Business babble (FrogBlog)

Killer Reads

Seth Godin: Unleashing the Ideavirus
This is the book that made me fall in love with Seth and his ways. I wrote my own little book of notes while reading it.
Guy Kawasaki: The Art of the Start : The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
This book blew me away. Excellent resource for entrepreneuers, or would-be entrepreneuers.
Seth Godin: Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
Excellent book for any business trying to figure out how to get ahead. This might be Seth's most successful (remarkable?) idea. A must read.
Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba: Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force
My favorite business book ever.
Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Every bit as good as the hype. Fascinating read about how ideas spread and how you can best spread yours.
Tom Peters: Re-imagine!
This is not a book for wimps. I still haven't taken it all in. It's densely packed with jewels, nuggets and mind blowing material. Feels like reading an encyclopedia that you can't live without.
Seth Godin: All Marketers Are Liars : The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World
Another great book from Seth. This one got me thinking about how I present my business, and how others want to perceive me. It gave me some great ideas. The "liar" metaphor was too much of a stretch IMO (it was done to grab attention but he had to spend too much time saying "no, not really liars") but the counsel is rock solid.

I am constantly struggling to not spout "marketing company babble" in an attempt to sound legitimate and win clients. My professional side gravitates toward that kind of talk, and I want to puke when I catch myself doing it.

For some reason corporate communication, in order to sound legit and important, has this certain haze around it. You never quite know what the heck is being said, but it sounds important. It's all a big turn-off for me and I'm regularly trying to tone it down myself while still trying to sound like I know what I'm doing.

I blame all this on lawyers (sorry Doug). There is no more hazy language than that of the well written legal document, designed to at once close all holes, yet still leave enough ambiguity that pretty much any claim can be argued in court with the help of the document.

For some reason, this hazy corporate-speak business babble has permeated everything and it's gross.

People don't connect to corporations, people connect to people. To be effective, marketing should sound like it comes from a person.

Anyhow - check out this site, read through it and laugh out loud. It's great.

Comments

That was an excellent posting, Carson! I just recommended it to my readers in my own weblog, CONTENTIOUS (http://blog.contentious.com) . See "Priceless Resources for Corporate Communications" (http://blog.contentious.com/archives/000127.html )

I'm intrigued that you blame hazy corporate hype on lawyers. Could you possibly elaborate on that point in a future posting? I'd really love to hear more about that.

I'm very interested in the concept of "corporate journalism" -- that is, taking a journalistic approach to corporate communications. (See my other recent posting on this topic: http://blog.contentious.com/archives/000126.html ). One of the main reasons I'm advocating corporate journalism is that the hazy corporate hype you complain about here often seems to undermine a company's communication goals
because it lacks credibility. I'll be covering this topic more in CONTENTIOUS. Check it out if you're interested.

Thanks,

Amy Gahran
- Editor, CONTENTIOUS
- Writer, Editor, and Trainer: http://gahran.com

Posted by: Amy Gahran | March 01, 2004 at 09:36 AM

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