How to Present Your Content

During a drive yesterday, I noticed again two ways that, in casual contexts, people are careless about their communication. For the first time, however, I realized that unfortunately, there’s a close analogy between the way many amateur writers present information and the way some well-meaning professionals (or other serious writers) do it.

First, I noticed handwritten signs posted along roadsides: advertisements for yard sales and the like. You’ve likely noticed too how poorly many of these signs are executed: The sign maker begins to scrawl some information and runs out of space, compressing a phone number or other key information so that it is barely legible.

Or perhaps the penmanship is poor, and the details are illegible. Or perhaps the print is too small or too wordy (or both) to be read by someone driving by at thirty or forty or fifty miles an hour — or, worse, the message is styled in cursive writing. Occasionally, a sign exhibits a combination of some or all of these problems.

Second, I passed between two small groups of people wielding signs at the crossroads of a small town. There were about a dozen protestors altogether, and though I had slowed to twenty miles per hour to negotiate the narrow road, I couldn’t focus on more than a couple of words on two or three signs before I had passed them.

My passenger, who was at more leisure to read the messages, learned little more than I had: The people were on strike, but where they were employed and what they were striking for remained a mystery even though each of us had a few seconds to scan the signs, because, again, the print was sloppily written or too small or both, and the message was too wordy for motorists to take in during the brief opportunity.

Unfortunately, handwritten signs aren’t the only form of communication in which communication fails because of poor planning and execution. We’ve all seen professionally prepared billboards with print too small to read, newspaper and magazine advertisements dense with tightly packed wording, and websites and blogs with poor design.

The takeaway is the same, whether you’re selling knickknacks at a garage sale or widgets on a website: Don’t make your readers work hard to acquire your message. Produce the content carefully:

1. Think about how readers will engage with the content — at work, at home, on public transportation, in a passing vehicle? — and design it accordingly.
2. Plan your approach, trying several layouts and deciding which one works best for the purpose.
3. Prioritize the information: What do you want readers to see first, second, third, and so on?
4. Write the message, adapting the tone and the appearance to the readers’ circumstances and, if space is limited, trimming the content to the essentials.
5. Ask for critiques, and return to the product later with a fresh set of eyes, then revise according to others’ suggestions and your own realizations.

Five Words in English and in Corporate-speak

Corporate-speak takes many forms, but especially mysterious is the practice of taking a familiar English word commonly understood to have one meaning and using it with a less familiar meaning. Here are five examples.

1. actionable 
common meaning: “giving cause for legal action.”
Example: Disrespect in the workplace may constitute actionable behavior.

corporate usage: able to be acted upon or put into practice.
Example: From Apple to the Toastmasters, the world’s most successful organizations demand that attendees leave meetings with actionable tasks.

2. ecosystem
common meaning: A biological system composed of all the organisms found in a particular physical environment, interacting with it and with each other.
Example: Sockeye salmon vs. Pebble Mine: Protecting a fragile ecosystem in Alaska from destruction.

corporate usage: a complex system resembling a biological ecosystem.
Example: For me, a successful Entrepreneurial Ecosystem is a space run by people with very entrepreneurial minds. Ecosystems are self-supporting, energetic environments that attract, nurture, move on and reward different stakeholders. 

3. granular
common meaning: Consisting of grains or granules; existing in the condition of grains or granules. (granule: A small grain; a small compact particle; a pellet.)
Example: “Sandpaper” is material upon which a granular layer of some abrasive has been fixed by means of an adhesive.

corporate usage: attending to or explaining the fine details of a topic.
Example: The CEO and CFO see the bottom line of the cost of your department more clearly than they see the success of individual projects. They’re not idiots. They can get granular if they have to, but what they really want to know is if the total cost of IT is worth the output.

4. socialize
common meaning: to civilize, to make suitable for society.
Example: Pet owners socialize their puppies by taking them into different situations.

corporate usage: to let people know about something.
Examples:
1. Employees will form beliefs based on what they experience before and after you widely socialize the new purpose and those beliefs will drive their actions.
2. When a good idea hits, find the fastest, cheapest way to get something that will demonstrate and socialize the idea to at least some segment of the target marked. 

