Category Archives: Corporate communication

Making mischief

Posted on May 8, 2014 by

Most people who provide some kind of creative service to the business world long for a client who will say yes to their more extravagant ideas. But such clients are extremely thin on the ground. General anxiety, paucity of imagination … Continue reading →

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Other humans

Posted on April 11, 2014 by

I have been finding lately that a conversation about empathy is a good starting point for workshops on any kind of business writing. It breaks the ice and gets people talking together about something of which everyone has some kind … Continue reading →

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Finding the flame

Posted on April 4, 2014 by

Since the beginning of the year I’ve been involved in the drafting of three large, high-profile public documents, one an urban regeneration strategy, one an export strategy for a national industry body, and one a long-term plan for a cultural … Continue reading →

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Thanks but no thanks

Posted on February 28, 2014 by

My son Jake, who is nearly 23, has always been more interested in money than either of his parents or any of his three older sisters. A lot more. We all work in or around the arts and are, by … Continue reading →

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Sin of omission?

Posted on May 2, 2013 by

I was listening at lunchtime yesterday to the BBC’s director of human resources being grilled about bullying and the ‘strong undercurrent of fear’ uncovered at the corporation by its recent Respect at Work review. The interviewer suggested that the human … Continue reading →

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Let the meaning choose the word

Posted on February 1, 2013 by

In 1946, George Orwell wrote of the English language: “It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” He was speaking, in the main, … Continue reading →

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Leading and following

Posted on November 16, 2012 by

I listened to a talk the other day by Mark Robb, a former member of the M&S business recovery team – the firefighters who got the retailer out of the hole it had fallen into during the late nineties. He … Continue reading →

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Spirited talk

Posted on November 12, 2012 by

David Dimbleby spoke to John Humphrys this morning on Radio 4, bringing a veteran’s perspective to the current BBC furore. George Entwhistle, he suggested, is a decent man but not the right one for the job; he lacked the pugnacity … Continue reading →

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Olympic virtues

Posted on August 3, 2012 by

On Radio 4 recently, Clifford Longley, the BBC’s religious affairs correspondent, quoted Bob Diamond’s notorious comment that business culture was ‘how people behave when no one’s watching’. Longley went on to draw the distinction between the self-interest that governs so … Continue reading →

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What’s the point?

Posted on October 21, 2011 by

On Tuesday night we took the students on our Dark Angels course to the theatre. We left our lofty perch and plummeted down the hill to Loch Ness, then drove five miles along the lochside to the Victorian community hall … Continue reading →

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