The Other Dirty Thirty

Having just avoided participating in the Dirty Thirty Poetry Month in April (thirty days, thirty writing prompts, one per day) - it's become something of an annual festival with me, avoiding this event - you'd think I'd happily sit back and not think about it. But no! Why should poets have all the fun, after all? A far more common creative form, if you ask me, is the company circular, the monthly business fiscal update, the mundane board report composed by an unimportant mid-level HR drone.

To that end, I have composed the following:

Thirty writing prompts for mundane board reports

1. Discuss a potential rebranding strategy.

2. Outline your acquisitions portfolio.

3. Compare your company's sales on a month-by-month basis with those of other companies.

4. Hey, sales have been up in the third quarter!

5. Hey, sales have been down in the third quarter!

6. Hey, sales have stagnated in the third quarter!

7. Raise the prospect of future mergers.

8. Forecast some developments in the international markets.

9. Fill a page full of obscure acronyms that even your accountancy department will struggle to recognise.

10. Make a pie chart of the different sections of the company.

11. Make a bar graph of the same.

12. Paste a picture of the CEO on the page with the caption "our CEO".

13. Describe a development as "in line with expectations".

14. Write a series of sub-headings for the CFO's report!

15. Write a paragraph containing no rhymes whatsoever!

16. Use the acronym EBITDA 10 times in the one page.

17. Discuss difficulties you have had with your suppliers.

18. Use the words "going forward" on the first page of the report.

19. Chart international sales on a month-by-month basis.

20. Do the same on a year-by-year basis.

21. Discuss specific targets for your company.

22. Compare and contrast taxation and company responses to taxation in different countries.

23. Make a list of corporate responsibilities. Put a tick next to each of them!

24. Outline further opportunities for growth.

25. Discuss risks your productions sector will have to deal with.

26. Make a Venn diagram!

27. List five corporate strategies for the coming financial year. Use bullet points.

28. Use a photo of one of your factories, and come up with a banal caption for it!

29. Discuss the reasons for financial losses in the previous quarter.

30. Make up another graph just because, and colour it in. Use lots of grey!