“Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.”
George Orwell – Politics and the English Language

(Opening a blog post with an Orwell quote? Pretentious, moi?! Well, I suppose, perhaps, but stick with me, there’s some swearing coming up.)

I’m not a great writer. I understand that. The vast majority of people writing blogs are not great writers, and that’s perfectly fine. But what really irks me are those blog writers who, rather than attempt to write clearly, deliberately write in that buzzword-heavy, cliche-ridden, business speak that is so prevalent on corporate blogs.

And especially on social media blogs.

In the essay quoted above, Orwell rewrites a well know verse from Ecclesiastes in modern English, so that:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

becomes

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

The point being that bad writing is not only uglier, but also more vague.

If Steve Rubel writes in AdAge that people “engage with a unit of media” he hasn’t done anything to help clarify what he is trying to say. It has a ring of scientific evaluation, but in fact it divorces the meaning from the words in order to suggest that there is a Great Big Idea hidden behind them. But he actually just means “read a book or watch a movie”.

Language like this doesn’t express new ideas. It can’t. The use of stock-phrases keeps us locked into patterns of thinking like a train unable to move from its tracks. I had someone DM me on Twitter that they were following me “because they found my content compelling”. That wasn’t a phrase they conjured up themselves, it was a phrase they had learned. A bad habit. A cliche designed to suggest a more rigourous thought than simply saying “I like what you say”. The irony* is, it has the opposite effect.

Nothing makes your content less compelling than using words like ‘compelling content’.

(*that is irony, right? Since I learned that Alanis Morissette was all wrong about what irony is I get so confused)

Now I understand that this isn’t a new thought either, but it has been on my mind lately. And then I came across this site yesterday - What the F#&* is My Social Media “Strategy”? (See? I told you there was going to be swearing).

Inspired by ‘What the F#&* Should I Make for Dinner?‘, WTFIMSMS parodies the social media world’s art of saying nothing in as complicated a way as possible, by giving you a random nonsense sentence to sum up your goals. For instance, I just clicked and got:

Activate audience by giving them compelling social experiences, encouraging advocacy

Great stuff! So I thought we could play a wee game here. Which of the following are from WTFIMSMS, and which are from actual Social Media/Marketing professionals. Ready?

“Humanise the brand by driving the audience conversations”

“(Help) to humanize the interaction with our community while maintaining brand identity and growing a centralized community.”

“Convert every one of your store associates into well-informed product experts by providing an interactive, course-based social platform/community that educates, engages, and rewards them, while showing them how they stack up against their co-workers.”

“(create) user-centric approach to social media design, implementation, and strategy that accounts for how different kinds of users engage with social media, and how sites and application design and execution lead to emergent social practices.”

OK, you get the idea. Obviously (?) the first is from WTFIMSMS, while the others are real. You get the point.

I’m sure there is plenty of hypocricy in me writing this. I’m sure there have been times when I’ve been as guilty as the worst offender. I honestly don’t mean to attack anyone in particular here. I just think it’s about time that we all slowed down a little and thought about what we are really trying to say, and how we can best do that.

And if that means quoting Orwell and getting all pretentious up in here, well, then that’s just what I’ll have to do.

We’ve seen the first hiring via Twitter, the first house sold on Twitter, and now an engagement:

Ah, the power of love!

Congratulations to both Sean and Tara – hope you’ll both have a wonderful life together.

Google, always looking out for us, has a new feature available for Gmail. Mail Goggles – love the name! – asks you a series of math problems before sending your email, so that those who have maybe had a little too much to drink won’t send anything they’ll regret later.

A great idea, you’ll no doubt agree.

We gave some thought to 5 more features our Internet Overlords should take a look at, in order to save us from ourselves:

Facebook Heartbreak Timecapsule – When your Relationship Status changes from ‘In a Relationship’ to ‘Single’, Facebook stores all your wall posts, messages, pokes, etc for a period of 9 months, and then allows you to decide whether or not you really want to tell her that she’ll regret it and you’ll never stop loving her.

