top of the crops.

John Simmons, fellow board director and founder of 26, has a new book out. It’s called ‘Twenty-six Ways of Looking at a BlackBerry: How to Let Writing Release the Creativity of Your Brand’, and explores different approaches to business writing.

Basically, John has taken a piece of generic corporate writing – the ‘base text’, and rewritten it in 26 different ways, each following a particular constraint. For example, as a fairy story; without using the letter ‘e’; written in the style of Dickens; as a letter to a friend; as a six word story; as a sonnet. It’s surprising just how revealing this exercise can be.

There’s also an engaging themed web site to promote the book, where John has asked 26 of the UK’s leading commercial writers to write in the tone of voice of a fruit. I chose banana, for its obvious comic potential, and created a laid back, West Indian tone of voice. You can see my efforts, and check out the other fruity offerings here.