Fight The Bull

Geraldo at Large: Bull Alert

2006-10-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

If you've always wanted to see one of the Idiots on TV -- and frankly there hasn't been anything as riveting since the last National Geographic special on man-eating fungi of the Amazon basin -- tonight could be a huge moment for you. Tune in to Geraldo at Large on Fox News (fair and balanced!) on Wednesday, October 11th for this fine evening program. A team of editors has been busy improving my 40 minutes of interview responses down to 38 seconds or so, so it may be nothing more than a glimpse.

If you've bought and read our book, this could be a waste of time for you. However, I've found what I consider to be a top-notch dry cleaner, and hopefully you'll appreciate how my suit and favorite dress shirt came out.

EDIT: Link to the segment on the Fox News web site

Culture of Stretch

2006-09-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

One of the big problems in the stampede to appear perfect is that the truth gets trampled. Ford Motor Company seems to be experiencing this, as the company has watched Toyota take the number two spot in auto sales. It's hard to say whether $80 SUV fill-ups or convoluted and self-deluding language are hurting the company more.

First off, "The Way Forward" slogan for this year's turnaround attempt has a kind of misty-eyed but committee-born aftertaste to it: it says nothing other than that the company rather optimistically expects to be around in the future based on F150 truck sales and occasional winners like the new Mustang. It also leaves us to wonder what's in it for the customer, other than the nice but unexciting prospect of having a company around to back its warranty claims. Compared to "The Ultimate Driving Machine," "The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection" and "There is No Substitute," "The Way Forward" implies a kind of desperate groping through the corridors of modern automaking, hoping for a light switch before we stumble in the dark and run into something. And no one has yet asked why Ford's embarrassing turnaround slogan is getting more media play than BMW and Lexus' product taglines.

I think, perhaps, Ford needs to stop making the inspired communicators park miles away in their imports. Clearly they're spending too much time trudging to the office and missing some important meetings.

Next, we talk a lot (maybe too much) in the Idiots book about the power of imperfection, and about how honesty is the Ultimate Attention Getter. It took a new CEO at Ford to get things warmed up a bit, but here's a frightening glimpse of a top executive experiencing this flash of insight, as reported by CNN/Moneyline:

Ford insiders told the paper that financial executives have traditionally had a broad say over the budget, including vehicle programs. That has spurred what some told the paper was a "culture of stretch," in which product-development executives overestimated sales volumes and revenues in order to get vehicle programs approved by finance.

Those unrealistic targets caused the company problems down the line, the paper reported.

"Now, we're being brutally honest," Cisco Codina, Ford's top sales executive, told the paper. "That's different from what we did a few months back."

Brilliant. Who would've thought that inflated sales volume estimates could be such a big deal? And what, in God's name, is a "culture of stretch"? Crap euphemisms like this are a sure sign that things aren't going too well, just as "report card image refurbishment" isn't something you'd want to hear from your oft-truant offspring. It turns out, with Toyota burying us, that we must now rein back a bit on the internal lying that, until quite recently, seemed like a reasonable way to run things.

I just watched the old Steve McQueen movie, Bullitt, a few weeks back, enjoying the classic '68 Mustang in its full chase-driven glory. It's time for the company that invented "cool" in the U.S. car market to bury the bull. Tell it like Steve would have.

Don't make it so hard

2006-09-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

Whenever I run off and give a presentation at (insert company name here)'s big annual shindig, I always get one questioner who starts off acknowledging the brilliance of our book (dubious, to say the least) and then comes up with some sort of reality check: you can't really be expecting all of us to be honest, witty and entertaining during the work week, can you?

Well, yes. And just as you don't have to be a raving genius to write a book about the bull that passes for business communication -- and you don't, as you've undoubtedly noticed even poking around this site -- there are ample opportunities to rise above the mediocre and soar with the not-too-wretchedly-dull people. This being a blog, you probably want a useful example, and likely you want it for free. Seeing as our programmer is still on holiday and we can't figure out how to assault you with pop-ups for the new Bullfighter VISA Titanium card for the ostensibly rich, I will provide one without a pitch.

I was asked some months ago to help with a recruiting book for a consultancy. Not just any book, but the one geared toward the twentysomethings fresh out of college. Having seen the usual stuff that passes as brochure content, I urged the writers to go to the 'summer associates' (e.g., interns) and get them to write their impressions after a year spent working for my client (the consulting firm). This they did, and we ended up with a stack of candid mini-essays of the sort corporate marketing people have forgotten how to write - essays about being a bit nervous on Day One on the new job, nearly missing flights, mistaking youthful senior managers for newbies, and so on. Real human stuff.

Then marketing and graphics caught hold of this recruiting book and decided to add sidebar quotes to make it look nicer. Stop right here and ask what sorts of quotes you'd expect. Got it? All right then. True to form, the sidebar quotes pulled were the most typical, expected things you could imagine, among them: "When we have a deadline, we all work together to meet it."

If that doesn't have 20 year olds rushing to get into your company, what would?

Turns out the summer associates had said more human and interesting things in the course of telling their stories: "Seltzer exploded out of the bottle and landed all over his suit." Wonder what that's about? Most readers would. And that's the point of it. Sometimes, steering clear of things like the anonymity trap isn't so hard. It can be a matter of thinking about what the normal corporate person would expect, and then veering a bit off the familiar path.

I drew a heavy line through the dull "deadline" quote and circled the "seltzer" one. I didn't have to write a word or exercise too many neurons. Much like young Luke Skywalker, the power can be within you all along.

Dawn of the Dead Blog

2006-08-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

No, it's not a blog about classic horror movies, although those zombies would undoubtedly be better presenters than many of our conference room tormenters: it's our first new entry since the end of the Britney Spears Era (or whatever was popular six months ago). Anyway, it would be unforgivable, except that what we've come up with here was well worth the wait. This mission statement came to us in a self-adoringly titled annual report for a company's internal research group, A Unique Competitive Advantage:

Our mission is to provide world-class thought
leadership and market insight that will foster
innovation and enable the successful pursuit of
client opportunities, while utilizing cutting-edge
knowledge management techniques to make this
information available to all practitioners.

