This is a friendly reminder to show, don't tell.

In fact, let's start with 'friendly reminder', as in 'this is a friendly reminder that your payment is overdue'. By using the adjective 'friendly' we're giving an impression that an unfriendly reminder is just around the corner, perhaps in the form of a bunch of guys who'll hold you down and piss up your nostrils until you pay up.

I couldn't function without a reminder notification on my calendar. Five minutes until a meeting, BING! Perfect. Being reminded is normal and I'd go so far as to say that these days people expect to be reminded to do most things. It's what the little robots in our pocket are for. A reminder just means, 'That thing you said you'd do a while back? Do it now.'

The people who write these friendly reminder emails could, instead, simply say, 'Hi there. We've noticed your account is overdue. Would you mind attending to that for us?' This is a reminder that's friendly.

Here are some ‘objectives’ I randomly plucked out of three current government strategic plans. You know the type of document: the one that sits on the organisation’s website to demonstrate that they’re on the ball and forward thinking. It'll be apparent that it’s a strategy document because it will have the words ‘strategic plan’ in the title.

False metrics are everywhere in our media. There’s a TV commercial from QBE insurance that asks,

“What's the chance of this young woman getting a great deal on car insurance? Maybe five per cent? Ten per cent? Actually it’s one-hundred per cent, because we know she’s a safe driver.”

After fielding yet another annoying marketing call Jess observed that we should have a government bill that says, as is the case with vampires, telemarketers can only come into our home if we invite them.