THE STATIC

Roasting tech spin, bluster and puffery. Laugh at the cringe, unjam your message.

Each week, same sections, fresh hell in a four-minute read.

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Tech Waffle Torture Explained - We tell you what corporate speak really means. You’re welcome.

Original Fluff - as seen on a LinkedIn sponsored ad

ACCELERATING TRANSFORMATION TO THE CLOUD
Creating purpose-built solutions for the modern enterprise.
Designed to help you scale, adapt, and thrive.
Used by Fortune 500 companies.
The chosen partner for leaders rapidly evolving in a fast-moving digital world.

Translated:
“Accelerating” = we’ll pressure you to migrate faster than your team can cope.
“Purpose-built” = we reused the same template from our last four clients.
“Thrive” = we hope no one notices that your costs have just doubled.“
Fortune 500: That’s a typo, or Ben in marketing went rogue.
“Partner = what we call you right before we invoice you.
“Rapidly evolving = You’re 20 years too late, and we’re cashing in on your panic.

Meaningfully Shallow Values – You get them as short and sweet ugly truths

Arriving Late. Composure First, Accountability Never.
"I arrived at the office at 10:42 with my laptop half-open and earbuds in. They thought I was mid-call. I was mid-YouTube, watching my favourite True Crime podcaster.”

Leaving Early. Invisibility Cloak Activated.
“I left at 3.30 pm. Said I had a client call. The client was Vintage Cellars, or ‘Church’ as I call it.” They had a special on my favourite Shiraz – two for the price of one. Praise the Lord.”

Staying Late. Just for Optics
“I stayed late because someone from leadership was still here. We made zero eye contact. But they saw my silhouette. That’s how you build career equity.”

Savage Takedowns – Spectator sport or heed the lesson

Quibi: The $1.75B Streaming Catastrophe
Launched in 2020, Quibi promised to reinvent video content with ‘quick bites’ for mobile viewers. With a star-studded lineup and $1.75 billion in funding, it looked poised to dominate. Instead, it tanked within six months. Poor user uptake, the mobile-only design ignored how people actually consume media, and during a pandemic, no one wanted content they couldn’t watch on a TV.

Why it still matters:
Money and celebrity can’t compensate for bad timing, flawed assumptions, and a product no one asked for. While Quibi told a great story, it wasn’t the one their audience wanted. When you fail to meet people where they are, even brilliant content and big budgets won’t save you. This Wired article unpacks it well.

Pop Culture Cringe – Out of touch comms worth your time

Jeff Bezos’ $50M Wedding Flex
When your net worth is $200B, subtlety doesn’t make the guest list.
Jeff Bezos recently tied the knot in what might be the most overbranded ceremony since the fall of Rome. Sure, the official wedding took place in a Venetian basilica, but the real show was a $50M foam party aboard his half-billion-dollar yacht, Koru, complete with a celebrity guest list glistening in curated opulence. So blessed.

In B2B tech, this is like staging a three-day mega-conference with cinematic lighting, towering displays, and AI-fuelled promises to "change the world for the better", all while quietly issuing a press release announcing 3,000 layoffs to fund an experimental product still in beta. But hey, the canapés were exquisite and the hashtags were on fire.

Lesson? When your messaging screams ‘Look at me’ but quietly hides the real story, people aren’t impressed, they’re repelled. Spectacle without real humanity isn’t strategy. It’s just a flex for tech giants that are already powerful. Congratulations, Jeff. Hope the return policy on your luxury handbag includes an ironclad prenup.

LinkedIn Popularity Templates – Syrupy, self-congratulatory. Surprisingly effective.

Template 4: The “Lost for Words” Post 

I honestly don’t have the words for how special this week has been at the Global Synergy & Solutions Summit.

What started as a standard team offsite turned into something so much more. We laughed. We connected. We went deep. Behind every KPI is a human, and I feel so lucky to have met the real people behind the corporate facades.

From late-night heart-to-hearts in the hotel lobby to spontaneous dance floor confessions (you know who you are!), this wasn’t just a work trip; it was a soul trip.

Truly grateful to be part of a team that makes space for vulnerability, story-sharing, and hotel lobby wine therapy.

#GratefulHeart #BondingMoments #BeyondTheKPIs #ConferenceOfConnection

Copy, paste, and let the vulnerability algorithm do its thing.

Got some naval gazing or philosophical musing you’d like to turn into a syrupy LinkedIn post? Reply to this email with your request and I’ll do my best.

Dear Dr Comms – When spin fails, we call in the real professionals to fix our stuff-ups

Dear Dr Comms

An anonymous all-staff email just went nuclear. Subject line: “What They Really Pay You, And What They Really Think.” It listed everyone’s salary, tore into exec bonuses (“$1.5M for headcount rationalisation??”), and claimed our Head of People once said, “Culture is just free snacks and pretending to care.” It ended with: “This place runs on power huddles, gaslighting, and ego over competence.” Now HR is hyperventilating, the CEO wants names, and the comms team has been told to “restore trust” by Monday. Sincerely, Running for the Hills

Dear Running,

Well. That escalated. Here’s how other professionals would deal with this inbox explosion:

🦁 Zookeeper (primates + reptiles specialist)
“First, stop throwing more bananas at the cage. The troop’s agitated. Let them vent, it’s healthy. Then isolate the alpha behaviours causing chaos. If trust is leaking, someone’s peed in the corner, metaphorically or otherwise. Clean it up. Rebuild the enclosure. No more glass walls.”

🦷 Dentist (suburban, no-nonsense, bulk-biller)
“This is what happens when you ignore decay for too long. All smiles on the outside, but rot underneath. You’ll need root canal, not a polish. Start with transparency, pull the infected truth out clean, and numb the pain with real reform. No more sugarcoated values.”

⚡ Electrician (third-gen, union-trained, doesn’t do “vibes”)
“Power surge like this? You check the grounding. Leadership’s been running hot and uninsulated. Time to rewire the whole system. Label everything clearly. And install a failsafe before someone else flips the switch and burns the whole place down.”

Got a problem you wouldn’t trust the Comms Dr to fix? Reply to this email, I’ll loop in real experts. 

What The Fluff (WTF)?! – Decoding tech, something that linguists, philosophers, and your boss refuse to do

Layer 8 Insights – Fortnightly deep dives that explore the human error in tech.