Apart from being a load of -- er, well, a load -- the report was pathetic even in its concept. I can't say an annual report is a bad idea, but for an internal group to publish one is presumptuous at best. Worse still is the title, A Unique Competitive Advantage, which smacks of defensiveness and a need to justify the group's existence. Just as the star employees don't need to say "I am a star employee" or "I add value to the organization", we certainly don't need to hear the research team extol its own importance.

Perhaps at my next family get-together I'll introduce myself as Jon, the Son Who Achieved the Most in School. That should have all of the clan thronging about me during cocktails.

We devote a whole chapter of our book to the power of humility, candor and being your own harshest critic, and this isn't easy to do. But when stuff like the above bubbles up from the bureaucratic strata we're reminded of how oblivious people can be to something easy and basic. Yes, there's a time and place to toot your own horn. Using the car analogy, though, next time you're driving think about how delighted you are with the guy behind you laying on the horn and direct that road rage to your writing and editing.

Merry Holidays!

2005-12-14T11:25:00.000-08:00

Idiocy continues to stampede the holidays (can't say which ones), as I received yet another seasonal festivities card with a picture of a snowperson and a winter scene on it and no reference whatsoever to those days that people like to celebrate during December. Needless to say I felt completely merry yet unoffended.

Had the card arrived with one of those ornamented pine trees intended to commemorate you-know-who's birthday, I was savvy enough to have my attorney on speed dial so we could convene an immediate powwow (er -- conference in the tradition of Native Americans) to discuss my emotional trauma over this egregious attack on my faith.

I get seasonal-but-inoffensive cards from my realtor, airlines, and all my friends that I've worked with at equal opportunity companies that embrace all religions, races, creeds and degrees of spinelessness. As a native Californian, I must point out that I find all of this emphasis on winter discriminatory, as people continue to denigrate my geography. I wince at this display of thinly-veiled contempt, but inwardly I know I can endure the pain in the hope that someday the cards sent during this month (you know which one) will depict the Pacific Coast Highway and palm trees. In the meantime, you can be sure that HR is getting a nasty-gram from yours truly.

Anyway, here's my cheerful yuletide disclaimer: I heard, from a friend of another persuasion, about that holiday that falls on December 25th. I know what the pine tree is about. Mangers don't offend me, although they're overpriced in California and bound to fall in price as mortgage rates rise. Santa-You-Know-Who isn't a symbol of persecution. Reindeer are fine. I can handle the symbolism. For this month only, I offer an exclusive no-lawsuit guarantee: you can acknowledge a religion on any non-taxpayer funded seasonal stationery without reprisal. In fact, I may even receive it with a cautiously positive response.

So, now you can go ahead and send me one of those cards for that late December holiday. You know, that one. That'll cheer me up.

Yogi

2005-11-01T16:58:00.000-08:00

As the notorious author who ripped Scoble during a recent speech at Microsoft, it’s been interesting to watch the conversation unfurl. After extricating my size 9 ½ Nikes from their resting spot deep inside my oral cavity, I’ve had time to do some research (OK, OK – this should have come before my comments, not after). My real interest is not whether Scoble is a good guy (he is), whether he’s technically credible (he is), or whether he wears boxers or briefs (too much information). What I really care about is whether or not he’s actually good for Microsoft.

Let me start off with what’s not so good for Microsoft. One of my major issues is that sometimes it doesn’t make a lot of sense to air Microsoft dirty laundry in public. Sometimes, it’s better to keep things in the family, and Scoble (IMHO) has occasionally crossed the line here.

Scoble, you responded to this issue by referencing the recent Six Apart public apology for issues they were having. Agree – the Six Apart apology was a good thing for them to do. But the apology came from its founder and president. This represented the official view of the company, coming straight from the founder’s mouth. It didn’t come from a “technical evangelist” or some other random employee. The problem is when technical evangelists get themselves confused with founders and CEO’s. So when Scoble rails against MS for their anti-discrimination policy (for example), he’s a rogue voice (regardless of how you feel about the issue) who happens to have an oversized megaphone. Like a union organizer, he invites sympathetic voices to join him in his proletariat march. There are plenty of outsiders who will kindly do that for you, free of charge! I’m as new age as they come when it comes to corporate conversations, but no amount of dope from the Cluetrain pipe will convince me that this type of public issue mongering is good for any company. Sensitive issues sometimes need to stay at the family dinner table. It’s hard for me to see how backing leadership into a corner and forcing them to debate delicate internal issues in public is a good thing for MS. Scoble has created huge stature for himself, and with that stature comes a responsibility to, well, be responsible.

The tough thing for Scoble to do, and he seems to be doing it exceptionally well, is to walk the very fine line between constructive critique and destructive criticism. I worry that his credibility is somewhat reliant on his willingness to be critical – that creates some warped incentives. But Scoble seems to be very very skillful at navigating that narrow balance beam.

Having said all that, I looked at the impact of Scoble overall. When viewed in the aggregate, I must admit that what he is doing is good for the company. The main point of our speech at MS was around their need to develop more personality as they evolve. Feature and function superiority alone won’t cut it in a world craving humanity, meaning, candor, simplicity and authenticity. In a way, that actually describes what Scoble is all about. He has put a more human face on MS, and his straightforward and authentic voice seems to be changing conversations and attitudes at MS. He pushes the company to raise the bar with its products, but does so in a way that is positive. It is still unfolding, and much of what makes it work is Scoble’s personal prowess at doing what he does. So overall, I was wrong about his impact on Microsoft. It’s pretty clear that he is having a positive influence not only with the outside world, but perhaps more importantly inside MS.

As Yogi Berra so eloquently put it, I made a wrong mistake.

Brian Fugere

Sign me up NOW!!!

2005-10-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

The field of learning -- formerly "training" but who wants to buy that -- and online learning is to bull what the IRS is to forms. From my inbox moments ago (We take freshness seriously here at fightthebull.com):

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I hope all goes well.

We are co-sponsoring a Brandon Hall webinar on Proactive Strategies for Capturing and Consuming Expert Knowledge, which you may find very interesting. The webinar is scheduled for...

