Why I love The Economist (One of many)

The quality of writing & discourse in most corporations leaves a lot to be desired. Watch The Economist skewer a memo from a Yahoo executive and in the process expose much of what is wrong in corporate writing.

Yahoo!'s peanut-butter problem ( A disturbing trend in the literary genre of leaked corporate memos)

WRITING a manifesto good enough to cause trouble has been difficult ever since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels set the bar rather high in 1848. So today's corporate bosses tend to call their manifestos “memos” instead. The genre has thrived in recent years. A decade ago, Microsoft's Bill Gates penned a classic, “the internet tidal wave”. Last year, Ray Ozzie, Mr Gates's successor as Microsoft's software boss, did quite well with “the internet services disruption”, a thoughtful treatise as such things go.

The latest example from Yahoo!, the world's largest internet company by some measures, reverses the trend. Brad Garlinghouse, a manager just senior enough to be noteworthy, has put forth a “Peanut Butter Manifesto”, which was helpfully “leaked” to the Wall Street Journal. It was meant as part St Crispin's Day speech to rally the troops, part corporate analysis of Yahoo!'s many troubles, part turnaround plan—and, it seems, part publicity stunt. But it turned out to be a redundant series of platitudes, split infinitives, clichés and mixed metaphors .

Yahoo!'s problems—it is lagging badly behind Google in advertising growth and market valuation—stem from a lack of focus, which inspires Mr Garlinghouse to evoke the metaphor of thinly spread peanut butter. But not, however, to the exclusion of other staples of the memo tradition, such as “silos”, “analysis paralysis”, “dropped balls”, and so forth. Mr Garlinghouse briefly gets specific, suggesting that 15-20% of Yahoo!'s staff should be laid off, but then returns to his theme, namely that “the smoothly spread peanut butter needs to turn into a deliberately sculpted strategy” (sic).

He repeatedly proclaims his loyalty: “I love Yahoo! I'm proud to admit that I bleed purple and yellow. I'm proud to admit that I shaved a Y in the back of my head.” He then signs off with a final exhortation: “Catch the balls. And stop eating peanut butter.” Is it any wonder that Yahoo! is struggling?

Ah yes, what would a conversation or memo in the corporate world be without mention of "dropping balls," "touching bases," and "hitting stuff out of the park."

Why I love The Economist (A continuing saga).

An honest airplane announcement:

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The flight attendants are now pointing out the emergency exits. This is the part of the announcement that you might want to pay attention to. So stop your sudoku for a minute and listen: knowing in advance where the exits are makes a dramatic difference to your chances of survival if we have to evacuate the aircraft. Also, please keep your seat belt fastened when seated, even if the seat-belt light is not illuminated. This is to protect you from the risk of clear-air turbulence, a rare but extremely nasty form of disturbance that can cause severe injury. Imagine the heavy food trolleys jumping into the air and bashing into the overhead lockers, and you will have some idea of how nasty it can be. We don't want to scare you. Still, keep that seat belt fastened all the same.

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Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft's navigation systems. At least, that's what you've always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn't sound quite so good. On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it. We will have to come clean about this next year, when we introduce in-flight calling across the Veritas fleet. At that point the prospect of taking a cut of the sky-high calling charges will miraculously cause our safety concerns about mobile phones to evaporate.

On channel 11 of our in-flight entertainment system you will find a video consisting of abstract imagery and a new-age soundtrack, with a voice-over explaining some exercises you can do to reduce the risk of deep-vein thrombosis. We are aware that this video is tedious, but it is not meant to be fun. It is meant to limit our liability in the event of lawsuits.

Once we have reached cruising altitude you will be offered a light meal and a choice of beverages—a word that sounds so much better than just saying ‘drinks’, don't you think? The purpose of these refreshments is partly to keep you in your seats where you cannot do yourselves or anyone else any harm. Please consume alcohol in moderate quantities so that you become mildly sedated but not rowdy. That said, we can always turn the cabin air-quality down a notch or two to help ensure that you are sufficiently drowsy.

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