The Friday Thing #686

I’m not sure how I did on my “no’s” from last week…room for improvement I think.

The Friday Thing #686 is one I have been thinking about for quite a bit this week – which is unusual as I often only turn my attention to writing this on the Friday it’s sent. This week, it’s concerned with writing. As someone who calls themselves a storyteller, you could be forgiven for thinking I may be an excellent writer. The truth is, I am not. I am on okay writer – I don’t really ‘get’ writing in a technical sense, but I enjoy the art from and show up here every Friday to practice with you all. I am also surrounded by extremely gifted writers who have won real awards for their work, written books and regularly churn our prose that amazes me. In short, I love writing (and reading – an essential ingredient to writing, I think) and the power of words. At the same time, I am a little jaded of late with some of writing I see around me, especially in the tech industry. For a long time we have been accused of being a jargon laden industry. It’s true – but there is also too much language at times. Too much cleverness. I’ll come back to this in a bit because I was reminded by a friend last week of why I got in to this writing business. It all started with a train journey.

The image below shows the Microsoft offices at Thames Valley Park in Reading, England. In the right hand corner of the image is a train track – the main line from Reading in to London Paddington Station. I took that train journey quite often. On one such day I looked out of the window and as we passed the 5 grey boxes which at the time were the physical manifestation of Microsoft UK. In that moment, the job I now have, the reason my family and I moved 5000 miles became clear to me. I realized that these buildings were a metaphor for the image many people had of Microsoft at the time. A boring grey (or beige) box. Either in a field in Berkshire, or sat on their desk. Yet, inside these grey buildings were remarkable people, doing remarkable things – at least I thought so. For the rest of the train journey, it got me thinking about how you get to know people. One way is when you visit a friend’s house – you look around and notice what books they have, what art is on their walls, what music they play. From all of this and other little cues a picture is built in your mind of the person. So I set about doing that with Microsoft – bringing people inside our home. I wanted people to appreciate the company the way I did and from that train journey arose a blog I began writing as a hobby. It became a labour of love and a time consuming side job (I refuse to call it a ‘hustle’). That hobby began fifteen years ago and is now just a part of my full time job telling stories about Microsoft. I still believe in the power of it and in the approach I took back then – which is I would write as if talking to people at the pub. As an aside, off to the north of this photos by about a mile is a pub called The Bull at Sonning which is where I realized Microsoft hired “the wrong Steve” in 1997 – but that’s another story. My point here though is the power of using plain language when telling stories. It’s really the only language I know – but I also happen to believe it works. 

Case in point is the departure letter Jeff Bezos issues to “Amazonians” as he stepped down from his position as Amazon CEO this week. Jeff begins by saying he is excited to announce he is no longer CEO. “Excited to announce” is usually a sure sign that someone is about to tell you something that is not exciting at all – but this is not only exciting, it’s unexpected and remarkable. So I was hooked by line one. He then goes on to use a rhetorical device – invention. Most people here would use innovation….perhaps the most over-used word in the history of technology. I’m actually confused at this point in my career as to whether innovation is a noun or an adjective….or something else entirely. Back to Jeff’s letter though – the sentences are short (unlike mine, I know) and punchy. My personal favourite is “As much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition”. I mean, I am pretty sure he doesn’t tap dance in to the office but it immediately creates a picture in your mind. It’s not quite the picture I wanted to portray when I thought about those grey boxes, but the intent is the same. To capture your imagination with simple flourishes and plain language.

What is my point in all of this? Plain language. Evocative language. My mission is to get back to it a bit. I’m reading a book at the moment titled “What Tech Calls Thinking” which explores some of the language of Silicon Valley that the author calls “old motifs playing dress-up in a hoodie”. There is some irony that the phrase Silicon Valley itself is not plain language as it’s a motif itself used to describe the tech industry at large – but I digress. For now, I will humbly offer my own plain language starters. ‘Imagine’ and ‘what if?’

If we can get back to talking about tech in these terms I’ll be happy. Because when I go to the pub and start a sentence with “imagine” or “what if…..?” it captures a persons attention for a brief moment. Heads turns. Ears are on high alert. And that, is an opening. To tell a story. Try it….

That’s all I have this week. Thanks, Ian.

And now, I am off to the pub.  

Cheers,

-Steve