It's the new year and I'm thinking about performance evaluations and wondering if they've gotten any more sophisticated since I had my last one about a decade ago, before I went freelance.

I actually remember loving performance evaluations. I liked the personal attention, the conversation about my favorite subject: Me. It helped that my evaluations were positive and came with a raise, like a toy in a Crackerjack box.

But the feeling I associate with performance evaluations is a kind of comfort. It was neat and tidy and cozy to have my work, and my work personality, plotted out in unambiguous ratings between 1-5 and then to sign that form with my boss, together.

It was agreed: My work ethic was a five, my management ability was a four, my organization skills were a 2.5—but up from a 2.0 last year!

But I remember that my Ragan colleague and good pal Bill Sweetland reacted very differently to the forced, faux objectivity of the annual performance reviews. In fact, he simply refused to submit to them.

"Who are you to evaluate me?" he asked Ragan's then-president, who was about 20 years Bill's junior and who, according to Bill, hadn't the first idea of the extent of Bill's strenghts—or his weaknesses.

"NO ONE KNOWS MY SHORTCOMINGS THE WAY I DO!" he bellowed so loudly that we all heard it through the office walls. "AND NO ONE EVER WILL!"

Readers, where do you come down on the Murray-Sweetland Scale of Performance Evaluation Enjoyment? Or, as I suspect, do you have an entirely different perspective on the annual corporate ritual?

In my continuing effort to convince each reader of this blog that he or she ought to support Barack Obama simply on grounds that Obama is the greatest writer in American politics since Abraham Lincoln, I submit to you this new Newsweek interview with Jon Favreau, the lucky young man who is writing Obama's speeches in the most collaborative, rewarding and sane way ever heard of since Sorensen and Kennedy in 1960.

The 26-year-old got the job when Obama asked him what his theory of speechwriting was and he said exactly the correct thing:

"I have no theory ... But when I saw you at the [2004 Democratic National] convention, you basically told a story about your life from beginning to end, and it was a story that fit with the larger American narrative. People applauded not because you wrote an applause line but because you touched something in the party and the country that people had not touched before. Democrats haven't had that in a long time."

That was a good answer. But not quite as precise as my own answer, offered in a letter to Obama's communication director Robert Gibbs dated Jan. 3 of last year, offering my help, as a connector to other speechwriters or as a writer myself:

"Senator Obama has offered a pinhole of hope for a basic American reconciliation around common values we know we share, even amid a political context designed to make liberals and conservatives see our fellow Americans as either godless monsters or superstitious idiots. ...

"Perhaps most relevant, I have a three-year-old daughter. I’d like to be able to tell her, as I was told as a child, that she lives in a great and wise country. President Obama would be my best hope. If you see a way for me to help make that happen, I’m at your service."

I never heard back. But in case young Favreau throws a few errant balls, I'm keeping my helmet on.

• Hillary Clinton mists up in the middle of a political shit-storm and half the country, it seems, finds some place—even our place—to opine that means she is a manipulative creep.

• Prominent women bloggers frequently have to deal with insane, threatening comments and death/rape threats.

• A friend of mine's girlfriend moved into his house. At a party I remarked that she seemed happy. My friend's brother said, "I'd be happy too if I just stole a half-million dollar house."

• I get notes from male communicators who hope I'll write about how men are discriminated against by the women who dominate communication departments.

The feminist debate—Gloria Steinem vs. Norman Mailer, Billy Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs—seems dusty and musty. In the 1970s, Larry Ragan once wrote in The Ragan Report that "all PR women sound alike on the telephone" and one third—one third!—of his readers wrote letters calling him a cretin. (He apologized thoroughly for his foray into cretin-dom.)

The battle of the sexes now seems much quieter than it was 30 years ago—but sneakier, more subtle, quieter, deadlier.

And sadder.

About four people—three of them are cable news producers and the fourth is Al Sharpton—really think Golf Channel announcer Kelly Tilghman meant something by her imbecile remark that the other PGA golfers should "lynch [Tiger Woods] in a back alley."

(Woods himself has said her comments are a "non-issue.")

Anyone else who is offended obviously did not hear this very same harebrained announcer, this very same week, discussing the sight of a magnificent sperm whale leaping out of the vast blue Pacific Ocean next to the Hawaii golf course.

Squealed she, "It's just like Sea World!"

In high school we think the object in life is to have lots of friends. Later we realize the idea is to have few friends who actually understand us.

