Colonel John Boyd (USAF) told people that they had a choice: they could be somebody or they could do something. Being somebody meant playing by the rules and getting promoted. Doing something was John Boyd speciality. With virtually no power other than his convictions and persuasiveness he changed air combat, instigated the F-16 fighter programme, changed Marine Corps tactics and inspired the war-winning right hook during the Gulf War. Boyd: How a fighter pilot changed the art of war is the well-written story of how he did it. Not only for aviation enthusiasts and military historians (who must read it), this book is interesting to a general audience and, I think, particularly useful for managers.
See my earlier post about Boyd’s Patterns of Conflict briefing.
View Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
on Amazon.
Michael Collins went to the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin but didn’t land. Perhaps the most famous man you’ve never heard of, he circled the moon alone in the command module while they explored the surface. His autobiography - not ghosted - is the best astronaut book I’ve read. I think anyone would enjoy this, not just space geeks like me. It’s lively, approachable, human as it chronicles the greatest human adventure. It’s funny at times too, which is a delightful change from the po-faced earnestness of many space books. Highly recommended.
View Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys
on Amazon.
Unlike tree houses, prefab houses now have the stamp of architectural cool about them. There is an exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art about them and it’s featured in a slide show on Slate today. See also this gorgeous array of pre-fabs in a Wired slide show.
I visited the MOMA exhibition a couple of weeks ago and I thought it was pretty cool. The house pictured here has the proportions of a sugar cube and isn’t much bigger but has everything you need (except space) for four people to live in. Thanks to solar cells it is also energy-independent.
Perhaps my dream has something to do with 20 acres of fields and hilly woodland overlooking the sea. I would have my pre-fab delivered and installed and, bingo, instant idyll. Well, a geek can dream, can’t he?
“Bill Gates once asked me, ‘Could you make me more human?’ I said, ‘Being human is overrated.’”
This doubly priceless quote comes from Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager. (Hat tip: The Atlantic.)
When it comes to writing copy, the human touch is still vital. Here are some tips for making copy that reads like a human being wrote it. This is a useful trick if you’re writing a speech, ghostwriting an introduction that is going to be by-lined to someone else or just trying to fetch some slippers and a pipe for your copy.
- Write like you speak. Use occasional colloquialisms. Use everyday abbreviations, such as ‘don’t’.
- Interview someone. In half an hour, you should get something that only they would say and that sums up the situation perfectly. Some of my best lines came from my clients during interviews.
- Short sentences. Conversation is rarely made up of paragraphs. It’s more like a David Mamet dialogue. Short and snappy. Well, dog my cats.
- Short words. As I’ve mentioned before, unnecessarily long words make you look dumb. They also sound concocted.
- Marketing speak.Words you would not use with your family or friends have no place in people-centred writing. Solution, market-leading, cutting edge, award-winning, optional etc. etc.
- Don’t be afraid of humour. I just finished Gore Vidal’s autobiography, Point to Point Navigation, and it has a great gag in it. At a wedding, someone said to him “I’m always a bridesmaid but never a bride.” He replied, “Always a godfather, but never a god.” Humour and politics separate us from the animals. Use it. Just be funny.
- Replicate speech patterns. You don’t need to write up every ‘umm’ and ‘ah’ but it’s okay to throw in the odd ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘but’ etc.
- Embrace the exclamation mark. Yes, I know the grammar Nazis will come and take away my keyboard. But if you want to sound like a real person, you could give it a try. Go for it!
- Use everyday metaphors. Ground your writing in the familiar.
- A sense of person, place or time. Include something biographical or descriptive that shows that the author is a real person. “I’m writing this at the kitchen table…” or “When I was at university…”
The master of this kind of writing was Alistair Cooke. Somehow he managed to make the serious sound informal. It’s worth looking at (and listening to) some of his Letters from America.
Colonel John Boyd (USAF) told people that they had a choice: they could be somebody or they could do something. Being somebody meant playing by the rules and getting promoted. Doing something was John Boyd speciality. With virtually no power other than his convictions and persuasiveness he changed air combat, instigated the F-16 fighter programme, changed Marine Corps tactics and inspired the war-winning right hook during the Gulf War. Boyd: How a fighter pilot changed the art of war is the well-written story of how he did it. Not only for aviation enthusiasts and military historians (who must read it), this book is interesting to a general audience and, I think, particularly useful for managers.