In fact this was quite timely, because only this morning I had jotted "consume expert knowledge" at the top of my task list in my PDA. Actually I had said "consume expert knowledge capital," but I understand this is beyond the scope of the webinar. Icing on the cake: I may know nothing about the topic, but my colleague and friend (haven't met him, however) has assured me I'll find it interesting.

I do hope all goes well.

I mean, we all do, right?

Nobody’s Perfect

2005-09-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

My stepsister and her family were among the fortunate and storm-wizened who left New Orleans before Katrina hit. Trey and Stacey had the gumption and the means to leave. They’re safe, although their jobs at Tulane University were washed away, along with everything on the first floor of their house. You only have to listen to the news for a couple of minutes a day to know how fortunate they are.

The hard part for most of us – comfortable and dry in our homes with clean running water, electricity, trash removal and DSL – has been watching the aftermath. Only weeks later, Katrina is already emerging as an historic example of bureaucratic incompetence. With ample warning, all the planning, forecasting and models showing how bad things could get sat on shelves and hard drives. Against this canvas of humiliating and inexcusable paralysis, politicians faced a communications test beyond anything the white collar set could imagine. And it’s hard to imagine anyone failing more badly.

Initially, we heard remarks from President Bush to the effect that no one had anticipated the breach of the levees protecting New Orleans, prompting a secondary flood – of ridicule. In fact, many people had anticipated the breach of the levees, and even those of us not in the Army Corps of Engineers had an inkling that a city below sea level might be vulnerable to a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. Credibility lost.

Even worse were the remarks from Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu who, on September 1, was using a CNN interview to thank federal officials for their assistance, thank President Bush for his “strong statement of support and comfort,” and thank Congress for going to “an unprecedented session to pass a $10 billion supplemental bill… to keep FEMA and the Red Cross up and operating.”

CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper spoke for many of us when, exasperated, he challenged Landrieu’s comments by pointing out that there had been a body in the street, being eaten by rats, for two days and that hearing politicians commending one another might seem a bit disingenuous when the entire world was watching live coverage of the gruesome failure of any government agency to act in a timely way.

It’s hard to grasp the devastation and misery facing the Gulf Coast right now. Having had a close call with the wildfires that swept through southern California in 2003 – when local and state governments had a hard time coordinating in an emergency situation – I have a sense of the frustration, but on a smaller scale. We needed strong leadership, and sincere communication. What we heard were clichés and perfunctory thank you’s.

Business people should be watching this and taking to heart the brusque treatment politicians have received from emboldened journalists like Cooper. Far too often, executives and managers take this kind of empty banter over substance. The distance between reality and speechifying is never as stark in business as after a natural disaster, but there’s no denying the anger caused by these empty comments from Bush, Landrieu and others. People can see the bodies in the streets. A little more sincerity and a lot fewer speech writers might be a good start.

In the meantime, I can't do any better than to quote Senator Landrieu’s closing comment:

“Nobody’s perfect.”

Critical workforce segments essential to success

2005-08-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes even the best correspondents I work with in my editorial role fall prey to the sort of idiocy we love to ridicule.

Here's an excerpt from an article on workforce talent management. (You're probably thinking that with a topic like that I was walking into a bull ambush. And, you would be right. I don't know what I was thinking.)

"(Name withheld) defined critical workforce segments as the parts of the workforce most essential to a company’s success. ... The (company name) team worked with the client to develop specific evaluation criteria and measurements for management levels including, among others, individual excellence, global focus, and innovation. Because the criteria can be applied across the organization, the client is able to identify and manage its top talent systematically."

The problem here is evasiveness. Of course our reporter dutifully asked for specifics, because he doesn't want to hear another one of my rants. But the "specific evaluation criteria" here are rubbish like "individual excellence" and "global focus". How can you be focused globally? How can we pass off "excellence" as a "specific criterion"? This kind of rigor makes the Miss America pageant look hardcore statistical science in comparison.

Maybe the lesson here is this: As soon as some idiot invokes the "specific" label, the odds are overwhelming that what follows will be vague platitudes. All of which demand a followup, "Can you provide an example?"

Danka: Shame

2005-07-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

It's not hard to chastise mega-criminal, society-destroying enterprises like Enron, but sometimes even good companies that perform real services can get caught in the bullstorm.

From the blurb at the bottom of a Danka U.S.A. press release:

Danka delivers value to clients worldwide by using its expert technical and professional services to implement effective document information solutions. As one of the largest independent providers of enterprise imaging systems and services, the company enables choice, convenience, and continuity. Danka's vision is to empower customers to benefit fully from the convergence of image and document technologies in a connected environment. This approach will strengthen the company's client relationships and expand its strategic value.

So what, pray tell, does Danka do? Well, rumor has it they install and service printers and copiers. And of course they empower this equipment by leveraging strategically positioned wall receptacles.

We can't make this stuff up

2005-04-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

If you've had a software gift certificate lurking in your wallet or purse for a while and were unsure of how to spend it, take note:

Press Release
Source: SAP AG
SAP Launches More Than 100 Industry-specific Analytic Applications
Tuesday April 26, 4:00 am ET

SAP(R) Analytics Deliver on Enterprise Services Architecture Commitment COPENHAGEN, Denmark, April 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SAP AG (NYSE: SAP - News) today unveiled more than 100 industry-specific analytic applications that empower users with innovative new ways to drive core processes and business decisions based on actionable business insight. SAP® Analytics are a new breed of model-driven composite applications that change the analytic application playing field across more than 25 industries. By merging data from SAP and non-SAP applications with business intelligence queries, SAP Analytics eliminate disparate islands of data and seamlessly combine transactional, analytic and collaborative steps across multiple business functions, departments and even organizational boundaries. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® '05, SAP's international customer conference, being held in Copenhagen, Denmark, April 26-28.

Press releases like this one are what convinced us to stop trying to make up examples for our books and presentations. We admit it. We can't top stuff like this. At least now we know what Analytics are. They're a new breed of model-driven composite applications that change the analytic application playing field and seamlessly combine collaborative steps across organizational boundaries. Sign me up now. My only regret is that I didn't get to party at this nerdfest in Copenhagen.