But during this natural evolution in our thinking, Internet networking has taken over, and we're faced with e-mails like this one I got on Saturday, from a woman I have never heard of:

"David, I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. In case you don't recognize my name, we've recently connected through ideablob.com, eComXpo, inXpo, igive.com or through a friend/associate. I'd love to stay in touch. Allison"

How can you simply add me to your professional network Allison? We are not colleagues and never have been. And whatever may have happened between us at "ideablob.com," I don't remember it. So sorry, Sis, I don't think I'll sign up for this.

Yet, somehow I feel I'm doing the wrong thing, being somehow anti-social, or at least anti-social media. Am I?

The Ragan editorial crew has had to drag me every single step of the way toward the multimedia age. And I'm grateful they're dragging me, instead of leaving me face down in the mud.

The latest stage is a new "show" created by Ragan video goon Justin Allen. By "video goon," I mean, "energetic, creative fellow who couldn't be more encouraging or reassuring, but who nevertheless does force me in front of that unsympathetic, uncharmable unblinking glass eyeball on an increasingly regular basis."

Here's the best result Justin and I have achieved together so far.

As I watch myself on video, I see the inherent snottiness, the smarminess, the obvious overdose of self-regard that makes it hard for me to read my college writing. In prose, I've more or less learned how to conceal—to some extent anyway—my worst qualities.

But in video, there they are again, preening for everyone to see, and no one more clearly than me.

Justin assures me I'm fine; I assure myself I'll be better next time.

Over the last few years, I've become more and more interested in boxing. I've learned about boxing history and studied the styles of most of the great fighters. I've written a story about amateur boxers in Chicago and attended some local fight nights here. I've gone to a gym and done some training. And I've bought a big blue heavy bag that cowers in the corner of our living room, made more nervous by my wife's glowers than by my left hook.

I love boxing, I think boxing is cool, and I think I'm cool for loving boxing, even though—no, precisely because—boxing has fallen so far out of mainstream favor.

So I talk about boxing to anyone who will listen—which isn't very many, among my usual crew of old hippies, socialists, pacificsts, intellectuals, feminists and golfers. I quote a Nelson Algren short story about a pug who could throw a right but whose left wouldn't fill his coat sleeve. I shadow box at parties. I pick up the slightest thread—"Speaking of thinking outside the box. ..." I try to imitate Ali's shuffle. I know! What a jackass!

There are a few who will engage me on this stuff—Crescenzo is into boxing, and a few of my other friends have a nostalgic feeling about a fading cultural phenomenon—but mostly, people just put up with my yammering. When I went into my Ali shuffle in the office the other day and asked Sweetland if I was floating like a butterfly, he said, "No. You're not quite light enough on your feet." Justin Allen simply walked away.

What, you might ask, is the matter with me? It is that I am so fascinated with boxing at the moment—and for the last few years—that I cannot believe other people aren't as fascinated, or can't be made so by my sharing my own intensity.

I forgive myself this mild insanity, because I think it's shared by all passioniate people, and because I don't think tyrannize anyone too long with this boxing nonsense.

But understanding this fever—it's my world so it should be your world too—is to sympathetically understand our senior executives' refusal to drop the jargon of their industry. (They think "synergy" is cool!) Their inability to acknowledge or even see that the world is not all about the lampshades their company manufactures. And their constant focus on the financial numbers they follow every day like a football score. (Why aren't more employees interested in the "game" of business?)

Of course, communicators must find ways to convince the bosses that their need to talk about EBITA doesn't equal their audience's need to hear about it. It helps to understand that the boss's blindness—in many cases—comes out of passion, which is a good thing.

Don't you agree? Tell me you do or I'll hit you with a jab so flaccid you'll think I was trying to pick something out of your hair.

I chuckle at the idea of contributing my valuable knowledge to some public wiki for free. I'm all like, "Wiki? How about, paymi?"

I think other professional communicators have the same feeling, because every wiki I've seen anyone try to develop in this business has immediately begun to smell like the black mud at the bottom of a small pond.

But I may have come up with an idea for a wiki that communicators would be sufficiently motivated to maintain: It's called YesYouCanSayThatpedia.com, and it was inspired by this story, which was published in an employee publication recently and sent to me by the rightly proud correspondent who wrote it:

***

Investigation into fatality at mill completed

Although many factors may have contributed to accident, no single one to blame

Our investigation into the accidental death of mill employee ______ revealed that it wasn’t caused by a single major breakdown or failure but rather a myriad of small contributing factors. In fact, none of the factors were a result of a blatant mistake or error in judgment. For example, this wasn’t a case in which the pedestrian had traveled to an unauthorized area, he was struck in a designated crosswalk. Nor was it a situation in which the forklift operator was driving erratically or at excessive speeds – the forklift slid a distance of two to three feet on wet pavement, after he slammed on his brakes.

