Modern Talking, or, information-free non-communication [blog post, by me]
Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, the writer behind Penny Arcade, really nailed something in the comic's editorial this week:I was reading an interview with one of the producers on the new Transformers movie, and the thing that really got to me is that both the person asking the question and the person answering it thought they were communicating information.
This has gotten more common, or I’ve gotten better at noticing it. Most public communication now sounds like the Teletubbies to me. It’s nontent from hell to breakfast: shibboleths sandwiched between gesticulations which are bookended by secret handshakes. It’s probably best to let them in; maintaining a stable self is strongly contraindicated at this point. What’s the win condition, your own tombstone? Jesus Fucking Christ.
The internal communications from the new people at $JOB-1 really were sounding like this to me. On the mailing list, where mostly techies hang out, there are real people exchanging information, communicating -- but not many managers. When they appeared, you could easily spot them -- they don't know how to use a mailing list. Top-quoting, formatted emails, huge multiline signatures.
On the internal social network, not many techies, but lots of managers, posting in rich text with fonts and formatting, not knowing how to quote or use threading, not knowing how to link to each other or to URLs (so the site does it automatically, badly, like Facebook).
They post these long, rambling, info-light posts talking about "content" and "engagement" and "metrics", making blanket decisions about removal of formats because they have no idea what actual techies want from information, but they really want to monitor clicks and pageloads and search histories.
Is all business becoming like this today? I'm sure $JOB-1 is far from unique. A chap I know from ZZ9 of old is an "information architect" now and has a Twitter account that's all full of stuff I can't parse and extract any real meaning from: "value", "content", "strategy", "engagement", "synergy","voice", "brand", "social"...
Is C21 business communication really moving into rarefied domains that you need a lot of specific local knowledge to understand? Or is this all just bullshit traded by a lot of fakers who feel that if they throw enough buzzwords into the mix, they'll sound profound and will keep getting away with it?
This has gotten more common, or I’ve gotten better at noticing it. Most public communication now sounds like the Teletubbies to me. It’s nontent from hell to breakfast: shibboleths sandwiched between gesticulations which are bookended by secret handshakes. It’s probably best to let them in; maintaining a stable self is strongly contraindicated at this point. What’s the win condition, your own tombstone? Jesus Fucking Christ.
The internal communications from the new people at $JOB-1 really were sounding like this to me. On the mailing list, where mostly techies hang out, there are real people exchanging information, communicating -- but not many managers. When they appeared, you could easily spot them -- they don't know how to use a mailing list. Top-quoting, formatted emails, huge multiline signatures.
On the internal social network, not many techies, but lots of managers, posting in rich text with fonts and formatting, not knowing how to quote or use threading, not knowing how to link to each other or to URLs (so the site does it automatically, badly, like Facebook).
They post these long, rambling, info-light posts talking about "content" and "engagement" and "metrics", making blanket decisions about removal of formats because they have no idea what actual techies want from information, but they really want to monitor clicks and pageloads and search histories.
Is all business becoming like this today? I'm sure $JOB-1 is far from unique. A chap I know from ZZ9 of old is an "information architect" now and has a Twitter account that's all full of stuff I can't parse and extract any real meaning from: "value", "content", "strategy", "engagement", "synergy","voice", "brand", "social"...
Is C21 business communication really moving into rarefied domains that you need a lot of specific local knowledge to understand? Or is this all just bullshit traded by a lot of fakers who feel that if they throw enough buzzwords into the mix, they'll sound profound and will keep getting away with it?