????“我認為商業新聞不應該是一本正經的。”最近一個午后，我和斯坦利?賓在舊金山一家別致的餐飲會所一起喝酒時，他這樣對我說。這位老兄或許是我認識的最沒正形的商業記者了。

????斯坦利?賓擁有多重身份，他既是《財富》(Fortune)專欄作者，又是一位幽默作家。而在現實生活中，他其實是一家公司的高管，斯坦利?賓只是他的筆名。在這次交談中，他向我分享了自己的人生和商業哲學，推廣他將于4月15日由哈珀柯林斯公司( Harper Collins)出版發行的新書《課程》(The Curriculum)。如果你時常被賓的《財富》專欄逗得捧腹大笑，你肯定會喜歡這本書。《課程》采用精裝本，厚紙印制，看起來很有檔次，里面煞有其事地列舉了一套商界人士的另類行為規則。

????真的行得通嗎？

????因為你聽賓談得越多（無論你在聽他講話的同時是不是在喝酒），你就越覺得他說得有道理。比如，他談到“如何看起來不傻”這個關鍵主題，其中包括“睿智的點頭”和“選擇性質疑”等方面的指導。他還建議你應該如何穿衣，如何去除異味。在以“假裝金融行家”為主題的一章中，他幫助我們每個人解開了心中的疑惑，字里行間散發著智慧的光芒。他的“大師課程”包括如何舉辦會議，如何管理無聊情緒和林肯城市汽車(Town Car)等話題，用他的話說，這些都是“很重要的東西”。

????賓教導讀者，如果想給別人留下你很在行的印象，裝模作樣地看電子表格并不見得是最有說服力的方式。他建議采取兩種方法。其一，你可以大聲嚷嚷，“這他媽的都是什么玩意？”此語一出，演示者肯定會嚇得不行。其二，指著某一個特定的單元格，說：“我不明白你怎么搞出這個來的，”這樣說保證會讓演示者手忙腳亂地解釋一陣子。

????與斯坦利?賓一同飲酒讓我想起了小時候看約翰尼?卡森采訪喜劇大師們的經歷。在巴迪?哈克特和唐?里克萊斯這樣一些喜劇演員面前，卡森幾乎插不上一句話，雖然他老是想板著臉，但總是以失敗告終。我采訪斯坦利?賓也是這種情形。他向我解釋說，這本書的所有數據都來源于他的國家嚴肅研究協會(National Association for Serious Studies)，賓已經把這家組織公司化了。“這些都是專有數據，所以我不能分享，”他面無表情地說，那模樣似乎是出自一本描寫紅菜湯地帶(Borscht Belt，對美國俄裔猶太人的謔稱——譯注)的漫畫書。“但我保證，這本書的所有內容都恪守了互聯網新聞業的最高標準。”

????誰又能跟他狡辯呢？難道使用那些被嚴肅人士冒充為智慧的連篇廢話？在賓看來，他的研究跟胡佛研究所(Hoover Institution)恰恰相反。這家研究所“盡是一些得出無用結論的高端人士。我手下都是一幫廢物，但他們得出的結論卻絕對是經得起考驗的。”就像任何有意或無意的“偽巨著”一樣，《課程》也配有信息圖表。而且還不少。其中一張顯示的是，與客戶喝酒往往發生在銷售周期哪一個時點，以及這樣做的效果。很有意義。

????也許最重要的是，賓還向普通商界人士傳授偽造一副“可持續的表面形象”的技巧。“如果一個人在工作之外無法保持自己的真實個性，這個人肯定會發瘋，”他說。“或者，這個人會成為一個大人物，因為他根本就沒有真實的個性。”由此可以看出，賓對大佬們還是有所了解的，但這本書的目標受眾卻并不是他們。“我假想我的讀者是一些比較正常的人，”他說。關于這一點，他是絕對認真的。 （財富中文網）

????譯者：葉寒

????

????"I don't think business journalism should be serious," says Stanley Bing, perhaps the least serious business journalist I know, as we settle into our comfy chairs recently at a fancy San Francisco dining club over a late-afternoon drink.

????Bing, the Fortune columnist, humorist, author, and alter-ego for a real-life business executive with a real name, is sharing his philosophy on life and business with me to promote his new book, The Curriculum, which Harper Collins will publish April 15. If you're amused by Bing's Fortune columns, you're going to love this book, a hardcover, thick-paper-stock, impressive-looking, completely make-believe set of rules on how to conduct oneself in business.

????Or is it?

????Because the more you listen to Bing talk, whether or not you're consuming alcohol simultaneously, the more sense he makes. He covers, for example, the critical subject of "how not to look stupid," which includes guidance on "sagacious nodding" and "selective questioning." He gives advice on what to wear and how to smell. He imparts wisdom on what we all want to know in his chapter on "feigning financial literacy." His "master curriculum" includes lessons on how to do meetings, managing boredom, and, in his words, "important stuff" like town-car management.

????Bing teaches his reader not so much how to read a spreadsheet as the most convincing way to give the impression of understanding one. He counsels two approaches. One involves shouting, "What the fuck is that?" which is certain to cow the presenter. The second is to point at a specific cell and say, "I don't understand how you got this," which is guaranteed to send the presenter into a delirium of explanation.

????Sharing a drink with Stanley Bing reminds me of when, as a child, I watched Johnny Carson interview great comedians like Buddy Hackett or Don Rickles. Carson rarely got in a word, and his efforts to keep a straight face always failed. So it is with Bing, who explained to me that all the data in his book comes from his National Association for Serious Studies, which he has incorporated. "It's all proprietary, so I can't share it," he deadpans, with the timing of a Borscht Belt comic. "But I assure it all adheres to the highest standards of Internet journalism."

????And who's to quibble with him, what with all the crap serious people pass off as wisdom? He presents his research as the opposite of what happens at the Hoover Institution, made up of "all these high-quality people who make bogus conclusions. I have bogus people who reach perfectly justified conclusions." Like any intentionally or unintentionally bogus presentation, The Curriculum has infographics. Lots of them. One shows where drinking happens in the sales cycle and its effect. It's positive.

????Perhaps most importantly, Bing teaches the average business reader how to fabricate a "sustainable persona." "If you don't retain your genuine persona outside of work, you'll go insane," he says. "Or you'll be a mogul, because they don't have real personas." So you know, Bing knows a thing or two about moguls. This book isn't for them. "I'm assuming my audience is relatively normal people," he says. About this, he is dead serious.