A detour into Marketing space

I'm always flattered when I'm asked to "look over" something that someone else in the office has written...or even called in to give the [giggle] "authoritative" final word on a point of grammar or punctuation. Plus, it's gratifying to think that all those literature and writing classes Uncle Sam and I paid for are worth ~something~ in this Lolspeak world. That was the case today, when another incarnation of a Marketing white-paper came to me for tightening-up.

As much as I do enjoy the exercise for that bit of my brain, I honestly don't know who--in a time when one person is expected to do the work of two or three laid-off co-workers--has time to molar-chew enough fake-vanilla nougat to find the few crunchy statistical bits. And, for that matter, the knowledge that all crunchy bits have been meticulously cherry-picked dulls any appetite for that first bite. The rub is that my "audience" here is, technically, not the potential customer. It's the PR higher-ups. Knowing that distinction is critical from a political standpoint, but there's still the nagging sense of duty to the readership at large...and the self-interest in wanting to keep the lights on so that I can keep working with the same (mostly) awesome crowd.

So here's the workaround: There will, ultimately, be three versions turned in. One is merely a tightened-up version of the original, dressed in its Sunday suit, with hat and white gloves. The second is a brutally streamlined version with call-out text heading every other paragraph or so. The third--provided I can swing it with the graphics dude--is peppered with graphics and is driven by the question that should be one of the two central quarks of the innermost proton at the nucleus of any piece of software intended to make workers more productive: "How can we get you home early on Friday (without your boss knowing the difference)?" (The other question being, "How can we help you score a raise this year?" But, given the cynicism bred by the jobless recovery we get to look forward to, the former question will probably pack more wallop for the next dozen months.)

Because that's where the rubber hits the road for most folks who work on the clock. The target demographic in this case doesn't own; it manages. It could probably care less about saving the owners' bling unless it's fairly sure of a slice of those savings. To be sure, that information has to be included, preferably in a detachable form. Why? Because the potential client needs something to sell the idea up the organizational food chain. But, ultimately, being home well in advance of the Friday traffic is--in my considerably-less-than-humble opinion--what's being sold. The actual software is incidental.

At least until the job market doesn't suck. Then it's a different story. But it's a story for another day. And another post. Hopefully it's one I'll be writing sooner than my cynicism permits me to believe.