These days even steel-balled, risk-loving entrepreneurs like The Murr find ourselves thinking about a sepia-toned notion called "job security."

A Chicago Force player the other day mentioned she's a prison guard, and my first reaction was: "Damn, girl, you're set for life!"

Looking at a Google News page for Wal-Mart this morning, I had the same perverse thought about Wal-Mart's media relations director; these are some of the headlines he or she had to deal with in the last week:

"Ah, Dave, you've got a call on line three."

"Is this about the angry guy who snapped, or the fed-up guy who burned himself to death?"

"Um, actually, it's about the customer who found teeth in the wallet."

Bobby "The Bedwetter" Jindal told the Associated Press he ain't gonna hire no speaking coach, ain't gonna hire no speechwriter.

"Look, I get that people thought I
could have spoken better. I get that. That's fine … What's important
to me is the content. I'm a policy guy. You guys know that. I've always
been a policy guy, always will be a policy guy. The ideas are
important. The substance is important."

How many of us have felt this contempt for communication technique as somehow being anathema to intellect. Usually we get this from engineers, IT goons and finance types, and usually in the corporate sphere.

But to hear the substance vs. communication style bit from a politician—and in the age of Obama, mind you—this proves this is one stubborn prejudice.

Has anyone out there managed to convince a "policy guy"—or a science guy or a strategy guy or a numbers guy—that it's okay and even advisable to be a communication guy at the same time?

This is the lead of a newsletter put out by a communication consultant:

"My second future-facing experience defies simple description; I don't have words big enough, with enough energy, openness and genuine graciousness to describe it. Or words to convey what it's like to stand face-to-face with massive, mind-bendingly complex issues and begin to imagine the scope of actions needed to impact outcomes …."

What's she trying and failing to describe? An HR conference.

Incidentally, she does not bother to reference her first "future-facing experience," so I assume it was her first day of kindergarten.