Laughable But Kinda Scary

2005-04-21T07:32:00.001-07:00

As if we needed more proof that we've all thrown in the towel when it comes to trying to understand professional writing and speaking...

In a project that sounds like something too absurd even for us, three MIT graduate students submitted a computer-generated, nonsensical paper full of bull-speak to a conference. Astonishingly, or maybe not, it was accepted.

From the Boston Globe editorial:

Jeremy Stribling, Max Krohn, and Dan Aguayo call their paper ''Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy" -- which might have been seen as a tip-off that scientific beaks were being tweaked. After all, why would anyone want to unify redundancy?

But the four-page send-up, laced with confounding graphs, was accepted by an international conference that itself sounds like a spoof: ''The Ninth World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics."

So, the moral to all of this is either that we have all been right about everyone tuning out all the obscure prose, or that you can get through MIT and present at prestigious conferences without anyone knowing what you've said.

We could have cited dozens of other articles, but on the advice of our PR team (well OK, PR person) we're using the link here because of the Globe's extremely sensible recommendation at the end:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/04/20/say_what/

Title Bout: Bullfighter versus WhiteSmoke

2005-04-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

One of the side effects of the Bullfighter software and our campaign against bullshit has been a steep decline in the amount of bullshit available for our study. Just like the ornithologists get all worked up about the decline of the red-footed, white-tufted boobie (or the white-footed one with the red feathers - I actually don't remember) and the destruction of its habitat, we've had a harder time finding original bull in its natural habitat. We're not producing as much as we once did, and we've made a career out of embarrassing the people who continue to write this stuff. Eco-grammarians picket our homes, taking us to task for our over-harvesting of bull.

With this minor crisis unfolding, we were delighted to learn of a new bit of software called WhiteSmoke, a Microsoft Word plug-in designed to enrich our documents. This is a real product, available at http://www.whitesmoke.com/. You can download a 7-day evaluation copy to get a feel for how it works. At first I thought this must be a joke, but after several Web pages of information, the usual mind-numbing license agreement and a professional-looking splash screen, I realized my incredulous laughter wasn't what the WhiteSmoke team had intended. This is supposed to be serious software.

Yes, this is real. (Where did I put that bottle opener?)

I've had Bullfighter on my PC's since 2003. The result? It's difficult to find rich, unmolested bull in most of the documents in that pasture known as my C: drive. Overharvesting, overzealousness or just too many dull conference calls that allow me to run Bullfighter repeatedly -- whatever, I've noticed a serious shortage. WhiteSmoke could have solved that. Just as loggers are required to re-forest the areas they cut, I imagined our legions of Bullfighter addicts taking some responsibility to re-bullshit at least a few documents so people would remember the scourge we had fought. What would happen if future generations never read about the "Value-added initiative" or "Extensible knowledge capital"? WhiteSmoke to the rescue, I thought.

Well, forget that. WhiteSmoke is a piece of garbage. Under the guise of adding sophistication to writing, it pollutes it with deadening adjectives and adverbs and swaps out innocent nouns for ones that make little sense. And it accomplishes all of this through a tedious, manual interface. Let's have a look:

Our customer service could be better. We have four customer complaints for every 100 items we sell – slightly worse than our competitors. But what’s worse is that it takes two phone calls and 20 minutes to straighten things out. In the meantime, our customers have software that isn’t working right. If you believe the research, they’re spreading bad news about our software until we resolve the installation problem. Even then, we probably haven’t converted them into real fans.

That's my original sample, written in Word. Uninspired, but passable. Bullfighter approved - an 8.2 Bull Composite Index is pretty good. (Even the late Dr. Seuss wouldn't score much above a 9.0, and Horton Hatches an Egg doesn't demand the long words you'd need for Norton Hatches a New Antivirus Software Suite.)

After installing WhiteSmoke, I started Word XP and opened my document. Where I thought I was done, and where Bullfighter was contentedly grazing in its pen, WhiteSmoke saw many possibilities for 'enrichment'. The word choices range from extraneous to absurd, and I was beginning to feel as though my free 7-day trial was somewhat overpriced. With some judicious selections on my part, here's where we ended up:

Our quality customer service could be better. We have four customer complaints for every 100 individual articles we sell – slightly worse than our weak adversaries. But what's worse is that it eventually extracts two business calls and 20 minutes to straighten entities out. In the meantime, our enthusiastic clients have computer software that isn't effectively performing right. If you seemingly accept the scientific scrutiny, they're disseminating bad news about our computer software until we suitably settle the innovative installation problem. Even then, we probably haven't transformed them into real fans.

Looking somewhat pale at what I'd ended up with, I gingerly woke Bullfighter for its afternoon feeding and got gored. Now I was down to a 5.1 on my BCI, and I had taken care not to add any known bull terms into the document. To be fair, WhiteSmoke relies on a dictionary of words that come from a real dictionary and not a consulting orientation guide. My Flesch score took a dive, however. What left me shaking my head at the whole experience was that none of the words WhiteSmoke had suggested added any meaning to what I had written. I can't say that it made me sound smarter -- a stretch for any software, and even most of my grade school teachers. I can't say that it's even better in terms of pure grammar.

What I can say for certain is that WhiteSmoke's disastrous design is surpassed only by the stupidity of its concept. If I had to hand out a letter grade, an 'F' would be charitable.

I've sent a note along to the Web Guy, who spends his weekends working on the next generation of Bullfighter, asking him to include a new feature: We would like to automatically run the uninstall program that comes with WhiteSmoke. If Bullfighter did only this one thing, it would be the most valuable bit of software you've ever downloaded.

Reverse Bullfighter.

2005-04-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

First there was Bullfighter.

And now, there is White Smoke.

We're not sure if this is a hoax, but it appears there's a new writing software in town called White Smoke. Yep, as in, the stuff you leave in your wake when you don't want people to understand what you're saying.

Here is the flash demo (volume required). Ironically, this software actually adds "more impressive" words to your document.

We need to challenge these guys to a showdown.

Thanks to Cronopio for the heads up.

Manure Madness Crowns a Champion

2005-04-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

(April 4, 2005) -- It's official: by a convincing margin (55-45), McKesson trounced Lockheed to win the title of 2005's Shining Beacon of Business Idiocy.

Our judges, and all those who stopped by to vote, were thoroughly impressed with the level of idiocy in McKesson's letter. Empty calories, verbal diarrhea, cheesiness, commitophobia, and total lifelessness – these guys showed up with an all-court game, and they came to win. Even the highlight clips are enough to get us all hot and sweaty:

• "Clearly, McKesson is well-positioned for growth." (Good... yes, this is good. Growth is good. We all like growth. And this overused cliché appeared in almost every contestant's letter this year.)

• Apparently, "the forces for change are intensifying." (Remember you read it here first.)

• "A recent study by the Healthcare Distribution Management Association identified the important value provided ... through superior delivery logistics ... and phenomenal operating efficiencies combined with innovative valueadding services." (So, scratch "crappy logistics" and "age-old value-subtracting services" from your company's operating goals.)

• They're "implementing a series of organizational refinements designed to better align and integrate [their] product development and selling efforts with the evolving needs of the marketplace." (Developing and selling stuff that customers want - too bad the competition isn't on to this. We think it could be big.)

• "As a result of our recent organizational changes, continued focus on operating efficiencies and expense controls, favorable market conditions, comprehensive solutions to address healthcare's need to improve quality and reduce cost, product innovation and strategic initiatives, we believe McKesson is well positioned for sustained growth." (a.k.a., the kitchen sink strategy)

• While we continue to leverage our cost structure through expense controls and productivity programs, Pharmaceutical Solutions operating margin rate and operating profit came under pressure as a result of reduced product sourcing opportunities and lower pricing to customers. To stabilize margins, we are executing proactive programs to address both the profit that we earn from the services we provide to our manufacturer partners and our pricing to customers. (Proactively managing profit. Careful with the specifics! Better hope the competition doesn't hear about that novel approach.)

Congratulations, McKesson, and everyone involved in your annual report. Lockheed, it's a bitter loss, but we know you'll be back next year, stronger than ever, and even more determined. We'll watch both teams (and all our contestants) as they issue press releases and post new web copy in an effort to show their strength going into next year's tournament.

But this year belongs to McKesson. They proudly take home the trophy as the 2005 Shining Beacon of Business Idiocy.

And now for something different ...

2005-04-01T06:26:00.000-08:00

We interrupt our coverage of Manure Madness to bring you some refreshment: a company with personality.

Can you imagine how our two finalists would have crafted the same message?

"Google, the world's leading information technology search provider, is pleased to announce the latest version of its robust, innovative technology-based communications service to maximize and extend storage capacity while optimizing the user experience."

McKesson's Turn at the Stake.

2005-03-31T10:28:00.000-08:00

It's neck and neck between our two finalists, and McKesson is still slightly edging out Lockheed 52-48. This game is close! Have you voted yet?

For our half-time show today, we'll continue our trek through the competitors' home towns. Today's visit to McKesson takes us to their website, where we found this bit of news proudly placed in the upper-left hand corner of their home page:

McKesson Corporation, the world's leading healthcare services company, has released the latest version of its premier, evidence-based InterQual Criteria, which includes updates across the range of clinical criteria and extends its innovative care facilitation criteria designed to support proactive reviews and discharge planning for all inpatient levels of care. The release also includes new criteria for "controversial" procedures and imaging studies to help guide care managers in discussions with medical directors.

It's not hard to see why this team is still in the tourney! The same star who wrote the annual letter must also write these releases. Let's try to dissect this one to see if we can make some sense of it: so, McKesson is releasing some criteria, which includes lots of medical updates, and extends some stuff .... oh, we give up! Read that first sentence again, people, and tell us if you can understand it! The release drones on:

These workflow applications leverage the InterQual 2005 criteria and add a powerful new set of integration capabilities, including enhanced options for using Solucient(R) length-of-stay data files within the review process on a PC or PDA.

Have these people ever heard of a period? Full stop? End sentence? We'll give anybody $100 who can interpret the above. With verbal diarrhea this bad, who needs diets?!?!

(/r)

We'll continue the tournament updates tomorrow, and on Monday will announce this year's Shining Beacon of Business Idiocy. You won't want to miss it.

Tournament Update

2005-03-30T12:31:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, March 30, 2005 – Tournament update: This one is going to be neck-and-neck. In the first quarter of the championship game, McKesson has won 55% of your votes, and Lockheed trails with 45%. Lockheed supporters, your team needs you now more than ever.

As our two finalists duke it out in the polling booth, we thought it’d be good to get to know both teams a little better. Where they come from, what they’re made of, and what they’re all about.

(Cue cheesy montage video here, showing every lay-up, alleyoop and slamdunk of the tournament, interspersed with a generous helping of tear jerking about the coach’s sick kid, and his triumph over a very rare illness).

Our first stop on the communications tour of both companies is a knock on their web doors.

Tomorrow we’ll look at McKesson, but in honor of last night’s episode of The Office, we’ll turn our attention today to Lockheed Martin and its much-touted Diversity Initiative.

The initiative takes center stage in the About Us section of the company’s website with this ethnically balanced senior year-style portrait:

I don't know about you, but as a woman, I’m always finding myself in this position with co-workers!

If you click on this picture, the site takes you to Lockheed’s Total Value booklet, which tells us that:

Lockheed Martin’s vision is to be the world’s best systems integrator in aerospace, defense and technology services.

Okay – not bad. Fairly clear. But it continues:

We pursue this vision as a team. Success comes only with the collective contribution and innovation of employees.

Cheese alert! Empty calories coming your way!

People often ask what sets Lockheed apart from its competitors. The answer is people. Our missions extend beyond national boundaries to serve the world’s needs from the depth of the sea to the surface of the Earth and the universe beyond. The Lockheed Martin team enjoys tackling the toughest challenges of the most profound significance.

