Author, trainer and branding guru Neil Taylor, the man who named Ocado, shares his fascinating adventures in words this week. Becoming aware of his Lancashire accent a small child, Neil’s fascination with language, accents and communications led to studying Linguistics at Cambridge and on to a successful career in branding. We discuss how language has evolved from the secret language of teenagers, to emojis to the weird phrasing of AI, to tone and radical honesty and the rules of engagement for different formats. He now helps people with public speaking and how to inspire, engage and persuade through words. He says his biggest bugbear is with the word ‘professional’ as it’s not what’s interesting or different about people. A music lover, Neil brought one of the two old singles he tracked down recorded by his Dad’s band Marianne and Mike, who supported the Beatles in the sixties. He also brings a cherished tape of his grandmother chatting, which he recorded as a student as part of a linguistic study. He’s a Dr. Who fanatic and brings one of his collection of Tardises and talks about how his love of the show has shaped his life. His mantra is: Never confident, always optimistic. He says you can never know where life is going, but you can always assume things are going to go well.
He has a side hustle making dead pan greetings cards that tell the truth at www.deadpancards.com
You can find out about his training at www.thisisdefinition.com and his books including 'Brilliant Business Writing' and 'The Name Of The Beast' are available on Amazon
","author_name":"Alice Cripps and Josie Lloyd"}