Category Archives: Buzzword bingo

Need to cut costs? Hit delete.

Posted on January 5, 2008 by

The rate of profit is falling for USA corporates (see EUI: 40% risk of recession in the United States by Robin Bew). It doesn’t take a genius to predict there will be a (further) spending squeeze for most companies. How … Continue reading →

Posted in Buzzword bingo, Content, Copy, Corporate online, Editorial skills, Effectiveness, Online strategy | Leave a comment

George Orwell on corporate communications…

Posted on September 4, 2007 by

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.” Link

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The tagline is still (always) important

Posted on July 8, 2007 by

“Let me save you 100,000 dollars,” says Guy Kawasaki, ex-Apple guy, and leads his audience to the Dilbert mission statement generator where you can find exactly the kind of buzzword bingo that we’ve all come to love to hate. At … Continue reading →

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Running corporate websites: the main issues

Posted on June 14, 2007 by

The same topics keep coming up: 1. Content creation and control 2. Globalization and localization: processes and procedures 3. Brand and message consistency: inside a single site and across country sites (and sometimes product sites) 4. Technical: content management systems … Continue reading →

Posted in Buzzword bingo, Online strategy | 2 Comments

How to be different…or not

Posted on April 12, 2007 by

The online world makes companies easy to compare: you just open several browser tabs and find the product or company websites you want to compare and flick from one to another. That’s hard to do with magazine articles, or TV … Continue reading →

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A passion for education…

Posted on March 5, 2007 by

The Ridings school in Halifax is in the news today, having been put into “special measures” for the second time in 10 years following a bad report from Ofsted inspectors. Here are few highlights from the Ofsted report: “The headteacher … Continue reading →

Posted in Buzzword bingo | 1 Comment

Classic

Posted on March 4, 2007 by

This job ad is as sure an example of corporate just-add-water-and-mix copy writing as I’ve ever seen. Someone said that it’s “proof that all you need to do is randomly re-arrange the words “passion”, “values”, “commitment”, “solutions”, “implement” and “strategy” … Continue reading →

Posted in Buzzword bingo, Copy, Corporate identity | 2 Comments

Say what the company does. A hard task, well worth it

Posted on March 4, 2007 by

In theory, it should be easy to talk about the company. In practice, it’s hard work. It’s common for corporate websites to seem “loose”. What I mean by that is, as a user and a company outsider, I go from … Continue reading →

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Why being “passionate” doesn’t make you different

Posted on February 6, 2007 by

Every company seems to be passionate these days: passionate about customer service, passionate about delivery, passionate about solutions. Not to mention passionate about creating passionate users. The trouble is, when being “passionate about” everything from selling woodscrews to building user … Continue reading →

Posted in Buzzword bingo, Copy, Corporate identity, Differentiators | 1 Comment

Corporate language: speaking out yet facing in

Posted on February 4, 2007 by

People writing corporate copy for online publication have good intentions. It’s their reliance on inward-looking terminology that can make their copy sound obscure, even when the underlying message is simple. At some point in the development or maintenance of a … Continue reading →

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