Lost Art of the Business Letter
Way back around 1985, when I was an entry-level engineer at Exxon, the company had a training session with a writing instructor. The course, if it had a name, could be called "the art of the business memo."
Now, I know that you 20-somethings in the world of text messaging and soon-to-be-f*cked internet companies are probably cringing at the thought of learning to write business memos the Fortune 50 way. But there was something about this course I found compelling. Since then, I have taken a lot of communications courses, particularly presentation courses, of varying utility. McKinsey & Company taught me the pyramid principal for organizing persuasive letters and presentations, something that has been so useful to me that I wonder why none of the expensive schools I attended ever bothered to teach it.
To this day, I am still compelled by the perfect business letter. I know this may seem weird, but I still remember several of my best efforts from years ago. I sometimes go back and read them lovingly. I have three lifetimes of projects that I would like to put together, but one fun one would be to put together a book collection of great business letters. I fell like its an art that should better recognized.
Anyway, I was reminded of all this by this letter that has been linked around the blogosphere a bit this morning.
I'm still a bit of a young pup but I wouldn't cringe at the thought of taking a course on writing business memos. More so, I'd fully support it for many of my co-workers. They seem to think by putting their modern version of the valley talk vernacular into writing they are communicating. Worse, when I ask a simple question such as "Were you referring to the javascript function with that name or the function we built in Oracle" it's not uncommon to get a reply such as "yes, that one" or "the one I mentioned in the first email". Getting a lot of people to take a few seconds to think about what they're actually trying to communicate would be wonderful.
Coyote - I'm a wee bit older than you, so maybe have seen a bit more degradation in writing style.
Unfortunately, it goes beyond just well written business letters into almost all written communication these days.
I have actually had 'twenty somethings' produce written reports (supposedly formal drafts for delivery) full of "txt" messaging abbreviations - with which they've not seen anything wrong at all....
Love the Blue Jeans Cable letter by the way.
That, far and above, was one of the most amazing letters I've ever read. I would love to compose a letter like that at some point---not necessarily under those circumstances though.
All forms of writing are being accosted these days. I have a Master of Science in Writing and I see it everywhere. The worst part is what people get away with in higher education. People whose writing doesn't even approach "acceptable" are passed along.
I could go on and on about this. Sigh.
...principle...
...principle...
No one knows how to write correctly and forcefully these days. It’s a function of laziness and politically correct linguistic evisceration.
They can’t even swear effectively.