Leverage. Tech-savvy. Curating. Phenomenon. These are a few randomly-picked words that will make someone’s brain stop mid-sentence. In fact, just read a pitch and imagine you’re talking to a 12-year-old who might care a little about what you’re doing but owes you nothing. That’s about the attention span you can expect from a blogger or reporter who is getting 300-500 emails a day.

Several years ago I got an absolutely wretched pitch from a PR person, and rather than just deleting it and moving on, I critiqued it and sent it back to him. Apparently he fired it up the chain of command to the company CEO, who cc:’d me (accidentally, it turned out) and complained that “this is why we never pitch to the Mac press, those people are too picky.”

So it’s worth pointing out that a lousy pitch isn’t always the PR person’s fault. There’s often pressure on them from above, from some pointy-haired manager’s office (include the CEO’s) to bury their lead in the weeds of buzzwords and industry jargon.

Still, good food for thought for PR people looking to more effectively hone their craft. (And, worth noting, put on my radar from one of my favorite commies in the business.)