Bill Swanson And The Striking Similarities of His “Unwritten Rules”
May 1st, 2006 by Laura Moncur in Quotations
When Carl Durrenburger read the USA Today interview with Bill Swanson about his “Unwritten Rules” of business, he recognized something. He recognized some of the rules from a book he had read long ago called, The Unwritten Laws of Engineering. Unfortunately, Bill had claimed those rules as his own instead of giving credit to the original author, W. J. King.
Carl immediately wrote a letter to USA Today, informing them of the error:
“Mr. Swanson has plagiarized from the little-known book “The Unwritten Laws of Engineering” by W.J. King, trying to pass off others’ work as his own. Perhaps there is a new rule he needs to swallow about taking credit for other people’s work. Or perhaps this sort of thing has been his recipe for success in corporate America and, for him, stepping on the genius of others is business as usual.”
So many of us have personal credos that we read in a book or heard in a movie. After years of repeating the phrases to ourselves, we forget where they came from originally and they become one with us. That’s why The Quotations Page is here. We help you remember where you got those wonderful little quotations in the first place. We keep you honest.
Making W. J. King’s laws part of your life is admirable. Forgetting where you got them is forgiveable. Claiming them as your own is just sloppy.
Update 05-04-06: CNN finally caught on to this story. See it here: