Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, September 23, 2024
by Neil Senturia
I have a college degree in English. It didn’t qualify me for any particular career (and I have had several, which clearly indicates my inability to hold onto stable employment), but I did learn how to write.
Now comes AI and ChatGPT4 and a slew of agents who will write anything you want, including a new and improved Declaration of Independence.
But what does how we write tell the world about ourselves? Jonah Berger, Wharton professor and author, says: “Language is a fingerprint. It reveals or reflects things about the people who produce it.”
I think the issue of writing coherently is critical to the entrepreneur and the potential success of the venture. And if the founder can’t write, then he/she needs someone who can.
For me, it is the defining characteristic in the hiring process. I want to see if they can persuade, convince, assemble a compelling narrative. For sure, the baseline entry fee is spelling. I was a judge on a pitchfest recently and the slide comes up “Bsuiness Plan.” Need I say more?
Berger talks about the “pattern of ideas.” When you ask someone a question, the answer that comes back can cover a small amount of ground or a large amount of ground.
The length of the answer is not the issue; it is the amount of the ideas, the speed of the ideas presented, the correlation of the adjoining data points, the various themes that give an indication of the presenter’s grasp of the material.
Then can you communicate it clearly. Look, I confess, I am a bit of a pedant. If I listen to a pitch and at the end, I cannot tell the presenter approximately what his company does, then there are two possibilities — one, that I am an idiot, or two, well, so be it.
Berger’s research shows that a person’s writing can reveal more than he may care to share. In the specific “you can tell whether someone is going to default on a loan by the language they use in the application,” his research shows.
Email is the dominant form of written communication. How you write and what you say reveal more than just when the next meeting is. Berger writes, “You can predict whether someone is going to get promoted or fired or move on to another job, based on the language they use in their email.”
One clear goal of written communication is to efficiently cover a lot of ground (breadth of ideas and connections), but at the same time, do it by moving slowly between the points, to allow for comprehension. This is a learned skill, not innate. And definitely worth developing.
Senturia, what’s with the soapbox? Because the world is not a PowerPoint presentation. And ChatGPT is not your fingerprint.
I went to high school with Lanny Jones, who was the managing editor of People magazine from 1989 to 1997. He died a couple of weeks ago. The New York Times obit called him “an unapologetic champion of the newsworthiness of celebrities.” He coined the phrase “baby boomers,” comparing (us) to a “demographic pig swallowed by a python.”
Lanny chronicled the rise of our devotion to famous people. His last book was called “Celebrity Nation,” and it focused on how America has become a culture of “fans and followers.” I am always amazed at how easy and blindly it seems we follow famous people, many of whom, as best I can tell, are famous for simply being famous.
I grew up in the Midwest, you know, flyover country, so fame was not easily achieved, and usually only if you did something truly valuable. Today, you can tell the college admissions person that you are going to major in becoming an influencer, and yes, they have courses in that.
Don’t turn up your nose and sniff at celebrity endorsements. The global spend on influencer marketing was more than $25 billion in 2023.
I spoke to Lanny a few years ago. I asked him about how he felt about what he hath wrought at People. Not exactly Oppenheimer, but he did give me a short lecture on the unintended consequences of a gaggle of influencers seeking the spotlight.
“I coulda been a contender, a somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am. ” — Marlon Brando, “On The Waterfront”
Rule No. 824: She looks like someone famous.