I picked this book up because I like the idea of clear, to the point communication, just like the author, but found this book one-sided. It seems it was written to poke fun at the trends for jargon words in the business, but did not offer many alternatives or suggestions on how one could help improve themselves and others.

Half of this book’s content is written to entertain with elaborate sarcastic jokes and a lot of statistics and facts, which I often found to be amusing but useless when considering the book’s goals. For example, it offers graphs of the usage of the word 'transparency' in various industries. It also has numerous graphs showing an increase in usage of a specific jargon word over time. We use certain corporate words more than we did before. I get it. But I’m sure there are other words whose usage has declined.

I agree with the premise of the book and also find excessive use of jargon and car analogies in the work place meaningless and boring. It would benefit everyone if we were more aware of how we choose to communicate and strived to improve. However, I would argue that a moderate usage of the latest business words in fashion is not that terrible as, business or other type of jargon, languages constantly experience change as new words are created and new trends arise.

I did, however, found the comedy bit on audio conferencing in the work place in Chapter 2 hilarious.

Usefulness