5. surface 
common meaning: intransitive verb meaning to come to the surface, especially, to rise to the surface of water. Figuratively, “to surface” means to come to public attention after a period of obscurity or concealment.
Examples:
1. Sometimes we saw the whale and the dolphins surface at the same time.
2. Fear of the truths that might surface about ourselves…

corporate usage: transitive verb meaning “to raise.”
Example: Plan on meeting regularly so that team members stay informed and any issues you surface are resolved in a timely manner.

All occupations develop specialized terminology that serves a practical purpose. For example, terms like banner, head, and gutter provide useful shorthand in the context of running a newspaper. Used in an occupational context, the words’ other meanings do not impede communication.

Wrenching the meanings of words like socialize and surface however, has the effect of muddying communication. Speakers who wish to be understood by the largest number of listeners will do well to avoid such meaningless cant in their business meetings and correspondence.

10 Interviewing Tips and Techniques

hether you are conducting a journalistic Q&A session or preparing an oral history, it’s important to prepare carefully for an interview. Here are some guidelines to help you succeed with the interview session.

1. Be Straightforward
When you contact an interview subject, state your objective clearly and honestly. The nature of the interview you conduct should be the nature of the interview you described to the subject. Diversions from the stated agenda may upset the subject and undermine the interview. However, do not provide your questions to the subject in advance; tell him or her that any questions you prepare ahead of time are only part of the interview.

2. Choose an Interview-Friendly Location
The interview subject’s home or office is generally better than a public location such as a coffee shop, with fewer unfamiliar distractions. A subject in the comfort of his or her own environment will provide you with better material, and you can make light conversation about a photograph, a memento, or some other object or feature to start the interview off on a relaxed footing.

3. Research the Subject Thoroughly
Find out as much as you can about the person before the interview. Be well prepared, and distinguish between facts and opinions so you can query the subject appropriately about what you’ve learned.

4. Determine a Theme
Avoid treating an interview as simply a series of general questions and answers. After conducting research, decide what the tone of the interview will be, and what you expect to get out of it. Develop a narrative flow based on the questions you wish to ask. The resulting content probably won’t follow that scheme, but your interview should have structure, and the questions should be organized logically by topic.

5. Prepare Questions
Write down every question you can think of, whether you think you’ll have time to have them answered or not, in the order in which you would like the interview to progress, and then winnow the list to a manageable number of questions (but more than you think you’ll have time for).

Craft simple questions consisting of a single query, and ask the most important ones first, in case the interview is interrupted or halted. Be prepared to jettison some questions, and be flexible enough to digress when the subject goes in an unexpected direction. Continue to follow that lead until it’s no longer productive and you are able to resume your line of questioning, preferably with a smooth transition.

6. Record the Interview
If possible, use a recording device, but take notes in writing as well to help you shape the interview and in case the device malfunctions. Before you begin the interview, inform the subject that you are recording it to enhance the accuracy of the final product. Tell him or her that after you begin recording but before the interview begins, you will ask for his or her consent so that you have a record of it, and then do so.

7. Ask Questions Only the Subject Can Answer
Do not waste the subject’s time by asking questions that can be answered through research. Do, however, use quantitative information such as age as a starting point. Instead of asking how old someone is, for example, ask someone who is old enough to have lived through a certain period in the past about his or her experiences during that time.

8. Engage with the Subject
Demonstrate that you are interested and that what the subject is saying is important. Maintain eye contact as much as possible, but be objective and use neutral body language and avoid nodding, which may actually inhibit a substantive response.

9. Be Polite But Persistent
If some of your questions are provocative or sensitive, word them carefully and ask them diplomatically. If the subject doesn’t answer or provides an inadequate response, ask again in other words. If a response still isn’t forthcoming, return to the topic again later in the interview, explaining why it’s important that the subject respond.

10. Be Patient
When the subject seems to complete a response to a question, do not immediately move on to the next question, whether scripted or thought up at the time. Continue to be attentive, and patiently await more information. Sometimes, the postscript to a response is the best part. Likewise, when the interview is over, and the subject is more relaxed, take advantage of an opportunity to ask a casual question or two or to comment about something he or she said earlier.