So what’s wrong with this? It passes a few basic tests. Jargon free? Check. Admirable cause? Check.

The problem with this kind of language is that it is insulting. It makes us want to tune out whatever “management” has to say, because it offers no insight, no appreciation for nuance, and no real meaning. It is a sticky wad of cotton candy that tastes good but has no nutritional value. Do we know anything more about the company? Is this information we needed or can act upon? Does it reveal anything at all? It’s what the Authentic Voice blog calls Corporate Drone.

If companies would just have a meaningful conversation with their employees, customers, and shareholders, we might start to like them. But when they talk down to us with this inspired insipidness, it's easier to just tune them out. And this is what's happening in business today: nobody is listening. Executives toil over communications (like The Total Value booklet) that really are designed to make employees feel good. But by the time the piece goes through the various spin cycles of Legal, HR and PR, it comes out saying nothing -- and becomes some of the most expensive four-color glossy printed stuff ever destined for the recycle bin.

Okay, end of rant. We'll be back tomorrow with a peek at some of McKesson's most egregious communications fouls.

'Til then, play ball!

Polls are Open: Manure Madness Finals

2005-03-29T09:20:00.000-08:00

The popcorn bowl is empty. The blue recycle box in the garage is overflowing with crushed Pabst cans. You're bleary-eyed from watching all the action, and your charge card is maxed out by the 50" monitor you bought just for this moment.

That's right, sports fans, it's finally here: championship time, the climax of Manure Madness, where you'll bask in the warm glow of seeing the most bull-laden annual report of 2005 take its rightful place at the top of the heap.

It's time for the final round - and your chance to vote for which annual report is truly the worst of the worst. From Empty Calories to Commitophobia to uber-Cheesiness, this isn't going to pretty and neat. The truth will be stretched, bruised, battered and deep fried beyond anything you've witnessed before, and count on extra cheese.

Our two final contenders are (drumroll) Lockheed Martin and McKesson. Yes, it's hard to believe, but Lockheed and McKesson took out some of the tournament's strongest competitors. You can read about every contender's shareholder letter here, but let's look back at what got our two special finalists to this hallowed place in the Manure Madness tournament:

Lockheed Martin trounced its Final Four foe ADM as decisively as it trounced all those who came before. Remember, this is the team that put everyone on notice with its impressive, record-breaking display of clichés:

“In a successful company such as ours, every employee shares a vision of how best to serve our customers at their defining moments. We place a premium on people development and opportunity. Foremost, we are dedicated to assuring an environment of inclusion, because diversity adds strategic depth to our company and in doing so we all become stronger. In the coming year, we will continue to focus on talent development…”

This proved that Lockheed was capable of producing a sustained and consistent quotient of empty calories and corporate cheese – the kind that distinguishes the truly great (?) from the merely good (?). And if there was any doubt in anyone's mind, Lockheed came at its opponents with this:

“No company can address future opportunities successfully without a top-down dedication to ethical and sound business practices. Ethics is the foundation of our enterprise and is not negotiable. It is a responsibility that cannot be delegated and belongs to every employee. The world we live in will not accept anything less and neither should we.”

Over in the other bracket, McKesson was clawing its way past some of the toughest competitors this tournament has ever seen. Despite a tense nail-biter against Honeywell, and a hard-fought match-up against Altria, McKesson is here because of its impressive verbal diarrhea skills and evasive antics:

Supply chain integrity delivered by McKesson products and services ensures safe drugs and medical supplies for patients at the most efficient cost. A recent study by the Healthcare Distribution Management Association identified the important value provided by pharmaceutical wholesalers on behalf of both manufacturers and customers through superb delivery logistics, working capital savings and phenomenal operating efficiencies combined with innovative valueadding services. For example, McKesson is a leader in developing and promoting innovations that track the flow of pharmaceuticals and medical-surgical supplies from the manufacturer's loading dock to the patient's use.”

You gotta hand it to McKesson for their ability to say so little in so many words:

Clearly, McKesson is well-positioned for growth being driven by the many, intensifying forces for change in healthcare. As Fiscal 2005 began, we implemented a series of organizational refinements designed to better align and integrate our product development and selling efforts with the evolving needs of the marketplace. McKesson Provider Technologies combines McKesson Information Solutions, McKesson’s inpatient automation business and our Corporate Solutions Group, which quarterbacks complex sales, predominantly to large hospital and health networks.

So here we are, at the final match-up. The polls are open, and you'll be voting on Empty Calories, Commitophobia, Cheese Factory, and Inspired Insipidness. We'll post updates on the competition between now and April 4, and on that special day, will crown one company the tournament winner. So go forth, good people, and vote for your Shining Beacon of Business Idiocy!

Manure Madness Officially Begins.

2005-03-22T16:35:00.000-08:00

Greetings Sportsfans,

It’s that time of year again when corporate types everywhere are transfixed by the drama and spectacle of annual report season (sort of). Now the team at FighttheBull.com announces comprehensive, blow-by-blow coverage of the clichés, platitudes and truckloads of bull that grace some of the most expensive print materials ever destined for the recycle bin.

Yep, we're here to cover all the action of Manure Madness, an annual tournament that will crown the company with the worst annual shareholder letter as a Shining Beacon of Business Idiocy.

Here's how it works:

Tournament slots were awarded to the 32 largest Fortune 100 companies to release a 2005 annual report as of press time. The brackets are available here and look something like this:

Contestants will go head-to-head with other Fortune 100 companies in five rounds of bull spotting. Tournament judges will oversee the first three rounds, but the final two rounds will be open to the public for judging.

Once the “Final Foul” are revealed, on March 28, the public will begin a week’s worth of voting on the absolute worst shareholder letter. On April 4, one company will be crowned the first annual Shining Beacon of Business Idiocy.

First Round (the Round of 32): Verbal Diarrhea
Seeded contenders endured the first round of grueling analysis on Monday, March 21, when they were evaluated on their Verbal Diarrhea Quotient. Winners (if you can call them that) were those shareholder letters that scored the worst on the Flesch Reading Ease Scale. The Flesch scale is the world’s most widely used tool to measure document readability.

