Writing Lessons From Microsoft and Weird Al Yankovic

This week I have been humbled by Microsoft and Al Yankovic.

First came the “Hello There” memo that announced 12,500 layoffs amid a mountain of jargon.

Then came the parody video “Mission Statement” that seemed to reach into my computer to pull out whole phrases from my hard drive.

Rather than sue Weird Al for plagiarism, I think it’s time for me – and all corporate communicators – to respect the fact that we’re all just playing with loaded guns.

Real writing is dangerous. This hit home while reading Marja Mills’ new memoir "The Mockingbird Next Door":

• The first few pages quote Harper Lee’s description of Maycomb, Alabama, in 1932. It’s been far-too-many years since I last read those lines – and they still gave me goosebumps.

• I also remembered that my dad didn’t want me to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” in 8th Grade because, he thought, the book was “too dangerous” due to its depictions of racism and rape. I read the book in defiance, to prove to him I was a grownup.

As a dad myself, I sometimes recited poems to my little girls at bedtime. Their favorite was invariably the last poem ever written by Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee”:

• “We want to hear the ‘I was a child' one!” they’d excitedly beg in 1994.

• “Da-ad, do you know how depressing that poem is?” they protest 20 years later.

Yet it’s still a favorite poem and vivid memory for them; me too.

Real words crafted by real writers have meaning and resonance for decades.

The written word is so powerful that even the disguised phrases we sometimes use to communicate layoffs or express business concepts have incalculable impact on real people.

Perhaps the blank pages of all writers – even corporate communicators -- should include a warning label like those required on cigarette packaging… or like the dangerously evocative label on Woody Guthrie’s old guitar.

Why Do Journalists Chase Redheads?

Because, in the spirit of Willie Sutton, that’s where the money is.

Visiting Bloomberg offices recently, I learned that “redheads” are what the journalists there call headlines superimposed with red bars on the company’s news terminals. Redheads are the digital version an AP ticker chiming 12 bells and typing out “Urgent!” in the newsrooms of the past.

Reading some stories recently, I also learned that the compensation of journalists there is based, in part, on measuring how many “market-moving” stories they produce.

In other words, the more Bloomberg journalists can show they directly influence stock markets, the bigger their annual bonuses.

So I asked a reporter about this. He had offered me a latte from the legendary 6th Floor snack bar, and we were sitting on a sunny balcony overlooking Manhattan’s upper East Side.

“Since when is it part of your job to move markets?” I asked, in the same provocative way he sometimes questions me.

He said what I thought he’d say, in the same predictable way I sometimes answer him:

• Reporters, naturally, are paid to break news; this is just one way of measuring it.
• There are many in-house checks and balances before editors push the button on a potentially market-moving headline.
• The metric for moving markets isn’t really that much of factor in overall compensation.

(I didn't ask the followup: If it isn’t much of a factor, why use it... if there’s any hint of a conflict of interest ingrained in the measurement?)

My own line of thinking is different:

• Does a breaking news story move a company’s stock price, or the price of its competitors or suppliers, 100% of the time? Of course not.
• When you compensate journalists for moving the market, you shift the focus. You create a gray area where some reporter or headline writer may be incented just enough to sensationalize or stretch the truth.
• And in that tiny shade of gray, maybe only in a momentary window, you (or traders acting on behalf of your retirement or college-fund investments) will make or lose money.

I have great respect for journalists, and I know first-hand that Bloomberg reporters and editors, in particular, have a passion for accuracy. But could it be that this pay practice subtly degrades a core journalistic value?

Redheads are an understandable obsession. Ask Charlie Brown… or Wolverine… or any reporter who produces a story that screams “Urgent!”

But let's not forget the bigger picture:

Redheads exist to move hearts and minds, not markets.

There's Something About Mary

This headline isn’t unique. Neither is this photo collage of the shrines to Mary in my New Jersey neighborhood (see here). Neither am I.

The older I get, the more ordinary and common I feel.

Touring New Milford, NJ, this July 4 weekend, I saw more than a half dozen devotional shrines... an even greater number of small blue octagonal signs proclaiming that the homeowners are using an anti-theft alarm system… and a-still-even-greater number of American flags.

What do Mary statues, ADT signs and American flags have in common? I suppose they all promise to protect us in some way.

But still, I believe there is something different about the Marys of New Milford. And I think I’ve figured that out too.

For one thing, each one is an expression of faith in something greater than the world around us. For another thing, each one is flawed but unique.

In other words, each is extraordinary and uncommon.

