The most striking thing to me about IBM memos from this era is just how literate executives were. These days most VPs struggle to write a single sentence worth reading.
Many people from that era were well read and well spoken. He in particular sounded like he had some interesting life experiences: air force pilot, ambassador to the Soviet Union, president of the Boy Scouts, etc.
They also had secretaries (even more-so at the executive level) who would proof-read the letter and return it to the boss for their revision and/or signature. Contrast that with today where it's easy for someone to click send and off it goes, incomplete thoughts and grammar errors and all.
If you want to improve your communications - when you finish writing your email, leave it as a draft for 30-40 minutes. Then go back an re-read it with a fresh viewpoint.
If I can suggest - the USAF has a manual for this, which guides you in being clear, concise, and specific:
I worked for a government entity and was involved in a lawsuit based on a very old, not-IBM mainframe contract that was solicited before I was born and amended like 30 times.
The memos and letters in those files were both amazing and depressing, as when you fast forwarded from the late 70s to circa 2010, the writing quality steadily declined.
Related? I have several sets of old encyclopedias, Collier's from the 40's and World books from the 60's and 80's. It is very noticeable how much better the older articles are written.
Here is an example from 1921, <a href="https://archive.org/details/colliersnewencyc01newy/page/40/mode/2up" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/colliersnewencyc01newy/page/40/m...
And weird errata, while looking for an example the Wikipedia article on Collier's claims they started in 1949 while my copies have copyrights 1932 - 1944 so were probably printed 1944/45.
adonovan · · focus · HN ↗
imglorp · · focus · HN ↗
chiph · · focus · HN ↗
If you want to improve your communications - when you finish writing your email, leave it as a draft for 30-40 minutes. Then go back an re-read it with a fresh viewpoint.
If I can suggest - the USAF has a manual for this, which guides you in being clear, concise, and specific:
<a href="https://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/saf_aa/publication/afh33-337/afh33-337.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/saf_aa/publi...
Spooky23 · · focus · HN ↗
The memos and letters in those files were both amazing and depressing, as when you fast forwarded from the late 70s to circa 2010, the writing quality steadily declined.
somat · · focus · HN ↗
Here is an example from 1921, <a href="https://archive.org/details/colliersnewencyc01newy/page/40/mode/2up" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/colliersnewencyc01newy/page/40/m...
And weird errata, while looking for an example the Wikipedia article on Collier's claims they started in 1949 while my copies have copyrights 1932 - 1944 so were probably printed 1944/45.