Sick of management speak? Don Watson agrees. His new book is Bendable Learnings, which he will discuss as part of the ANU Meet the Author series, is considered "essential reading" by The Australian Financial Review.

The language of modern management has triumphed, transforming clear, everyday communication into meaningless sludge. To sound professional, you must express everything in abstract nouns, and each noun in terms of another one; you must talk about synergy and strategy, uptake and outcomes and outputs and inputs, key performance indicators and drivers and customer experience - even if your 'customers' are in fact patients in your hospital.

This language is deliberately obscure and falsely scientific; what is more worrying, those who use it have lost the very ability to think clearly.

Dr Don Watson is one of Australia's most prominent writers and intellectuals. He has worked as an academic historian and been Prime Minister Paul Keating's speechwriter and adviser Watson's columns, articles and essays have appeared in all major Australian journals and newspapers. He also writes feature films, the latest of which was The Man Who Sued God.

Watson has authored a number of best-selling books including Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: Paul Keating Prime Minister (2002), Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language (2003), and Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words (2004). One of his most recent books is American Journeys (2008), which won the Age Non-Fiction and Book of the Year Awards, the inaugural Indie Award for Non-Fiction, and the Walkley Award for Non-Fiction.

ANU would like to thank Random House for this Canberra event. Books will be available for signing after the event from the University Co-op Bookshop stand.

This lecture is free and open to the public. registration is essential. Please register attendance with ANU Events.
T: 02 6125 4144 E: Events@anu.edu.au