Three related things happened in the same morning last week and the coincidence made me smile. First of all, I had a message from a well-known search engine company, telling me that they were ‘reaching out’ to offer a ‘deep dive into my data’. Of course, I knew what they meant, but I wasn’t proud of it. When groaning about business jargon, people often remark: “Would you actually say this in a real-life conversation?”, but in this case, these people actually would. I think it’s healthy to question what’s happened to our lives when we find ourselves working in an environment where people talk like that.

Moments later, I saw this on Twitter:

Here's a handy way to see whether it's appropriate to use the term 'reach out' in the office: pic.twitter.com/YdsrnsKUaY

— Rick Turner (@Orchard_Rick) July 4, 2016

Then I became aware of this wonderful mousemat, made as a promotional item by my favourite copywriting agency in the world (click to enlarge):

What have they missed out? What examples of business-speak make you cringe the most? Let me know here.

You know how important I think the “About Us” page is on a business website. It’s not only one of the most-viewed pages, it’s one which is viewed by the most important visitors of all: your prospects. It needs a lot of thought, especially as to how you can make it “about the two of us“.

Sadly, the typical “About Us” page was written as an afterthought, and is – quite frankly – awful.

It’s a different page from most of your site. Whereas I hope you’d get in good technical writers to provide case studies and technology background articles, I hope you wouldn’t assume the same people could do your “About Us” page. They might be able to do it, but there are also people out there who specialise in this sort of content. You should use them. Here’s one of the better ones to take up the story.