Ebay ELIZA - turned on automatically after you look at two or more kitsch items costing over $5. The software will nag you with AI intelligence , “Do you really need that? Where will you put it? Shouldn’t we fix the ____ first?” until you finally give up and go to bed.

iTunes Rock Snob – Interrupts your playlists with sarcastic comments about your music choices, “More Air Supply?! Great”, and suggests obscure German bands of the 70s from the iTunes store instead.

MySpace for Dads – let’s you design and play with your page as much as you like, but blocks your kid’s friends from seeing it so they don’t have to live a life of shame at school.

Yahoo Happy News – filters out any news items with mentions of the economy, mortgages, Iraq, or Paris Hilton. Currently a blank page.

Can you think of any more you’d like to see?

Part 2 of the occasional series of overly-gimmicky blog posts that takes an iconic movie of the 1980s and tenuously ties it to a business marketing idea.

Plot Synopsis

In the 28th funniest movie of all time (official!), 3 disgraced parapsychologist professors leave academia and form a private firm providing paranormal investigations – calling themselves Ghostbusters. After some initial set backs the business takes off, they defeat the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and save the world. Obviously.

Business Analysis

When people think about Ghostbusters they think of the big climactic ending, “He slimed me” or Signorney Weaver writhing around on the bed (incidentally, this is very uncomfortable to watch with your six year old), but they tend to forget the first half of the movie is the gang sitting around with no clients, no income and lots of expenses.

After all, nuclear accelerator proton packs don’t come cheap.

But, with the success of their first ‘busting, all of a sudden there are more and more calls for their services, as the Sumerian deity Gozer tries to open an inter-dimensional doorway which will destroy the world.

And this is why businesses should be embracing social media today.

Lessons Learned

We meet a lot of clients who are definitely interested in podcasting/a blog/Facebook page/etc. Just not right now. Not with the economy the way it is. Once things pick up. And so on, and so on.

Did Venkman, Spengler and Co think like that?

No way!

They were prepared. So when Zuul threatened, Ghostbusters were already primed and ready to go. In fact more people were hired to help with the workload. They had their infrastructure in place, TV ads were already promoting their slogan – “We’re Ready to Believe You” – and, most importantly, they had a huge head start over any potential competition.

So, in this increasingly tortuous analogy, their Ghost Containment Grid is your social media involvement and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is a booming economy. If you’re prepared, and your competition isn’t, you can be a Ghostbuster.

We all know the financial situation is, um, less than perfect right now, and advertising/marketing dollars are tight – but things will pick up sooner or later. The beauty of social media marketing is that it is free-to-cheap. You can find someone to do some of the work for you (ahem), or spend a little time and do it yourself.

Start building your Facebook Group now and by the time Happy Days Are Here Again, you’ll probably find you have a good following of people ready to work with you. Jump into monitoring Twitter before your competition even knows what it is and pinch some business from right underneath them. Just remember that there is no time like the present.

In the truly timeless words or Dr Peter Venkman, “I love this plan! I’m excited to be a part of it! Let’s do it!”

The first part of a series of altogether essential tips for business, marketing and life – as gleaned from iconic movies of the 1980s…

Bullied underdog Daniel LaRusso learns karate from wise, old Okinawan Mr Miyagi, defeats the evil Cobra Kai, wins the tournament and gets the girl, all the while teaching us everything we’d ever need to know about car waxing/fence painting techniques.

Business Analysis

The median expected salary for a typical janitor in the United States is $23,820. Mr Miyagi is not a typical janitor. He is perhaps the world’s worst janitor.

Look at the state of this pool which is under his ‘care’:

Let’s be honest, he’s going to be lucky to get minimum wage with a poor job like that. So he’s making $8/hour in California right now.

Karate lessons, however, run from about $75-$200/month for weekly 45 minute sessions. Let’s split the difference and say $135. There is obviously the demand for lessons in the area, we see around 20 kids at the Cobra Kai dojo, plus plenty more at the tournament.

With Miyagi’s exceptional skills (he takes Daniel from no-hoper to champion in a month) he could easily attract 50 kids a week, 5 classes of 10 kids a day.

So, he’s working just 45 minutes a day, plus set up time, so maybe an hour, and pulling in $81,000/year.

