Book description
Business writing can be particularly difficult to get right and far too
many people resort to deathly-dull jargon and nonsense buzz words to try
to get their point across. In
Twenty-six w ays of looking at a blackberry
, John Simmons proposes that in order to create business communication
that is truly engaging, writing needs to be more expressive and
adventurous for young, aspiring brands as well as big, corporate brands.
The book explores ways that everyone involved with communicating a
brand's values Â- marketers, advertisers, PR people and so on Â- can
focus on the potential of language to reach their goals.
To illustrate this, the author has taken a piece of generic business
writing - the 'base text' - and rewritten it in 26 different ways, each
following a constraint. For example, as a fairy story; without using the
letter 'e'; written in the style of Dickens; as a letter to a friend; as
a six word story; as a sonnet. In each case, Simmons looks at what
effect that particular constraint has on the writing, how it helps or
hinders, and what lessons can be drawn from the exercise that can be
applied to business writing in different situations. John Simmons is a
consultant and author whose books have been internationally influential.
A former director of Newell and Sorrell and Interbrand, he has worked
with clients such as Diageo and Unilever to help them create a
distinctive tone of voice and to tell their stories better. Now an
independent consultant and director of brand language at www. thewriter.
co. uk, he writes regularly for the media and runs writing workshops for
individuals and businesses. He is a co-founder of 26 (www. 26. org. uk),
a U. K.-based non-profit collective that champions the cause of better
writing in business.
