Seamless bollocks: real life versus corporate life

Twenty years or more ago, David Ogilvy sent me the draft of a speech he was planning to make in France.

It contained more or less the following.

"Our world is divided into two warring camps. Those who have no idea what their efforts produce. And those who know to penny. Those who measure. And those who do not."

I have long believed there are two other warring camps. Those who write down-to-earth English that can be understood; and those who write business gobbledygook.

Those who get on with things because they realise they have to get results - or else. And those who think more about whether the corporate guidelines are being followed.

Real people - and the rest.

One reason the Financial Services Authority failed dismally to do its job is that they were all so busy fucking around with people's copy to ensure "compliance" - and still are - to notice that the financial world was infested with unqualified crooks.

This unseemly outburst is prompted by the way the serene calm of my morning toilette was shattered when I saw a message selling a CRM seminar that contained the following:

Envision a sustainable CRM solution specially tailored to the unique needs of your company. A technology that is not afraid of growth and change. A solution intuitively capable of delivering efficiency and sales optimization in order to bring your business to the next level. At Intelestream, we believe in the simple truth that technology will seamlessly increase effectiveness and performance when properly implemented and administered. We believe your CRM solution should work for you.

Intelestream Inc. is a Chicago based consulting firm that delivers solutions to clients seeking enhanced sales, marketing, and customer support related business processes. The company specializes in enterprise resource planning (ERP), and all customer relationship management (CRM) related workflows. Intelestream’s development team builds custom tailored solutions for organizations, industry verticals, and plugins for open source software applications. The company’s team of consultants deliver an unparalleled quality of service and support. Intelestream’s leaders previously held executive positions at Fortune 500 companies, founded successful technology firms as entrepreneurs, and have expertise developing strategic customer focused business processes. If your company is evaluating a new enterprise application, looking to replace an expensive legacy system with a more affordable enhanced solution, or considering developing a new web based internal application, contact Intelestream.

Would you buy anything from a firm that talks such pretentious tripe? Can you imagine anyone not off their rocker "envisioning" a sustainable CRM solution?

Unfortunately plenty of people do fall for this stuff. They think if they can't understand it, it must be clever. They think that some magic bullet will solve their problems, removing the need for hard graft. And they deserve whatever they get.

In the case of CRM the only figures I have seen - from Gartner - show what they get is, on average, bad results, chiefly for three reasons.

1. Many buy CRM programmes - but never use them, train people properly or explain to everyone why they matter.

2. To build a customer relationship you must care about customers. Most people in large firms care more about promotion. As Jack Welch put it, people have "their heads facing the chairman and their asses facing the customers". That is why so many arseholes end up running big firms.

3. No computer programme can think. It will never be able to write words that charm customers and make them believe they are valued; and if you think starting with the deadly phrase "As a valued customer" will do the trick, believe me: it won't.

Having got that off my chest, my heart goes out to those of you trapped unwillingly in the great corporate quagmire. Fight back! Instead of doodling in meetings, think of ways to start your own thing. Stick subversive messages on the notice boards. Take the piss. Cause trouble.

By the way, I see this witless government is planning to track and record everyone coming in and out of the country. If they do this in their usual manner, the information will be automatically forwarded to every burglar in the country.