These days, in my little corner of the world, I consider that a minor miracle.

Pretending to Be Famous

Step and repeat.

That’s what you call the photos taken in front of promotional banners at charity and awards events.

It’s also where, tongue in cheek and smiling widely, I like to have my photo taken lately so that, like Zelig, I’ll chance to appear years from now in historical photos.

Welcome to life in 2014… when everyone aspires to fame and fortune, and all the children are above average.

The truth is, deep down, I think we all realize that pretending to be famous is so much easier than actually doing something that changes the world for the better.

But, deep down, we can’t help ourselves. It all has to do with aurochs and angels, and the secret of durable pigments.

No, my narcissism isn’t a matter life and death. It’s just kind of silly, and even self-deprecating…

A useless longing for immortality.

“Ulysses" in the Age of Buzzfeed

Marilyn Monroe reading "Ulysses"

Did you know... you have an 8-second attention span?

That’s one second less than a goldfish’s.

Also, if I haven’t hooked you into reading this within the next 11 words, you’re outta here.

Those are essential web-writing tips from Andrea Smith, an award-winning digital communications consultant. She came all the way to Basking Ridge, NJ, to offer advice to Verizon's PR team. Other tips: use short sentences. And numbers. And bullets.

The advice was truly terrific for the type of writing I often do. But I enjoy writing other things, and the workshop happened to take place on the day after Bloomsday. I thought: What if I were James Joyce, trying to make a living in PR these days?

I could only imagine:

4 Homerically Interesting Observations About Dublin

Things got interesting on a first date this past week. I’m not going to write about that here (I’ll save it for Snapchat or some other form of private communication). But it got me to thinking about ordinary life and romance in my home town.

So here’s a list of 4 things I’m sure all Dubliners can appreciate:

1. No grey trousers. Ever. 
2. There’s history on every corner! (Of course, all the tourists are just a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.) 
3. Want to be taken seriously? Try shouting in the streets! 
4. Local cats cry “Mrkrgnao!” when they are hungry. 

That’s just a taste, of course. Right now, I have to run. My girl just asked me would I yes to say yes, and my heart is going like mad. So, yes I said yes. I will. Yes.

----------------------

That’s it. Exactly 150 words! Flesch reading ease of 92!! Cats!!!

I suppose if you really want to learn more about Joyce's novel, you could start with the backstory behind Eve Arnold's click-bait photo I’ve attached to this post.

I tried reading “Ulysses” myself this past week, but gave up on it.

As I eloquently observed to my nephew Steven yesterday while loading a cargo van with things he had borrowed for college, “I thought ‘Ulysses’ was a pretentious pile of garbage.”

Steven happens to be a linguistic prodigy. He will someday earn his doctorate from Michigan State in classical languages and someday publish a new translation of “The Odyssey” that will make Grene and Lattimore look like bumbling idiots.

“A pretentious pile of garbage?” Steven laughed… then delivered a pitch-perfect reply, as if a siren putting me back in my place:

“Well, Uncle Bob, I can see why you’d think that.”

The First Rule of "Gotcha Journalism"

"Fight Club" fans already know the answer to this. The first rule of "gotcha journalism" is you do not talk about "gotcha journalism."

So when asked to speak at last week’s Bulldog Reporter webinar on the topic of how PR spokespeople can combat overly aggressive tactics, I punted and said, "It's just journalism."

Thinking back on years of interaction with journalists, I recall only a few legitimate fights and not too many sucker punches.

A little over a year ago, I took a call from a Guardian reporter I didn’t know. After he laid out his story premise and research, I thought, “I bet I know who’s going to win the Pulitzer Prize next year,” before connecting him with a colleague who declined comment on behalf of the company.

Surely, that wasn't "gotcha journalism." (It may have been something else, given what we soon publicly learned of Glenn Greenwald's source, but that's an even thornier issue.)

As a PR person, I may not like or expect a reporter’s question, but that doesn’t make the question unfair. Similarly, a reporter may not like my answer, but that doesn’t make the answer – even when I must decline comment -- any less valid.

This give-and-take between journalist and source is changing due to technology. PR can't reliably play the "let's-go-off-the-record" game because not everyone follows the same rules. The New York Times can't play the "you-have-150-words-to-respond-with-a-letter" game because it doesn't own the printing press anymore.

Today everyone – including PR people, brands, trolls, conspiracy theorists and even my mother – can be a publisher. That may level the field a bit for PR, but it also makes the role of the journalist even more critical.