So, what caused the accident to occur, and why didn’t the forklift operator see the victim before the colliding with him? First visibility was impaired due to the fact that it was close to midnight, dark and raining. Even thought the level of lighting was compliant with OSHA expectations, the rain compounded the problem by increasing the glare associated with the lift’s windshield. Another factor is that the victim was wearing very dark pants, a dark sweat shirt and a dark stocking cap, making it difficult to see him.

The forklift involved in the accident was an older model machine used exclusively as a spare. The regular forklift was traded out for the older model so that the truck shop could perform routine maintenance. However, the older forklift’s steering wheel and controls are off set to the far left side of the operator’s cab. This reduces visibility to the right front field of view, as the driver must look through the entire mast assembly. This factor becomes paramount due to the position of the pedestrian in reference to the forklift immediately prior to and at impact, the front right of the machine.

Witnesses to the event have reported that the victim failed to acknowledge the presence of the forklift, instead continuing to walk in a forward leaning posture, head tilted forward as if to keep the rain from his face.

In retrospect, our contribution to this tragedy is found in our failure to install a more satisfactory alternate route to eliminate the mix of pedestrians and lift trucks in this and a second intersection; ineffectual attempts to sell the route to our workforce; and finally holding all accountable for using that alternate route. As a result of the accident, an alternate route has been put in place at the mill.

This report is sharing the facts of the accident, but in no way diminishes the fact that this was a very sad occurrence for the mill and our company. But we want to do all that we can to prevent this from happening again. Our goal remains to see our employees go home safely to their family and friends each day.

***

The idea for my YesYouCanSayThatpedia is, every time you manage to publish something you thought the lawyers might intercept—it doesn't have to be as amazingly candid as the piece above—you paste it into the searchable wiki. So that next time a lawyer tells an editor, "Oh, for heaven's sake, you can't publish results of a fatality report," you go straight to YesYouCanSayThatpedia.com for "safety" and "employee death" and come up with five stories to give to the lawyer with a Post-It that says, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it."

Whaddyathink?

I love Ragan.com so much—I love to try and, even after a decade and a half of writing for and about communicators, inevitably fail to predict how readers will react to stuff I and my colleagues have written, and thanks to Ragan.com's comments feature, I can.

What I don't love is when I succeed at predicting how readers will react. I've noticed a certain type of prissy, self-righteous, tin-eared pipsqueak communicator.

He or she has been taught by positivist corporatist morons that it's never okay to criticize unless you do so "constructively."

So he or she reacts to every single opinion piece that's negative by saying through sniveling pursed little lips, "That's all well and good, but it would be better if you said how a press release should be written."

Not that they don't have a point sometimes. This week a number of readers criticized a Ragan.com piece about photo captions because they were genuinely confused about what was the matter with the captions the writer was ripping. And they seemed genuinely interested in learning how to write good captions. And they seemed genuinely let down by our failure to help them do that.

We reacted by writing a follow-up piece about how to write good captions.

But often—for instance, with Steve Crescenzo's hilarious C.R.A.P. Awards piece about a stupid press release—we're just pointing out stupid stuff and saying why it's stupid and having some Godamned fun.

Do these readers write to reviewers who pan a novel and say (again, through their sniveling little pursed lips), "Well, Mr. Smarty, how should he have written the novel then?"

Do they read political analysis and write the commentator, "Well, how would you govern Russia?"

Of course not. But because what we do is in the realm of the corporate world and all its bland, semi-smiling expectations of that moving target called "professionalism," they think they can wag their fingers at everybody who says a discouraging word.

Management jerks aren't the only ones who perpetuate the Stepford-wife corporate culture.

My favorite Chicago columnist Neil Steinberg followed Kraft Foods' CEO Irene Rosenfeld to a couple of charities on "Kraft Cares Day," which sends almost 2,000 Kraft employees out of their cozy offices.

Today Steinberg writes in the Sun-Times about his day with Rosenfeld:

"As much as I try to be cynical—a Kraft photographer must have snapped 300 photos, and Rosenfeld feeding little Hayley Edwards with her pink bows will look great in the company's annual report—it's hard to be. The truth is that Kraft not only gives away $83 million a year, but does so in a smart fashion. Rather than following the herd with a pro forma Christmastime effort to prod employees into donating to the trouble-wracked United Way, Kraft gives its employees a voice in deciding where their money should go. They picked Erie House, which has received $215,000 from Kraft since 2000.

