Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Report, Status Report, Updates, FYI

In the old ages, the king will always have a messenger that will report to its kingdom the latest buzz and happenings (In the old ages, maybe they're not yet using the word "buzz" and "happenings". They might be using "bulletin" or "hear ye, hear ye", or the "king's speech".)

And of course, this was done on a regular interval. That could be weekly, monthly, annually, or whenever the king would like to boost his ego and say great things to his kingdom. On the other hand, the messenger will always do his best as well to report great things to his king. It could be that the biggest apple farm are producing red apples, the most beautiful girl in the kingdom would like to visit the king (again, a boost to the king's egoistical sex appeal), or the kingdom became the biggest because an earthquake occurred which shifted the tectonic plates to another land which connected the kingdom's land to another territory.

Nonetheless, whether the messenger reports to the king and the king would like to say something that the messenger would report to the minions of the kingdom, it would always contain a "status". And they've always made sure that the status is excellent and dominating and contained jargon which only the messenger or the king could understand and because the minions are too lazy to think about what the status is all about, all they need to do is to worship for whatever that is, because they all have to return home and nourish their stomachs or sex lives.

How the contents are formulated for the "reports" would still be applicable even in the modern era, it's just that we're now using the emails, presentations, spreadsheets, charts, tables, video package, multimedia, beautiful promo girls, soundproof auditoriums, etc. It's not really far on how contents are fabricated. In line with leaders who are very good in exaggerating events to be shared with his peers or to his supervisors, that's how status reports, updates, FYIs are delivered.

For example,

"The project is in process, but with no progress"

translates to

"The team is actively looking into it, and very much engaged into verifying the details that are needed to complete this request"

Another classic example,

"The way you did it, sucked"

translates to

"This is one of the biggest challenge that has come into our team. Let's hold hands and share a common goal. Let's always make sure that we focus on quality."

And, an informative email:

"I'm not doing anything. So what now? Verify how the dinosaurs became extinct????"

translates to

"It has been a little steady and quiet lately. I've been consistently monitoring our queue while thinking of possible process improvement for our product."

In whichever way it is written, or in whichever medium is being delivered, the contents will always be the same - jargon, repetitive, and most importantly - "promising hope".

So the next time that you are tasked to send any information to your team or to anyone in your company, make sure that it contains the best jargon that you can find that is a little bit related to the job, but will be a little ambiguous as well because the readers won't pay much attention in searching via Google what you mean. They will simply get to the subject or even on the first lines of your email / newsletter, then send it somewhere hidden.

If your readers are reading your status too well, then your readers are not doing so much work or their attention span is extraordinary, or they are part of a technical writing committee and trying to do a survey if people nowadays know how to write and construct paragraph, sentences, and if you're following the right subject-verb-agreement.

Send FYIs with a bang. Say something like - "FYI - the world is still round, don't worry, I used Google to verify".

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