It's getting harder and harder for readers or viewers to find authenticity online. With that in mind, here’s a suggested start at my New Rules of Media Relations:

1. Show a little faith in people – including parents, teachers and, yes, even journalists – who try to help people find or discern the truth.
2. Do not talk about this with journalists.

Graduation Day

My daughter's graduation yesterday was a suspicious occasion.

Yes, this was the malapropism dropped by one of the presenters at Montclair State University's commencement ceremony at the Izod Center. I spent the morning watching 4,382 students -- MSU's largest graduating class in its more than 100-year history -- get their degrees.

It was a terrific ceremony. Very well organized, with comfortable setting and great staging. Lots of happiness, enthusiasm and energy in the arena.

I turned to my wife and said, "Finally, we're at a graduation that matters!" She laughed, thinking back to all the other graduation ceremonies we've been at over the years where she muttered under her breath that "graduating from kindergarten..." or "graduating from 8th grade.." wasn't really that noteworthy.

Afterwards, we told our daughter, "Now you can go to beautician's school if you want to..." And she just laughed too... in appreciation. Beauty school had been something she floated as a desire after high school, but my wife and I had insisted she get a college degree first. Being a beautician is a fine job, but my daughter (who used to play "teacher" when she was a little girl) re-discovered her love for teaching while at MSU. Over the past few years, she not only earned her degree in family and child studies, she also earned a teaching certificate.

The commencement speaker, popular author James Patterson, donates scholarships to MSU every year, earmarked to train teachers. During his address, he noted that "teachers save lives" -- and my eyes welled with tears of pride.

My daughter liked Patteron's speech... and the fact that he often posts photos of his orange cat online.

The photo here of the MSU red hawk mascot entertaining the crowd before the ceremony landed on my own Instagram account. I also, as you can see, wore a penguin tie to this auspicious occasion. I had bought this many years ago at the now-defunct all-penguin-item store at the South Street Seaport. Who would have known then that I'd wear it to my daughter's college graduation?

As for the commencement speech, Patterson told many anecdotes... his theme was the power of storytelling... which, I've since found online, he's used on other occasions.

For example, there's this about Catholic guilt:

"This priest came in, and there was a mountain across the street from the school. And he was trying to impress on us how long eternity was. And he said if there was a little bird and once every 1,000 years it flew over to that mountain and carried as much as it could carry in its beak over to this side and put it in our parking lot . . . when he had transported the entire mountain over here, that would be only the beginning of an eternity in Hell."

I'll end here with this one, which impressed me as particularly good life advice:

"Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls...are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered."

Civility in Corporate America

“You and the rest of your corporate greedy cronies are destroying the country,” the recent email to me began. “Does crawling into bed with a multitude of other corporate whores feel good?”

The sender felt compelled to use that “shock jock” intro in response to my company’s POV on regulatory proceedings at the FCC. I had respectfully provided background on the issue.

The truth is, my PR job does make me feel good… because, ultimately, my job is to help my company do the right thing.

The best PR is built on the best business practices. At a recent professional event, Bob DeFillippo, Prudential’s chief communications officer, commented on what he would have done differently during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to reduce the damage to BP’s reputation. He replied, “I would have capped the well faster.”

He also said, “I never had to compromise my integrity because of concerns over profit or to avoid admitting that we did something wrong.”

I can say the same about my own career. At my company, there’s an oft-cited one-page Credo that reminds us we only have work because our customers value our services. There’s also a more-detailed Code of Conduct that outlines policies to ensure integrity and respect in our workplace.

The result? I believe there’s more mutual respect, civility and decency evident in corporate America than in general society… or even in my church parking lot.

That’s not such a bad bed to crawl into after all.

Frosty, the Throwback

In my first job at pre-Verizon NYNEX, I was asked to take one for the team and dress up as Frosty the Snowman during family day in December 1985.

Yes, I enjoyed this... a group of laughing little kids followed me around all day. I came back the next year to do the same because everyone wanted to see Frosty again.

That's a Data General 6344 terminal in the photo. We sold these from NYNEX Business Information Systems Company (affectionately called BISC). We later purchased a chain of IBM computer retail stores to add to our own stores, called Datago, and I did the PR for this.

I used my employee discount to buy my first computer -- an Apple //c, complete with Appleworks -- at the Datago store in White Plains, NY. It was crazy expensive, considering my salary at the time and what electronics cost today, but it was also the beginning of a beautiful decades-long love affair. Don't even begin to ask my wife about my rapture at getting a ROM upgrade to purchase a 800K-capacity UniDisk.

With so many memories, my storage capacity needs have greatly expanded since then.