The challenge was met

On Friday, I spent the day with a group of 15 writers at The Motley Fool, talking to them about everything from better business and financial writing to reading SEC filings to find news and information.

During one of the discussions, I brought up one of my favoriate business writers, Allan Sloan of Newsweek, and how he has a great way of explaining arcane business topics to his readers in a way they can understand what’s going on.

One of my favorite passages from Sloan is this: “By contrast, many companies try to grow via big acquisitions. These deals are seductive, because you get lots of favorable ink and a love buzz from Wall Street. You also buy time to implement your strategy, if you actually have one, because year-to-year financials aren’t comparable and outsiders can’t analyze your results.”

To the Motley Fool staff, I made this challenge: Get the phrase “love buzz” in one of their stories. It’s been a goal of mine since I read Sloan’s 2002 article in Newsweek with this phrase.

It took Motley Fool contributor Rich Smith until today to meet the challenge. In this story, he wrote, “Around the globe, Cupid’s set to let loose his arrows on Wednesday. On Wall Street in particular, affection abounds for stocks hitting their 52-week highs. But on CAPS, the love buzz fades rapidly as we move down the list.”

Later, he ended his story with this: “Fool contributor Rich Smith was personally challenged to work the phrase “love buzz’ into a column today.”