Comment by replicatorblog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by replicatorblog | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I think one of the first signs of bad business writing is equating the number of google hits for a term with its real life impact. This was a fun trope in 2000, but in an age of content farms and repeated links its kind of meaningless. e.g. I just searched for a random term "Gargamel Robot Fan" and got 15,000+ results.

That said, I like the products JF mentioned, but I think the universe of customers who like the cheeky tone of the companies he mentioned is fairly small. The Saddleback backs cost hundreds of dollars, Woot plays to an educated techie crowd, the farm he mentions is a super local business. You've got this venn diagram of people with a broad liberal education crossed with folks who have large sums of money for big discretionary purchases.

I work in the world of medical devices, specifically diabetes. It is a $130B industry and while some companies try to get conversational, the truth is most don't want a tongue in cheek/casual/authentic tone when it comes to their health. It might be conditioning, but people seem to like the idea of a massive company filled with scientists that seems "robust" if bland. I'm sure its similar in other categories.

I love the Saddleback copy, but it is not universally applicable.

Totally agree and well said. You've hit on my major frustration with both Fried and Seth Godin. It's almost snobbery. Expecting a level of fun and "humanness" from ALL businesses when really that only applies to a scarce few.

That's why we see the same few examples over and over again.

Cupcake stores, sneaker companies, farms, trendy software firms, design companies, etc. etc.

Of course they are going to have interesting language; they're emotional products and services.

But that's not applicable to server technology, serious consulting firms, medical, accounting, law, 99% of B2B and a slew of other types of companies.

The examples he gives are "fun" and "human" but the point he makes can be broadened out. Much business writing is simply lazy and cliched. This is compounded by the fact often a company won't want to describe its products in simple, accessible terms because the products need to be made to sound complex, mysterious, worth a lot of you money. So you tend to get terminology inflation.

True, but that's a different post/article that he didn't write.

In fact, your final sentence there would make for a much more interesting article than, "Business language suuuucks."

Why shouldn't "humanness" be a part of all businesses? Last time I checked, humans make up the majority of your business' customers.

I have it in quotes for a reason.

If you're going to be that literal about it, all businesses are run by and comprised of humans, so how could they be anything other than human?

I'm talking about the idea that everything needs to be friendly, personal, casual, charming, quirky, and the like. The reason that it shouldn't be that way is that it's not always appropriate or useful.

The reason that it shouldn't be that way is that it's not always appropriate or useful.

Why not? I hate dealing with companies that aren't personal and friendly. I am not a robot.

Because what constitutes personal and friendly is context dependent and highly variable from one person to another.

Neutral is often the right way to go.

What kind of language should the American Cancer Society use? What about the Department of Justice? How about an industrial farming equipment manufacturer?

What some would find amusing, some would find a waste of time and frustrating, and some would find insulting or offensive. That's fine when your target market is pretty much on the same page about that stuff. Just go after them and offend all the others.

But it's not as good when that market is not.

With certain types of businesses, the target market is easier to cluster around some style choices. With other types, either the market or the subject-matter doesn't lend itself to friendly and personal.

In general, the writing across the board for this stuff could be BETTER but that's not the same thing as it being more personal and more friendly. That link to Epic below shows some good copywriting that's not either, but it's clear and forceful and just the right tone.

I can point you to a lot of people who would never go to Woot because they feel uncomfortable with that particular brand of quirky. They are losing out on sales because of it, but they are hoping that the sales they gain will offset the ones they lose.

They can do that because they have no aspirations to be amazon.com. Microsoft cannot do that. ERPs shouldn't do this - quirky is not what makes you comfortable when dealing with business-critical software. Heck, personal and friendly may not be! (If you've ever used IFS...)

Tone is not the issue. The issue is writing which communicates nothing.

Here is how one might write copy for medical software:

http://www.epic.com/about-index.php

If you look around their site you might be pleasantly surprised. You might also notice that they do not write press releases.

That's good copy. I think it's very good, actually.

But it's use of "global impact," "interoperability," "integrated," and passages like, "The award-winning EpicCare EMR is known for being fast and physician-friendly. Integrated access and revenue systems simplify administration," are the kinds of things that get made fun of unfairly.

It's an easy target because so often those terms are over-used, but as someone else commented here in talking about "full service, end-to-end, etc." sometimes you have awkward or niche language because you're describing something awkward or niche.

Not all abstract language is empty.

Exactly, there are so many places where authentic or ironic speech isn't appropriate and wouldn't work. The phrase "Full service solutions provider" sends a lot of signals about being willing to deal with a low level of definition and a high level of bureaucracy on a project. A farmer whose first priority is "stimulating soil biota" sounds passionate but difficult to work with.

Great point about, "full-service solutions provider."

It's the kind of language I'd try to avoid using, but the alternative is to use 100 words to say something like, "Our company can handle the entire process, from strategy and planning to the execution of the smallest detail, or we can take on only the pieces where our support is most needed."

Which is better, the simplicity of sounding like an average joe or the simplicity of using 4 words?

Again, just because that language is occasionally left awash in a sea of meaninglessness, doesn't mean it can't be useful and send meaningful information.

I think you're missing the significance of quotation marks around Google search terms. To replicate Jason Fried's results, you need to search with quotation marks.

A search for "Gargamel Robot Fan" with quotation marks returns zero hits.

But I think your second point about medical devices marketing not working so well with a cheeky tone is good.

A search for "Gargamel Robot Fan" with quotation marks returns zero hits.

Not anymore...

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com