Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Transparency … to keep the assholes out

02.22.2010 by David Murray // Leave a Comment

In hungry anticipation of a family trek to Army & Lou's soul food and southern cooking restaurant on the South Side Saturday morning—we were going down there to visit Jesse Owens' grave for Scout's cockamamie Black History Month project—I checked the restaurant's website.Foodarmyindigosetting

There I found a suitably terrible photograph of the food, along with a series of citizen restaurant reviews.

Most were positive, as you'd expect.

But one reviewer, "Heidi," wrote:

Go when you aren't in a hurry; the service was excruciatingly slooow. I had to ask for silverware, even though bussers were swarming all around. I think it depends on the server; the table near me looked like they were getting excellent service. Ask for corn muffins if they aren't put on the table; they are outstanding.

That didn't discourage me either, as I've been to the place and know that the excruciatingly slow service is an important part of the experience, whether you're south of the Mason-Dixon Line, or just south of Lake Street.

Still, to put a review like that on one's own website is either laughably journalistic or—and I favor this possibility—a clever way to discourage Yuppies-in-a-Hurry from coming to Army & Lou's and screwing everything up.

We usually think of "transparency" as a way to convince our friendly constituents that they can trust us. Smart institutions like Army & Lou's (and Murray's Freelance Writing) also use it to discourage the sorts of people we don't want to do business with.

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // Army & Lou's, hurry, slow, soul food, southern cooking

About the big hockey game …

02.21.2010 by David Murray // 9 Comments

ImagesLook, I'm no hockey expert, so far be it from me to try to be any more eloquent than the paid television analyst, who said at a particularly pleasing moment late in the game:

"That's tremendously … tremendous!"

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // Kate Zimmerman, Kristen Ridley, Ron Shewchuk, Rueben Bronee

All a Tiger Woods fan needs to hear

02.19.2010 by David Murray // Leave a Comment

My dad was in advertising, which he considered real communication. He looked down his nose at public relations people, who he thought had "a magnificent grasp of the obvious," and who presented their commonsense advice in fancy packages over three-martini lunches and called each other "sweetheart."

Spending my days writing about public relations and my evenings watching TV commercials, I often beg to disagree with Dad's point of view. For one thing, I've never been called "sweetheart."

But Dad does chuckle from the grave when we hear PR counselors massaging their whiskers and telling newspapers what Tiger Woods "needs to do" with his statement.

As if they know something we don't.

Yes, it would be better if Woods answered questions from reporters.

Even better would be if Woods disarmed those questions, by offering an emotionally candid, exhaustive, Fidel-Castro-length explanation for everything that happened, how it came about, and how he and his therapist believe it came from a stolen childhood and an insatiable need for nurturing that he was starved for, as golf's early-anointed ubermensch, a young celebrity even as he entered college.

It would be great to get real insights about how he's sorting all this out and will be for a long time, how he thinks he'll be able to balance all that with his golf career and how he's almost grateful for the whole episode because it has shocked him into long-overdue introspection, and may give him a chance for a happier, more honest life.

Blah blah blah.

He's not going to say that, even if he has it in his bag, because if Woods does have one good impulse, it is the instinct to protect of his inner life from the media.

I'm a big Tiger Woods fan, still as interested in his career as ever, still wishing him the best, still looking forward to boring the living hell out of my grandchildren with tales of his golf exploits. He is my Babe Ruth.

So I'll be watching eagerly, of course, hoping that Woods convincingly communicates, or at least vaguely suggests a couple of things: 1. He's been on a journey and not just a forced march for public relations purposes. 2. He's learned something and really hopes to be a better human being.

Honestly, that's all I need to hear to be four-square behind him as he returns to golf and goes after Jack Nicklaus's records. And honestly, I'm not even sure I need that.

(Jack isn't the most charming guy in the world, you know; he's admired for the same reason Tiger is: It was inspiring to watch the bastard will a golf ball into a hole.)

After the Woods session, I'll post an analysis here, however brief, and however magnificent a grasp of the obvious.

***

Analysis: Yep.

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // apology, Jack Nicklaus, statement, Tiger Woods

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