That’s over $300/hour.

Mr Miyagi may be a great Sensei, but he is a terrible business man, and knows nothing of Ricardo’s Law of Comparative Advantage.

The Lesson Learned?

Time and again we meet with businesses and find that the person put in charge of managing the pay per click campaigns for a company is simply the person who is most competent with a computer.

He may have no experience with marketing or Internet advertising at all, but he’s the guy in the office everyone looks to for help with email problems, or booking tickets online or whatever. You know, the ‘computer guy’ that every office has. And PPC is just another computer-thing, right?

No, in this case you’re being a Miyagi-janitor instead of a Miyagi-teacher.

If you’re in real estate, sell houses. Run a restaurant? Get cooking!

Do what you’re best at and you’ll have the money to pay someone else to the other stuff. Everyone wins.

Just like Daniel-san.

I know that we’re all supposed to be more attuned to avoiding hype these days, but I think the folks at Facebook are setting the bar a little too high…

It is often said that the pr0n industry is at the cutting edge of any new technology, well if that’s true, then the jokers are not far behind.

Have you ever wanted to make a prank phone call but found yourself too busy? Well, never fear, Getmooh.com is here.  Simply enter the number you want them to call, along with a time, then select your message and you’re all set – you can have Alec Baldwin give your mom an abusive phone call for absolutely nothing!

Of course, it doesn’t have to be for prank calls. They also suggest you can use their service to escape from a tricky date (“I’m so sorry, I have to run, my room mate has lost his keys”), or send a ‘funny’ birthday message to a friend. The possibilities are endless. Especially as you can record and submit your own message for others to use if they wish.

Don’t you feel lucky to live in the 21st Century?

I really liked this idea from Charleston blogger Allisson Skipper, of eight things she’s into right now, so I thought I’d play along. In no particular order:

8 in Chinese

1. The Wire on DVD. My all time favorite show. I watched them all originally on HBO, but now I have my neighbors hooked on it, I’m re-watching with them. It’s just incredible the things you spot on a second look – plot lines that are subtly begun whole seasons in advance. And it’s still just as funny/moving/scary/etc each time.

2. Fantasy Football. Pre-season games have begun, so it’s time to start the research. I was terrible in one league last year, but won in my other one. Determined to do better this season, so I’m starting my reading now. And, of course, there’s the all important matter of picking the perfect team name. Any suggestions?!

3. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. I first read it about 8 years ago, but I seem to go back to it every couple of years. It’s by far the geekiest book I own (from Wikipedia “(it contains) some highly technical and detailed descriptions of modern cryptography and information security, and subjects ranging from prime numbers and modular arithmetic to Van Eck phreaking.”) – but sometimes it’s fun to be a geek!

4. Twitter. If you’re already using it, then you know. If you’re not, you don’t see the point. I understand. *But*, give it a try! It’s so easy, and fun, you can actually forget that it’s a great tool for interacting with pretty much anyone. People who wouldn’t normally open your email will be replying to your tweets, if you have anything interesting to say.

5. Jott. You know when you’re driving and you suddenly remember that email you forgot to send? That’s when you need Jott. One quick call from your cell phone, and you can have Jott send it for you. Or you can set it to text you a reminder. Or you can create a shopping list as you run out of things. Or update your Facebook. Or search Amazon. Or, well, you get the idea. It’s so useful, that’s why it’s my favorite Web 2.0 tool.

6. English soccer. Or football as we call it. The season starts this weekend, so I’m full of optimism about Liverpool’s chances to claim a first title in almost 20 years. I’ll be depressed and disappointed by October probably, but right now the dream is still alive!

7. Big Brother. I’m so embarrassed. Each season I promise myself I won’t watch, as it’s the worst kind of trash television, but somehow I find myself in the room when it’s on, and that’s it.  I’m hooked again.  Oh well, at least now that I’ve ‘come out’ I can cheer for Catholic School Teacher Dan with a clear conscience.

8. Spaced. Finally got a US release on DVD after many years of waiting.  And with tons of extras (a whole DVD’s worth in fact) I’m so happy! If you liked Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, you should definitely check out the show where it all began.