Future rounds -- the Smelly Sixteen, the Obfuscating Eight, the Final Foul, and the Championship Round -- will be judged on Empty Calories, Commitophobia, Cheese Factory, and Inspired Insipidness. Here's some quick information on how each round will be scored; more detailed scoring logarithms are available on the Tournament site:

Round 2) The Smelly Sixteen: Empty Calories
In this round, Corporate titans will compete to see who can do the best to drown their shareholders in a heaping helping of fluff. Letters to shareholders will be evaluated to see what percentage of total words say absolutely, positively nothing. In addition, the points will be awarded to those companies who do a particularly creative job of showcasing a complete and total lack of strategy.

Round 3) The Obfuscating Eight: Commitophobia
Business idiots have become commitophobes, living in constant fear of being held accountable for something tangible. In this round, eight companies will duke it out to see who can do the best job of evading responsibility and avoiding accountability.

Round 4) The Final Foul: The Cheese Factory
In this round, combatants will duel each other to see -- and the voting public will decide -- who can offer up the cheesiest load of tired clichés (“our people are our most important asset”), overused catchphrases (“we are well positioned for growth”) and syrupy say-nothing slogans (“building a better world for all”). Bonus points will be awarded for egregious repetition of foul smelling phrases.

Round 5) The Champion Idiot: Inspired Insipidness
In the final test of Manure Madness, shareholder letters will be evaluated -- again by the voting public -- to see just how dull, boring and lifeless they can be. How many syllables will it take to induce a deep REM cycle? How many stupid generic photos are used? Just how hard can we try to suck the life out of the readers’ souls?

All action – as well as lively commentary, examples of corporate nonsense, and the final voting – will take place at www.fightthebull.com.

Game on!

USA Today Review
In other news, for those who prefer books to sports, yesterday's edition of USA Today included a review of Why Business People Speak Like Idiots, and we managed to avoid the Wrath of Walraff! They actually called it "a charming manifesto" and advised people to "read it, and then give it to everyone you work with." We were humbled, honored, flattered and relieved.

Finally, Somebody Gets It!

2005-03-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

I was delighted to read this post on Flickr's blog about their acquisition by Yahoo. Finally, an FAQ with personality, self-deprecating humor, informality, and a true grasp of what's in the mind of it's readers! All giant companies should take note. Let's hope and pray Flickr can continue fighting the good fight.

You're not going to become a bunch of suits?
No, no, no! The precious DNA we've got -- that of the Ludicrew -- is on side and revving up for building Flickr. Having the team building out the team's vision for Flickr has been stressed as our number one priority, and keeping us around -- in spite of our wiseassery, tomfoolery and tendency to hoot spontaneously -- is crucial for preserving the Flickrness that is Flickr. They're not going to replace any of us with suits, nor induce us to wear them. Lapel? I don't know what you mean.

Are you going to become Yahoo Photos?

No. Yahoo Photos will get a lot of Flickr features, and there are alot of other areas around Yahoo that will also be Flickrized where Flickrization would be good. Yahoo Photos and Flickr have different kinds of users with different needs, and will remain separate for the foreseeable future. Flickr would also suffer from a sudden deluge of LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg! so we're going to grow it carefully.

Now, just for kicks, contrast this with the yawn-inducing language used to describe another acquisition announced this morning -- IAC's purchase of Ask Jeeves:

Ask Jeeves is one of four world-class search technology providers, with approximately 42 million U.S. unique monthly users,* and is one of the largest generators of online advertising in the world.

IAC operates more than 40 specialized consumer brands in the travel, retailing, ticketing, personals, media, financial services, real estate and teleservices industries. IAC's businesses are leaders in their respective categories and collectively reach 44 million U.S. unique users monthly.* IAC enables billions of dollars in consumer-direct transactions for products and services sourced from more than 140,000 merchant partners, suppliers, vendors, venues, lenders, and real estate brokerages.

Granted, one is the acquiree's FAQ, and the other is the acquiror's press release, but there isn't anything about the acquisition on Ask Jeeves' site ... and that is another communications sin entirely.

Amazon Responds.

2005-03-16T22:44:00.000-08:00

Well, we have good news and bad news in our quest to crack the code of Amazon's ranking system. If you missed it, this started with Keith Hammonds' observation here and our response here.

We sent both posts to Bezos via e-mail, and invited him to clear up the ranking mystery once and for all on our blog.

The good news is that he got back to us with an answer in a whopping 5 hours and 20 minutes.

The bad news is that it wasn't Jeff who responded. One of his minions intercepted our e-mail, and sent us this bullshit:

Greetings from Amazon.com.

My name is Cathy and I am a member of the Executive Customer Relations team here. As I work closely with our Customer Service Department, your e-mail message to Jeff Bezos has been brought to my attention. Please know that Mr. Bezos does read many of the e-mail messages sent to him, however, his schedule does preclude his ability to personally reply.

Thank you for sharing this blog with us. As you may be aware, we use sales rank to show how items in our catalog are selling. The lower the number, the higher the sales for that particular item. Items are ranked within their product category only, so a CD ranked at Number 1 is the best-selling CD at Amazon.com, but may not be the overall best-selling item.

We recently launched a change to how we compute sales rank. While we cannot provide specific information about our formula, we are pleased to announce that we are now including Amazon Marketplace sales in the calculation. In addition, sales ranking data will be updated hourly. In this manner, we're working towards a system that is more comprehensive and up to date.

We hope you find it interesting. Thanks for choosing Amazon.com.

Okay, first of all -- thanks for the debrief on the various fiefdoms within Amazon customer relations. So, let me get this straight: there is an Executive Customer Relations team, of which you are a member, and then also a Customer Relations department, with which you work closely. Is there also a Trolling-Executives'-Email department, and where does that sit on the org chart?

Second -- thanks for the insight. So, like, the lower the rank number, the more something is selling?

