Dark Angels: How Writing Releases Creativity at Work - Softcover

John Simmons

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1904879039 ISBN 13: 9781904879039

Publisher: Cyan Books, 2004

Synopsis

By developing creativity in everyday language and words, this writing guide helps businesses and business professionals strengthen their goals and generate fresh ideas. Suggestions for e-mails, reports, letters, memos, and proposals show how company communications can be clearer and arguments more effective with a few inspired changes. By allowing their inner dark angels to spread their creative wings, business professionals can learn how to better engage with, and connect to, their audience with stories and emotion rather than cold analysis.

About this title

About the Author

JOHN SIMMONS is a leading proponent of creative language in business, and has written two influential books on the subject - We, Me, Them & It (Texere, 2000) and The Invisible Grail (Texere, 2003). He is also the author of My Sister’s a Barista: How They made Starbucks a Home from Home (Cyan, 2004) and co-editor of 26 Letters: Illuminating The Alphabet (Cyan, 2004). <P>John Simmons was selected by Design Week as one of the "hot 50" people making a difference in design. He was previously a director at Interbrand, the largest brand consultancy in the world.

From the Back Cover

Most of us spend at least part of our working lives writing. Whether you are an accountant or a zoologist, chances are you use the written word every day to inform, to document, to promote and to persuade. Using language effectively is an essential skill at work. Learning to go a step further and use it creatively can bring huge benefits for both you and your business.

Inside every mediocre writer at work, there is a better one wanting to come out. All that we need to release us from our verbal shackles is encouragement, a bit of direction and a positive working environment. This book sets us on the right track. It encourages us to be dark angels: to rebel against business jargon and corporate-speak, engage our emotions as well as our intellect and put our personality into our words.

John Simmons believes writing isn't just about conveying ideas and information. It can aim much higher: it can offer us entertainment, insight, connection and understanding:

'Let us explore our potential through words, words that soar off the page, fly out of the screen into the imaginations of others. Let us live up to our abilities as dark angels.'

From the Inside Flap

John Simmons is a writer and consultant on brands. His book We, Me, Them and It and The Invisible Grail argue that the importance of language, storytelling and verbal identity in branding has long been neglected. He co-edited the Economist Guide to Brands and Branding and writes a regular column about brands in the Observer. He is also series editor of Great Brand Stories and author of one of the books in the series, My Sister's A Barista: How they made Starbucks a home from home.

Dark Angels is particularly informed by John Simmons' recent work in training. A former director of Interbrand, he now works with companies such as Guinness, Unilever and the Old Vic to help them tell their stories more effectively.

His belief in the value of words and the need for better writing in business led him to co-found the writers' group 26, which took part in a major exhibition, '26 Letters,' shown at the British Library in Autumn 2004.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cyan Books
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1904879039
• ISBN 13: 9781904879039
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192