1. For Immediate Relief: Speaking Like a Human

    NewsGator Company Info - Press Archive

    I will apologize in advance if either Ms. Farrelly or Mr. Marshall (the presumptive authors of this press release) is a friend, relative, or colleague of someone I know. And I say this not to hurt feelings. But, wow. This is just horribly written.

    I mean, this is why I have no stick for people who whine about whether Strunk & White should still be required reading for anyone with access to a keyboard. Regardless of the industry, audience, or purpose, this is just bad writing for non-people.

    You sitting down?

    NewsGator Platinum Partner Program Leverages Best Enterprise Social Computing Minds to Ensure Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Success

    Leader in enterprise social computing will name partners in coming weeks

    DENVER, Oct. 16, 2009 – NewsGator today announced the NewsGator Platinum Partner Program, an initiative to help large organizations obtain rapid, significant and sustainable business results from enterprise social computing.

    Enterprise social computing harnesses the power of social computing for business purposes by adding collaboration to dramatically enhance existing business processes and workflows. Social customer relationship management (CRM), social human resources management (HRM), social knowledge management (KM), social innovation management; collaborative customer service and support; social document management; and enhanced expertise discovery are all business application categories that are fundamentally changed as organizations move to enterprise social computing.

    Addressing rapidly escalating demand, the NewsGator Platinum Partner Program brings to bear the expertise and approaches of select global leaders with proven track records of driving adoption and results in enterprise accounts. They will design effective enterprise social computing initiatives, swiftly implement them, and ensure measurable business benefits.

    The NewsGator Platinum Partner Program will include partners for two categories of service:

    -Strategic Consulting: These partners will help customers conceptualize and design Enterprise 2.0 initiatives, define use cases, suggest technology approaches, ensure adoption and optimize performance.

    -Implementation: These partners will handle technical implementation such as user interface development, system integration and workflow.

    A first wave of partners will be named over the next few weeks.

    “Organizations are increasingly realizing that social computing has dramatically changed the way information is exchanged and that they need to fully exploit this enormous potential in business,” said NewsGator President and CEO, JB Holston. “We’re assembling the world’s most capable Enterprise 2.0 service partners to ensure that organizations’ strategies, technologies and tools are fully aligned with their business goals. We will understand customers’ needs, then bring in partners when and where they can help.”

    NewsGator is the leader in enterprise social computing with more than 1 million paid users of the NewsGator Social Sites enterprise social computing platform and “depth-managed” independent software vendor (ISV) partner status with Microsoft Corp., maker of business computing’s most widely adopted collaboration platform, Microsoft SharePoint. NewsGator Social Sites extends the capabilities of the Office SharePoint Server to create a complete enterprise social computing environment.

    Social computing is proving to be a potent business driver. In a recent McKinsey Quarterly survey of 1,700 executives, 7 out of 10 respondents reported that their companies have gained measurable business benefits from deployments of Web 2.0, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues. Companies that made greater use of the technologies, the results show, report even greater benefits.

    How ‘bout that, huh? Lots to love. Setting aside that it’s an announcement about a future announcement, you got yourself a greatest hits of ineffective writing going on here. You got passive voice, buzzword bingo, empty adverbs, tons more passive voice, and a piquant use of “air quotes” that lightens up a non-nutritional buzzterm even the writers seem to think makes no sense.

    I’m also a big fan of that yearbook-caption style of opening a sentence with a gerund (“Flipping the Wang Chung cassette in his Fiero, Douglas plucks at the pastel tee clinging like a crazy girlfriend to the sherbet Don Johnson blazer blazing in the blazing Dade City sun.”).

    What the eff is this “Program?” What’s it cost? How do I buy it?

    Okay. I’ll admit. I can’t understand what’s being said here. I went to public schools. Whatever. I’ll take a crack at it:

    NewsGator Program Helps Smart Companies Use Social Media to Speak (and Hear) More Clearly

    Platinum Partner Program connects NewsGator’s clients with the right consultant for their job — veteran pros whom we know, like, and trust.

    DENVER, Oct. 16, 2009 – Today, NewsGator wants to tell you about our Platinum Partner Program, which will assist our participating clients with finding any help they need to create and run savvy social media campaigns. The Program is [insert plain language about cost and eligibility here] and we expect to start running at full speed by [insert date certain here].

