It is a series of stories about British inventors, the backroom boys of the title. It begins with the British space programme. (Did you know that the UK is the only country that launched a satellite and then totally gave up the capability to do so again?) It takes in Concorde, the inventors of the famous computer game Elite, the cellular telephone and the wonderful Colin Pillinger of Beagle 2 fame.

I really enjoyed the book but I think that the focus on failures is unnecessary. There are plenty of examples of hugely successful British inventors: Formula One engineering firms, Surrey Small Satellites, Jonathan Ive at Apple or Tim Berners-Lee etc. etc. The British boffin is not making a secret return because he never went away.

See: The Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin on Amazon.

Our Corporate Objectives

• Customer loyalty. We earn customer respect and loyalty by consistently providing the highest quality and value.
• Profit. We achieve sufficient profit to finance growth, create value for our shareholders and achieve our corporate objectives.
• Growth. We recognize and seize opportunities for growth that builds upon our strengths and competencies.
• Market leadership. We lead in the marketplace by developing and delivering useful and innovative products, services and solutions.
• Commitment to employees. We demonstrate our commitment to employees by promoting and rewarding based on performance and by creating a work environment that reflects our values.
• Leadership capability. We develop leaders at all levels who achieve business results, exemplify our values and lead us to grow and win.
• Global citizenship. We fulfill [sic] our responsibility to society by being an economic, intellectual and social asset to each country and community where we do business.

Without resorting to Google, can you figure out whose mission statement this is? Can you even tell what industry they operate in? Are there any objectives here that are not shared by every other big, successful company? Does it say anything about their actual business objectives?

(If anyone from the client in question is reading this, let me know if you have ever seen these corporate objectives before. I’m curious. And don’t be cross with me - I did spot a typo for you!)

A friend of mine used to be a management consultant. He said that he always liked for companies that had short, functional mission statements that actually described what they did and how they hoped to succeed. Sadly, he said, too many companies have objectives that are so abstract as to be platitudinous or self-evident.

As writer-in-chief of Articulate Marketing, I run a two-hour master class in using words to make your business more successful. I have a few seats available at an upcoming seminar for my blog readers.

It is aimed at senior managers and marketing decision-makers. Using best practice examples it will help you:

• Pinpoint good writing and encourage it in your staff and suppliers
• Diagnose bad writing and give effective feedback to improve it
• Get better copy from your PR and marketing agencies
• Improve the effectiveness of your website, product literature and press releases

How much is it?

There’s no charge. It’s priceless. However, places are very limited.

When is it?

Friday 28th November

9am for coffee and pastries

9.30am-11.30am The seminar itself

Where is it?

The event is being hosted by Avanade in their Soho offices: 135-141 Wardour Street, London, W1F 0UT. Piccadilly Circus is the nearest Underground station. Google map.

RSVP

Please contact Matthew Stibbe if you would like to attend The Articulate Seminar.

The most revealing part of the book is the inside story of the way she was revealed to the press as the Director-General of MI5. It was not well-handled at all and the consequences for Rimington personally were grim. A good example of how to botch a PR exercise by not thinking things through to their logical conclusion.

On a lighter note, she tells a delightful story that involves a disguise, a judge and a dinner party. The biographical aspects of the book are the most interesting because they are the most candid.

As for the spy stuff, this book is a fascinating, if limited, peek behind the curtain. Reading it, one gets the sense that Whitehall mandarins would have preferred to redact the whole book and not just the bits that they thought threatened national security. The sense of the ’story not told’ is palpable.

She tells us what she can with vigour and directness. Rimington may not have liked it but Judi Dench’s portrayal of M - with its cynical humour and unsparing intelligence - may be closer to the mark that she would like to admit.

See Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5 on Amazon.

• Asking for more work without paying more
• Paying very late
• Insisting on changes even when I had strongly recommended against them
• Being uncommunicative or hard to reach
• Epic delays in giving feedback
• Feedback that was difficult to implement or (sometimes) understand
• Insist on impossible deadlines, even while delaying their own part in the process until the last possible moment
• Getting me involved in their office politics

Usually, bad clients and bad projects involve a combination of these problems. They cause me a lot of stress.

In a couple of cases, I’ve walked away from clients or projects, even at the risk of a big cut in my income, because the profit : pain ratio was too bad. I made these decisions based on emotion - the pain side of the equation - and I only came up with the idea of this ratio the other day.

