Reminds me of a lot of branding consultants and branding books. Thank God we always got clients by having a plain-English approach.

That's interesting - I didn't really find this amusing at all - my "insightful commentary" to Evelyn was...

"K.I.S.S xxxxx"

...which I felt was in tune with the piece??

Maybe we need to redefine R.S.S?

"Really Simple Stories"...

I like that. It ties in, I think with On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt. When we don't know the "correct" answer, we make up all sorts of justifications; and we tend to accept those made up justifications from others, because calling bullshit on the other person is just not the done thing. So we end up adopting the bullshit as our own.

Design Observer has a great post on this:

In discussing design work with their clients, designers are direct about the functional parts of their solutions and obfuscate like mad about the intuitive parts, having learned early on that telling the simple truth — "I don't know, I just like it that way" — simply won't do.

So into this vacuum rushes the bullshit: theories about the symbolic qualities of colors or typefaces; unprovable claims about the historical inevitability of certain shapes, fanciful forced marriages of arbitrary design elements to hard-headed business goals. As Frankfurt points out, it's beside the point whether bullshit is true or false: "It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction." There must only be the desire to conceal one's private intentions in the service of a larger goal: getting your client it to do it the way you like it.

And

I remember working years ago with a challenging client who kept rejecting brochure designs for a Francophile real estate development because they "weren't French enough." I had no idea what French graphic design was supposed to look like but came up with an approach using Empire, a typeface designed by Milwaukee-born Morris Fuller Benton in 1937, and showed it to my boss, Massimo Vignelli. "That will work," he said, his eyes narrowing.

At the presentation, Massimo unveiled the new font choice with a flourish. "As you see," he said, "in this new design, we're using a typeface called Ahm-peere."

I was about to correct him when I realized he was using the French pronunciation of Empire.

The client bought it.

http://www.designobserver.com/archives/002559.html

Intriguing experiment! But might one way of looking at it not be that, rather than being swayed by the slick, complexity of the B's arguments, the A's were swayed by the fact that B's were explaining A's own initial responses?

Adrian: Great riff on the theme!

Piers: Yes, it's interesting that the A's apparently were seduced by B's complicated explanations rather than the simple principles of their direct experience. I suspect that tendency is the reason some experts consultants make a lot of money - but often don't generate change...

On the expensive consultancy thing, I read a few months ago that a student did her PhD on top executives' attitudes to advice. The findings were that advice which was paid for (ie consultancy) was always favoured over advice which wasn't paid for (ie staff suggestions) even if the unpaid advice was, to any outside observer, clearly better. I didn't bookmark this story, so if anybody knows the research I am talking about, please post a link.

Adrian

Link to that article is below :

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=4465&t=innovation

Yes that old chestnut 'free advice is worth every penny / cent you pay for it' perpetuated by the legal profession would'nt you know it.

Declan: Thanks for that link - and so fast!

Fantastic. Thanks Declan.

Pricess :-)