    Thing is, a lot of this social media stuff is complete bullshit. Seriously. We know that, too. But, we swear to God, there are actually a few folks that we’ve worked with a lot who won’t screw you or try to make you do dumbass things that damage your business’s reputation in the service of getting auto-followed by a celebrity’s publicist on Twitter.

    For one thing, our new Program can connect you with a trusted (read: non-douchey) consultant to help your company figure out what “social media” means for your business. Do you see it simply as free PR and marketing? Are you curious about testing the potentially perilous waters of public customer service? Want help with deciding what or how much stuff to give away online — and how to tell whether it’s doing what you’d hoped for your bottom line? You name it, you got it.

    Right now, NewsGator is working to build a roster of great people who can help you with either Strategy (“Aaaaugh! What should we do?!”), Implementation (“Aaaaugh! How should we do this?!”), or both (“Hold me!”). And, while we aren’t ready to announce all of our participating consultants just yet, we promise to let you know as soon as we do. While we’re at it, if you’re already working with some superstars we haven’t met yet — and if you don’t mind sharing the wealth — by all means, let us know.

    Here’s the thing: you’re already our client, so (we hope anyway), you trust us to do the right thing and not blow smoke up your ass. Well, that’s exactly why we think this is a good idea. Like smart social media networks themselves, the Platinum Partner Program relies on the “reputation economy.” That just means you want to listen to smart people who get you rather than douchebags and carpetbaggers who look at you like a cartoon wolf drooling over a pork chop. You don’t need our help to find those, right? Exactly.

    We’ll have more to say about all of this after we’ve settled all the details and drafted the final terms of service. But, if you have any questions about anything before then, give us a call or drop an email or just DM us on Twitter. You know how to reach us; that’s how you can tell we’re already pretty good at this.

    Thanks for reading this far, and we hope to talk to you again soon.

    Love,
    NewsGator

    Or, something like that. Whatever. Low-sugar time. Cultural Studies major. Anyway.

    We word types love to piss and moan for days about minor niggles in usage and grammar, but, I’m worried about something a lot bigger and a lot more malignant: a broadly held belief that deliberately opaque PR horseshit is not only okay, but necessary in order to sound — horrifically enough — “real.” And, that’s a shame.

    Because, if you’re working in a job where your credibility is pegged to saying things that literally don’t make sense, then there’s a good chance what you’re doing doesn’t make sense either.

    If what you’re doing does make sense, then, for Christ’s sake, talk like a human being. A lot of reptiles and primates died making bad decisions so that we could end up sitting in front of these keyboards, talking about “The Enterprise.” Whatever that is.

    Let’s show our evolutionary friends some courtesy by using the brains (and books and active voice) at our disposal to sound like we’re real people talking with other real people about real things.

    Think of it as a “Program.”

    -- 30 --

And, then, you were all...

  1. wka reblogged this from merlin and added:
    Merlin Mann, For Immediate Relief: Speaking Like
  2. bsag reblogged this from merlin and added:
    “A gerund attacks some peaceful pronouns”:...that’s why you never start
  3. daserbeam reblogged this from merlin and added:
    kung fu grippe: For Immediate Relief: Speaking Like
  4. neckbeard reblogged this from merlin and added:
    whole critique isn’t perfectly caustic, but as...former practitioner
  5. danielpietzsch reblogged this from merlin and added:
    NewsGator’s “NewsGator Platinum Partner Program Leverages Best Enterprise Social Computing Minds
  6. wkenworthy reblogged this from merlin and added:
    Merlin rocks: merlin:
  7. wkenworthy reblogged this from merlin and added:
    Merlin rocks: merlin:
  8. steampoweredmedia reblogged this from merlin and added:
    Or take my class. I teach one section of ENC 1101 in the fall and one section of ENC 2210 in the spring. We meet...
  9. simongoudie reblogged this from merlin
  10. ampersandean reblogged this from merlin
  11. kaching reblogged this from merlin and added:
    Write a Press Release T his
  12. pascal reblogged this from merlin and added:
    rest @ kung fu grippe »
  13. morrowplanet reblogged this from merlin and added:
    my office colleagues...soon as I’m done reblogging this. Yes. Sweet creamy Josephus, yes.