Certainly, I can tolerate a lot more stress and inconvenience when I’m being well paid. I’ve heard this described as an ‘arsehole premium’. Ultimately, though, even the best-paid projects become too much if they affect your personal life or threaten your professional integrity.

The profit : pain ratio gives me a way to think about these situations in a more rational and less emotional way. What are your red lines? How much pain will you accept before you walk away from a project? What do you do when clients don’t treat you right? What’s your profit : pain ratio?

As part of my work with LEGO, I visited the Ideas House in Billund where LEGO store every set ever built. I had completely forgotten about that trip until I saw this post on Gizmodo, which is a pretty good description of the place with pictures.

I remember going round the exhibits and archive and seeing one set, a sort of space rocket launch centre, that my father had given to me when I was three or four years old. It was a Proustian moment with the LEGO bricks standing in for a madelaine. It unlocked many happy memories. But alas, no novel.

Source. Hat tip: The Closet Entrepreneur.

In a similar vein, my wife bought me a little sign at the San Francisco Zen Center last week. It reads: “Don’t just do something, sit there.” I have hung it up on my lamp next to my monitor.

It does several things for me:

1. Backs up my bookmarks securely online.
2. Synchronises bookmarks between my desktop PCs, my Mac and my two laptops.
3. Synchronises saved passwords (with version 2.5) across different machines.

I used to use Google Browser Sync but that doesn’t work with FF3 and Foxmarks is now a complete replacement and, in my opinion, works more reliably.

Hi Uncle Matthew,

I found your article How to Write an Efficient Email Press Release very helpful.

I was wondering if you had some additional insight into one aspect I am still a little unsure about:  What is the etiquette for email follow-ups after emailing a press release?

Specifically, if I have emailed you a press release about an event (following all of your suggested guidelines, of course!) can I or should I email you a “re-release” (i.e. a second press release in case you didn’t open or forgot about the previous email)?

I certainly don’t want to annoy anyone, but I also want a way to gently remind you of my event in case you forgot about it.  Perhaps this is never advisable…  But if this is an acceptable practice, what is the time frame after sending my initial press release?  Two days or Two weeks?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

- Eager PR person

Dear Eager,

I understand your dilemma. But put yourself in the shoes of a hard pressed journalist for a moment. They get hundreds or perhaps thousands of emails a week from PR folk. Unless they have a personal relationship with the sender or the email is exclusive and specific to them, they are going to treat these emails like junk mail - no reply necessary. If they can’t use it, they will ignore it. Sorry but that’s how it is.

Sending reminders or resending the original email is just irritating and counter-productive.

The most irritating thing you can do is call the journalist and ask if they received your email. I can’t begin to tell you how much this annoyed me when I was a journalist. A couple of PR firms did it so much that I blacklisted them completely.

In my view these are not acceptable practices, even though they are very common in the PR industry. See my earlier articles: How to annoy a journalist and Top ten lies of PR companies for extensive ranting on the subject.

Okay enough negativity. Here are a few positive suggestions:

• Send a keep the date free email for your event and follow up with a more specific invitation later. This is acceptable.
• Consider using Facebook or similar to organise events rather than email invitations.
• Personalise emails - use the journalist’s name and write a personal introduction. (”Hi Matthew, remember when we met at the conference and you said to let you know when the event was happening…”)
• Build a relationship with your journalist audience before you need to email them so that they recognise your name in their inbox and don’t auto-delete your mail.
• Check in with your journalists from time to time to see if they find your press releases relevant and useful in a general sense and ask for their suggestions about what would be most helpful. (Nobody ever did this for me. I still get press releases three years after I stopped being a journalist!)
• Follow up a press release three months later. “Remember we told you about our new product, well we thought you’d like to know that it’s sold ten million units.” Nobody ever does this.

More suggestions and hints: 62 ways to improve your press releases.

Best wishes,

Uncle Matthew

Hello there

I need this document translated, and the translation is to be of high quality.

The attorney asked me to be especially careful with page 2. As I need to submit the document tomorrow, please have it checked and translated for me today.

I have deposited $150 to your credit card account that you gave me the last time.

Let me know if any questions occur.

P.S. The document is in the ZIP-compressed MS Word file attached to this message.

I look forward to getting the result ASAP.

Till we meet again

Lee Starks