Engw2.2

Read the section titled “Good Writing.”  In that section, Edward Bailey’s six points of good writing are listed.

Please take note of Bailey’s six points of good writing.  Then access the following message from Jeff Bezos to shareholders at Amazon.com:

Read: Message from Jeff Bezos to Amazon Shareholders

Please read only the section of this message titled, “Six-Page Narratives.”  You don’t have to read the whole message.  

Then answer the following questions:

1. In banning PowerPoint and asking for six-page memos, is Jeff Bezos violating any of Bailey’s six principles?  If so, which ones does he seem to violate, and why do you make the case that he violates them?  If not, explain why his strategy does not violate any of the six principles.

2. Why might Bezos prefer a six-page memo read silently for 30 minutes at the beginning of a meeting to a PowerPoint presentation?  What advantage might such a memo have over a PowerPoint presentation?

Please feel free to conduct your own searches on this issue.  Various articles have been written about Amazon’s ban of PowerPoint in its internal meetings, and these articles have additional quotes from Bezos.