If our sights were any lower we'd be aiming at our own bottoms

Hurrah for the NSPCC. They say they want to, ‘end cruelty to children in the UK’. They don’t say, ‘we’d like to reduce child cruelty by, ooh, I don’t know, 25% would be nice’. Now, I’m sure if we spoke to someone high up in the organisation, they’d probably acknowledge that their vision is a big ask, but by aiming high, they’re likely to get further. It always worked for Robin Hood.

Writing for financial companies, I meet new people every day. At some point I ask them what they do and they inevitably prefix their answer with, ‘oh it’s really dull’, or sometimes ‘oh it’s really really dull’. Heart sink. From this starting point, even if they went on to explain how they split the atom, landed on the moon, or sculpted the Boy David, it’d probably come across as fairly dreary.

At some point in the conversation we talk about the brochure, the website or the video we’re going to write for them. Yet again they tell me how dull this is going to be and how no one is going to want to read it. You know, just like J.K. Rowling did when she sat in that café and dreamt up a boy wizard: “I know it’s going to be boring, but I just have to do it”.

If somebody, somewhere had the ambition to produce a booklet about pensions, a magazine for the insurance industry or a website about risk that was arresting, entertaining, challenging, fun, surprising, witty, pleasing, beautiful, transforming (pick any three and add a few of your own, but don’t lower expectations with words like clear, comprehensive, well set out or human) then we might just be a bit closer to ‘ending word poverty’.

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