We ghostwriters/speechwriters are on the front lines of professional rhetoric, both for editorial and copywriting purposes. Therefore, we owe it to our clients to educate them about stylistic shifts. One is the elimination of all the shoulds/oughts/musts from back in an era when the business world seemed more certain.
Those were the days when financial reporting demanded stable returns and the marketing department would dump extra revenue by turning it into the expense of buying more ads. Now, uncertainty is the new normal. That's exactly why personal finance has become such a plentiful and lucrative niche for us writers to research and provide content for.
The best guide on the tone and word choice for a new age may well be Nassim Taleb's book "Antifragile." A sign of these volatile times, it is #76 on Amazon.com. Essentially the meme is that since we can no longer predict what will happen in business we not only better get used to it. We can learn to transform that chaos into opportunity. That's exactly what the college admission preparation industry has done with providing services which help students start their careers with the supposed edge of an Ivy League education, an assumption Taleb shoots down.
In the 21st century when few could have predicted how the Interact would reshape institutions and that weather patterns would really become threats to commercial life as we know it (e.g. locating firms in densely populated metro areas near water). Consequently, our clients shouldn't be framing their messages in mandates or even best practices. Instead, they should be presenting evidence of what has produced positive outcomes recently and recommendations about how others might replicate such success.
Reflection: Opportunity is out there to be grabbed. Leave central planning to the Russians.
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