a deadline. Never offer an explanation for something you are requiring of your reader. Remember, explanations are a sign of weakness.
• Use nouns rather than verbs. Avoid action verbs. They convey movement, and movement is antithetical to the bureaucratic mind. Think of yourself as a boulder standing in the way of your reader’s goal, not as a swinging door through which any dolt can pass.
  
  Rather than “You must meet these requirements before we can approve your request and issue a permit,” write “Satisfaction of these requirements must occur prior to approval of any such request and issuance of any such permit.”
• Avoid using personal pronouns. You’ll find it easier to avoid action verbs, as well as to remain aloof and distant, if you avoid using personal pronouns, especially I, we, and you. Note the effect of removing you, we, and your in the revised version of the preceding example.
• Use language that directs your reader’s attention elsewhere. Especially useful is language that points, such as above-referenced, below-listed, herein, therein, heretofore, and undersigned. Language that directs the reader’s attention away from the writer supports the illusion that as a bureaucrat you do not exist in time and space. It’s as if you are saying, “Look somewhere else, not here, not now. I have no physical embodiment, no face, no voice, no mind.”
  
  The bureaucratic mindset is a wondrous thing. Arrogance mixed with insecurity –- what a powerful combination.

Nice, huh? The old term "faceless bureaucrat" comes to mind as I absorb Wilbers' stick-it-to-'em prose. After all, why be human and sympathetic when you've got the law behind you?

Talk to you later.
Dave

Rebirth of a Blog

Back and forth I’ve gone on all this “social media” business, and I’m a long way from making up my mind. Somehow the notion of “tweeting” hasn’t quite penetrated my thinking when it comes to serious and productive marketing. But I am reintroducing my blog. Why I let it slip I don’t know, but I do recall that it made for relaxed and stimulating conversation. Please join me at http://www.businesscommunications.wordpress.com, and react by sounding off on anything touching on business communications, presentation skills and writing skills, and all their promise and pitfalls. I'll continue to share what I know about the news media and how you can gain from press encounters, as well as writing and public speaking for success.