"And Rosenfeld is impressive—her focus, the way she takes command of 17 [poor Hispanic] preschoolers at Erie House, learning their names, even the shy girl at the back, and reading a story while peppering them with questions and listening to their sometimes protracted replies, all without a flicker of inattention.

"'You've done this before,' I say later, and she admits to having been, once upon a time, a counselor at Tyler Hill Camp in the Poconos.

"Rosenfeld also has learned the secret of those who actually volunteer—that doing so helps them more than it does their supposed beneficiaries.

"'I can't make a dent today, but we can better understand who we're serving,' Rosenfeld says. 'Coming out to places like this motivates employees. It reminds us of some of the challenges out there, and puts things in perspective. It reinforces our mission: We have an obligation to give back.'

"She doesn't check a BlackBerry in the three hours I'm with her. What if there were a crisis? 'I have a very, very talented group of employees,' Rosenfeld says. 'There are still a few more to spare back at the ranch.'"

My dad was born in 1923. He remembers lying under the dining room table as a six-year-old, marveling at everything in his house, everything his parents had amassed over the years and thinking to himself worriedly, "How did they get all this stuff? I'll never be able to get all this stuff."

I think of that when I hear politicians, from John McCain to John Edwards and everybody in between, talking without interruption about how it's every generation of parents' job to make the world a little better for their children than it was for them.

(McCain's language: Every generation must "build an even greater country than the one they inherited." Edwards says we have to "give our children a better life than we've had.")

I think I like McCain's phrase better, but that may be simply because it's more abstract. Edwards' line, if I think about it—and he's said it so many times that I can't help myself—just fills me with questions: Can one "give" one's child a better or worse life? What does he mean by "better"? Does he mean easier, more cushy, more fun-filled, less labor-intensive? Or does he mean less materialistic, more spiritual, saner?

When you hear this line about giving our children a better life than we've had, what improvements do you think of?

It's hard to be a human being, with an imagination: You meet hundreds, thousands of great people during the course of your life, who do many great things in a million different styles.

But as dynamic as you surely are, you can only be one person, live one life, have one style.

It becomes tedious now and again, does it not?

Former President Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson has a column in Newsweek that starts with a tidy story:

"The evening of the 2004 presidential vote had been late and frustrating. The networks, burned by their monumental confusion on election night 2000, had refused to declare a winner in Ohio, even though the result was clear. In the Oval Office the next morning, President Bush sat with Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Dan Bartlett and me, talking distractedly on random topics. Then his assistant Ashley called in, 'Senator Kerry on the line.' There was a cordial, five-minute conversation. When the president got off the phone, his eyes filled with tears—tears of relief that another election crisis had been avoided—and he hugged each of us in turn."

Like a hillbilly couple fighting over whether it's the rotten beef or the rotten chicken that stanks, I'm trying to figure out what's more hideous:

• The inherently cloying nature of this teary-eyed, one-hug-at-a-time scene. TMI, Mike!

• The maudlin way Gerson tells it. "Tears of relief that another election crisis had been avoided." Oh, brother.

In any case, I'm writing Gerson off as a liar and a creep. (Don't worry, he's not alone; he can bunk with Peggy Noonan.)

If the social arguments about the environment, health care, globalism and economic sustainability were in the shape of a circle, Wal-Mart would be at the very center.

And Wal-Mart, ladies and gents, is looking for an in-house speechwriter. After years of relying on an outside agency, they want somebody in-house. Why? They didn't tell senior sourcing specialist Cassie Dunn, who is doing her first search for a speechwriter and learning how hard it is to find ghosts.

(It hasn't been hard to find government speechwriters, she says, but scribes with corporate experience have been hard to locate.)

I told her I'd do my part here, sharing the gist of the job description and providing her contact information:

"Working closely with the Director of Executive Communications, the Senior Manager, will write speeches and other communications materials for the CEO and senior executives. The Senior Manager, Executive Communications will collaborate with internal departments, outside consultants, and third parties to enhance Wal-Mart’ s reputation and position senior officers as thought leaders on a wide range of topics. The Senior Manager, Executive Communications will be responsible for identifying venues and managing logistics for more than 100 public appearances around the world. He/She also will assess and respond to speaking invitations on behalf of senior officers. Venues may include business and industry groups, financial analysts, academics, government officials, nongovernmental organizations, diversity organizations, human resources organizations, charitable groups, social agencies and local community groups."

If you're interested in this job, e-mail Dunn at cdames@wal-mart.com to get the complete job description, including requirements.

And if you're not—why not?

Last week some of the Shadesy characters expressed mild dismay at my seemingly sudden belief in the sincerity of Wal-Mart's PR claims after years of writing the highly skeptical "Wal-Mart Watch" column in The Ragan Report.

