Plain Funny

Campus Report ^ | December 1, 2008 | Lance Nation

[bs9021]

Plain Funny

by: Lance Nation, December 01, 2008

Have you ever read a corporate manual only to find out you don’t speak “business?” Or, have you ever attempted to read a piece of legislation only to find out you’d have a better chance understanding how nuclear physics works? Better yet, have you ever had to pay a lawyer to interpret a legal document because “sense no make words?”

President and Creative Director of Firehouse Financial Communications LLC, Josiah Fisk has spent the past 11 years converting “business speech” into plain jargon. Presenting at this years Center for Plain Language Symposium at the National Press Club, Mr. Fisk explains a new technique for making employee handbooks interesting—humor.

Mimicking the sarcastic humor found in the Onion, Weekly World News, and many other tabloid papers, Firehouse creates witty stories about how employee regulations help the company, employees, and customers.

One headline reads “Man Constantly Re-Reads His Own E-mail” with the subscript “Say’s It’s To Catch Mistakes Before Sending, Not To Admire Style.” This bulletin was created by Firehouse to underlines the importance of sending the correct message to the correct person as opposed, well, anything else. “Experts Find: Acting In The Best Interest Of Costumers Is Good” was a “study” on how making the costumer happy is actually a good business plan. Or my personal favorite, “Cincinnati Employee Disappointed To Learn Even Gifts He Doesn’t Like Must Be Reported,” delved into the importance of reporting customer gifts even if it’s a new litter box for your five dogs.

And once fashioned, these stories can then be e-mailed, placed in the monthly newsletter, taped to the water cooler, or embedded elsewhere throughout the company....

[petro45acp]

Funny that, all those years and truckloads of MBAs out there trying to synergyze out-of-the-box thinking while maximizing leveraged potential.....

Hope they are taken to task.

[Uncle Miltie]

I spend lots of time translating business speak, most of which amounts to:

NOTHING.

[Dr. Zzyzx]

Speaking of re-reading before sending out mistakes, is it costumers, as in one who wears costumes, or is it customers?

[xsysmgr]

Speaking of re-reading before sending out mistakes, is it costumers, as in one who wears costumes, or is it customers?

Actually, actors wear costumes. Costumers make them.

[nufsed]

When Tom Peters was talking excellence all over the place, he used to say “The more manuals a company has, the less successful the company.” Our agency had dozens of manuals. Four years ago it was absorbed by a less efficient department the Department of Corrections in Cal.