Thanks to John Moore (US) for pointing to this – Get Real by David Weinberger. My favourite bit:
The military mentality that pervades marketing and customer service is a result of business’s ubiquitous fear. Just as studies show that people are more afraid of public speaking than of dying organizations are more afraid of being exposed than of failing. They fear that the market will see that their business doesn’t run like a clock designed by God; they’re composed of fallible human beings. What a shock!
Combine fear and aggression and you end up with companies literally afraid to speak like human beings. It’s easier, after all, to plan an attack than to communicate on the fly and