Third -- in three paragraphs, you have managed to tell me absolutely nothing that I didn't already know. If you had read the blog posts, and the questions posed therein, you would know that we are acutely aware (to the detriment of our own mental health) that the lowest-ranked items on Amazon are the best sellers. We also know that you say the rankings are updated hourly. We have read your FAQ section, which you just regurgitated back to us. Our question is why, oh why, do the rankings change by the minute? And further, why in the world won't you disclose the ranking formula? What are you trying to hide?

And finally -- "we hope you find it interesting"??? What the hell is that?

We do appreciate that you have responded to our good-natured prodding. And we know Jeff has far more important business at hand than responding to our measely blog posts. But forgive us for pointing out that your buttoned-up, unhelpful message with its super-sized helping of B.S. is worse than no response at all.

It's worth noting that we give Jeff considerable props in our book. He is one of the few CEOs we point to as beacons of clarity and personality. I have even been lucky enough to meet him, and he is indeed a humble, witty guy -- full of spunk and character. I am a big fan.

Which is why this interaction with him is so distressing. Because in a million years, on his worst day at the office, if Amazon was bleeding cash, if the stock was in the toilet, even if he just found out his wife was leaving him, he never would have responded this way.

At the beginning of every conversation we have about the book, the other party invariably asks, "So, why do business people speak like idiots?" Well, this is precisely why. Because we outsource our voice to people who don't have the confidence or clout to communicate with humor or humanity. Instead, they communicate like automotons -- avoiding any commitment, sidestepping any tough issues, just trying to make the issue go away. They think they are saving the CEO time or protecting him. But they are actually doing him a disservice.

So this is how it happens ... and why humanity is systematically being stripped out of business.

Your First Hit

2005-03-16T09:16:00.000-08:00

Keith over at Fast Company muses on how the Amazon rankings work. He just discovered that his colleague Martin Kihn's new book, House of Lies, moves up and down the rankings by the minute.

Martin, welcome to rare form of pseudocelebrity that is authordom. Also, congratulations. You have now taken your first hit of the dangerously addictive crack that is your Amazon rank.

The week before we published, we skyrocketed from #600,000 to #129. We couldn't believe it. I made Amazon my home page, and built a toothpick contraption to automatically hit the refresh button every 20 seconds.

Our rank climbed and climbed and climbed. I was certain we were going to be a best seller.

Then, after a few days, a mysterious phenomenon happened. Our rank started climbing in the other direction. It climbed and fell. Climbed and fell. As did my moods.

149? I'd take the dogs for a walk.
1,149? I think I'll sleep in today.

Our agent told us the ranking means nothing, unless we hit the top 10. And I've noticed that very little changes in the world around me, whether we are #30 or #300,000. But still, the addiction remains, and my moods swing wildly with every movement up or down the rankings.

Thanks, Jeff, for inventing this drug.
Now, could you at least tell us how it works?

Bull has an aroma, and it's not exactly Chanel No. 5

2005-03-15T05:31:00.000-08:00

I usually don't give a rip about annual reports. When they arrive in the mail, I spend a grand total of 30 seconds flipping through them, evaluating the design, skimming the letter, and tossing them.

But since we started the crusade against business idiocy, I've developed a mild obsession with them.

In writing the book, we looked at recent annual reports from two types of companies – highly respected and admired companies, and companies recently investigated for scandal. We analyzed the CEO letters using Dr. Rudolph Flesch’s Reading Ease scale, the most widely used language assessment tool in existence.

(The Flesch scale uses a complex formula, but all you need to know is that Sports Illustrated gets a score of 63, while the IRS tax code comes in at an unsurprising -6.)

What we found was striking: CEO’s from admired companies used clear, understandable language. But CEO’s from scandal-plagued companies used obscure, indecipherable language.

Take Richard Scrushy’s most recent (2003) letter to HealthSouth shareholders. The language he (or his handlers) chose for this important annual missive was evasive and full of bull:

HealthSouth is dedicated to creating innovative physician relationships that will provide increased financial power to drive geographic expansion, enhance prestige and expand the services available…

This passage, and others like it (and there are many), are the empty calories of business communication. They sound like something good might be happening, but a careful read reveals nothing whatsoever about what’s really going on.

There are a few reasons a CEO might be this obtuse: either he doesn’t know the business, or he’s got something to hide. Neither is good for a shareholder.

Enron's 2000 letter to shareholders is another great example. It was full of hype and bombast, and everyone knows what happened next.

Compare Scrushy & Skilling's fluff to the straightforward language used by Jeff Bezos in his 2002 letter to shareholders:

In many ways, Amazon.com is not a normal store. We have deep selection that is unconstrained by shelf space. We turn our inventory 19 times in a year. We personalize the store for each and every customer. We trade real estate for technology (which gets cheaper and more capable every year). We display customer reviews critical of our products. You can make a purchase with a few seconds and one click. We put used products next to new ones so you can choose.

Any doubt what business he’s in, or where Bezos is taking the company? He provides a laundry list of concrete things they're doing to make the customer experience better.

Warren Buffett is another beacon of clarity: contrast his candid letters with some of the hype-filled ones put out by the more corrupt companies.

An investor reading these letters has a choice: invest with someone who is clear, straightforward and puts his customers first, or choose a company that is obscure, evasive and puts Wall Street analysts first.

This doesn’t mean everyone with a low Flesch Score should be prosecuted, any more than it means that a straight talking CEO is a sure bet to produce outsized shareholder gains. But investing is a game of probabilities, and it seems the aroma of bull is a stinking good reason to stack your chips somewhere that is bull-free.

This is CNN. Scraping for guests.

2005-03-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

Now that the Rocky film festival on TBS is over, and you're too devastated by the results of the Apollo Creed fight to turn the TV off, flip over to CNN and lock it there this weekend.

Idiot co-author Brian Fugere appears on CNN's In the Money on Saturday at 1 pm EST (repeats Sunday at 3 pm EST). Brian will be Jack Cafferty's guest, in a segment (brilliantly) titled "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots." Then you can come back here and tell us whether you watched Brian once, twice or actually recorded it and set it to repeat hourly for the entire weekend. We'll be out doing other stuff while you're locked on CNN, so let us know how it goes.

http://money.cnn.com/ontv/inthemoney/