Short words, short sentences, good communication

May, my wife, has early-onset Alzheimer's. For years we toured the medical establishment trying to find out what was wrong. We heard a lot of doctor talk that didn't help at all -- until we came to Dr. Weintraub. She spent a morning with May and then sat down with the two of us for more doctor talk about more specialists and more tests -- but she also offered to see me privately. Here's how it went:

Me: You've already decided what it is, haven't you.

Her: Yes.

Me: And you've decided it's Alzheimer's, haven't you.

Her: Yes.

Me: How long does it take to run its course?

Her: Ten years. It goes slow and then it goes fast. You're still in the slow part.

Everything I needed to know, in 18 one-syllable words, the longest of which contained five letters.

The official diagnosis came four months later. It is early-onset Alzheimer's. We're still in the slow part.

The perfect corporate statement

Well, surely you know the great David Allan Coe rendition of Steve Goodman's You Never Even Called Me By My Name. The one where he sings the first three verses and then speaks the next part:

Well, a friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song, and he told me it was the perfect country and western song. I wrote him back a letter and told him it was not the perfect country and western song because he hadn't said anything at all about mama, or trains, or trucks, or prison, or getting drunk. Well, he sat down and wrote another verse to this song and he sent it to me and after reading it I realized that my friend had written the perfect country and western song. And I felt obliged to include it on this album. The last verse goes like this here:

Well I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison...

Well, I thought of that today as I was eating a Mrs. Fields cookie and reading a nicely written corporate statement on the bag. It started out like this:

In 1977 cookie pioneer Debbi Fields wasn't trying to create the gourmet cookie boom, she was simply impassioned about making the finest oven fresh cookie possible.

And I can hear the corporate voice saying,

Well, you haven't written the perfect corporate statement because you haven't said anything about passion ("impassioned" doesn't count), or commitment, or quality, or the consumer experience, or world-class.

So the copywriter comes back with this perfect second paragraph:

Thirty years later we are still moved by that passion -- honoring that same commitment to the signature cookie recipes and quality standards that make your experience at Mrs. Fields world-class.

And so the corporate voice felt obliged to include that statement on the paper bag that I was reading as I ate my cookie.

Harmonious writing

Over at presentationzen.com, Garr Reynolds has a post entitled Wa: the key to clear, harmonious design. He begins by saying "if there is one principle that reveals the essence of the Zen aesthetic found in Japanese traditional art and design -- and life in general -- it is harmony. The kanji that has been used in Japan for the past 1300 years or so to represent this concept is 和 (wa)." He offers "just seven things to think about as you strive to bring more wa into your own design solutions." They are:

1. Embrace economy of materials and means
2. Repeat design elements
3. Keep things clean and clutter-free
4. Avoid symmetry
5. Avoid the obvious in favor of the subtle
6. Think not only of yourself, but of the other
7. Remain humble and modest

Those seven things work for the writer, as well. And it's not a bad idea to think of writing as verbal design. I have been working for the past several months to write an essence statement for a new venture. I finally got it down to four sentences:

Every company has the few who decide and the many who determine. That is, the few decide what needs to happen and the many determine how successfully it actually does happen. And between the few and the many, there's a chasm. We cross the chasm, to connect the few with the many.

If words are materials and sentences are means, I think we achieved an economy of materials and means with this statement. We repeated design elements with "the few" and "the many," and also with the alliteration of decide/determine, and cross/chasm/connect (with a nod to Geoffrey A. Moore). It's clean, but not as clutter-free as I would like (I would prefer to do without the second sentence). Symmetry was not an issue here. Our choice of words took us out of the more obvious ways to describe what we do. And let's lump the last two things together -- think not of yourself and remain humble and modest. Our credo in this venture is "subsume and resonate," (with a nod to Ralph Siu) where subsume reminds us "to find our place as part of something more comprehensive than ourselves" and resonate directs us "to evoke a broadly shared feeling, belief or understanding." You can find our modest beginnings of this conversation at subsumeandresonate.com

An obit, of sorts

I was one of about 40 people who received an email that one of us, from way back when, had passed away. He was a boy from the South Plains of Texas who went to college in his home town and then joined the Peace Corps, was sent to Nepal, and stayed to become a Buddhist monk. I didn't know him well, but I felt moved to reach out to the other recipients of the email and tell a little story from 40 years ago:

One night after a party I found myself in that all-night restaurant where everyone used to go and eat a chef's salad to sober up. Bugs, who was living at home and driving the family station wagon, nevertheless found himself at the table with us. He offered a bunch of us a ride back to wherever we'd left our cars. There'd been a light rain, and you know what light rain does to the layer of dust on a Lubbock street. A car comes sliding through an intersection, manages to turn sideways, but doesn't stop its skid until it kisses the driver's side of the Humphries family wagon. The perpetrators speed off into the night and I know Bugs is thinking the same thing I'm thinking, which was "wow, that could have been a lot worse--glad it's over." But the chorus from the back of the station wagon was of a different ilk: "Follow that car! They can't get away with that! Come on Bugs, catch 'em!" And Bugs put the pedal to the metal. We chased them all the way to the street where they lived. They left the car in the driveway and ran into a small wood frame house. "Block the driveway, Bugs," came the cry from the back of the wagon. "We got 'em now." Well, yes we did. We had them. They would have to shoot their way out.

Bugs and I and the other two weakest, meekest, members of the group were left to stand guard while the guys who had insisted on giving chase walked off to find a pay phone to call the authorities. A police cruiser came quickly, and a check of the license plate showed that we had essentially made a citizens' arrest of some folks who were wanted for more than a few crimes. The officers thanked us, and we all went home as if it were all in a night's work. I have no memory of Bugs past that night. For sure, I never knew him by his monastic name of Tsültrim Töndrup. But we took a ride together once. I finished off my remembrance with this:

In my memory, this little story has always been about Bugs. A peace-loving kid, monk-in-the-making, living at home, borrowing the family station wagon on a Friday night, being a nice guy and giving a bunch of drunks a ride back to wherever they had left their cars, caught up in a random hit-and-run accident, nobody hurt, no serious damage to the station wagon -- sudden danger but no harm done -- and then urged into a high-speed chase to a rough part of town and posted to guard duty over a carload of fugitives from the law. And he never said, wait, it's not really my car, I was supposed to be home by now, I'm actually not supposed to be on this side of town. When the boys said go, Bugs went. And when the boys said block the driveway, Bugs blocked the driveway. And when the boys said wait here while we go for help, Bugs waited there. It could have been right there, that night, on the mean streets of Lubbock, that Bugs made a pledge to himself: if I live through this, I'll join the Peace Corps, and if my mom doesn't kill me for smashing up the car, I'll devote myself to a monastic life. RIP Bugs.