Have I been snowed?

Judge for yourself—hell, judge for me!—after reading my Ragan.com piece, "The most interesting corporate writing job in America", and weigh in there or here.

As often happens when I talk about employee communication to a general audience, I was involved in an amusing exchange last week, on columnist Eric Zorn's Change of Subject blog, on the Chicago Tribune's Web site.

A number of employees of the Trib's rival paper, the Chicago Sun-Times, had been fired by telephone the previous day, and Zorn asked his audience whether that method constituted "an outrage or a courtesy."

Master self-promoter that I am, I immediately weighed in, identified myself as editor of the august Journal of Employee Communication Management, and tried to express my superior understanding of the issue:

"I've covered the employee communication business for 15 years, and have concluded that quibbling about the style of the firing misses the point.

"The much more important thing a company can do ... is ALWAYS keep employees posted on developments in their industry, in their marketplace, so that when the layoff comes, it comes as no surprise.

"Good employee communication professionals know that Job One is, as one expert in our business puts it, 'Turning all eyes outward.' It's the least, and in many cases, the most, we can do."

I'd borrowed that "all eyes outward" line—and this very idea—from my friend, the employee communication guru Roger D'Aprix, who first uttered these words in his 1996 book Communicating Change.

I figured Roger and I had pretty much had the final word in this debate. I thought, "That oughta shut 'em up."

But no. Somebody named Mizcmc wrote,

"I agree with Mr. Murray; the company SHOULD always communicate with the employees so that when a layoff comes it's no surprise. That would be the upstanding thing to do. But in reality, why would they? They don't want to provoke a mass exodus. ..."

Well, you'd be short-sighted too if your online name was an eye chart. I patiently explained that I was talking about something more than just warning them about impending layoffs:

"I'm talking, communicating with employees about the business environment so far ahead of time and in such detail that the employees, before they start worrying about layoffs, might actually do something to help the organization make money or save money, perhaps making the layoffs less severe or rendering them unnecessary. I'm talking, not treating employees like helpless passengers on a sinking ship. Give them a bucket!"

Mizcmc shot back:

"David Murray, I'm sincerely torn between commending you for your efforts and asking you what planet you work on. I agree with your statement wholeheartedly. But I've worked for a lot of companies, big and small, and I've never, ever encountered one that would embrace the philosophy of candor you are proposing. If you are new to this business, be prepared to spend a lot of time banging your head against the wall. And if you are an old hand, please, please publicize the names of the companies that have adopted your philosophy. They will soon find no shortage of people who will happily help them 'make or save money.'"

I didn't tell Mizcmc that just about everyone in the employee communication business is torn between commending me for my efforts and asking me what planet I work on. Nor did I tell him that I've been banging my head against the wall for a decade and a half.

I did tell him that unless he is a coal miner, I could probably find a company in his industry that goes out of its way to bring employees news about the competition, insights about the marketplace and regular updates on how the company is performing in that context.

But though I have a few example companies in mind, I did not provide the list he asked for, of companies that embrace Roger D'Aprix's Turn All Eyes Outward mantra, which I do believe is the single most important function an internal communication department can fulfill.

I sure would like to have that list, and will start to compile it, and once I do I'll publish it. I'm accepting nominations here, or via e-mail: dmurrayil@earthlink.net. Yes, it's okay to nominate your own company .....

Before I got married in 1994, the dozen-or-so people who worked at Ragan then threw a little party for me and got me a little gift and Larry Ragan scrawled in the card, “Stay married for 30 years and maybe you’ll know what love is.”

Last Sunday afternoon after our daughter went down for a nap, my wife felt the prehistoric need she sometimes feels but I never do, to organize our cave. Her passive aggression—“we need to look at the calendar and set a date to clean out the hall closet”—eventually struck against the flint of my active aggression and suddenly the Goddamned closet was getting cleaned, in a violent frenzy.

She yelled over the clattering and the swearing to ask she could help, and I hollered that she could get me a case of beer and a box of trash bags. So much hostile energy was generated that the freezer also got cleaned, for good measure. We must have generated 10 bags of trash.

It wasn’t pretty, but by the time Scout woke up, it was all done. No more needed to be said, and no more was. We were spent.

Early Monday morning I remembered an old John Prine tune I heard sung once, on a bus, driving through the Chinese countryside. My wife had never heard it. I found it on YouTube and played it for her.

I turned my head to hide a tear. When the song was over, she said as she walked away, “It's good. Why don't you write something like that for me someday?”