Stop The Cliché

Today, ABC News 24 reported that the space shuttle Endeavour dropped off a $2B spectrometer to the International Space Station. The ABC said the spectrometer will help ‘unravel the mysteries of the universe.’ That’s an overused and almost meaningless line reporters resort to too easily. It sounds like a cross between Star Trek, Thunderbirds and Monkey.

NASA’s news release said:

The fourth day of the mission will focus on the installation of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS), a particle physics detector. The AMS is a 2-ton ring of powerful magnets and ultrasensitive detectors built to track, but not capture, cosmic rays in a search for various types of unusual matter. The 15,251-pound instrument will be connected to the outside of the International Space Station, tilted a bit so it will not interfere with any of the station’s mechanisms and storage platforms. It will be operated remotely from Earth and should not require any attention from astronauts in orbit.

The mobile transporter is in position. The crew will extract AMS using the space shuttle robotic arm at 1:56 a.m. Shortly thereafter, the station crew will wake, and at 3:01 a.m., the shuttle robotic arm will transfer AMS to the station’s robotic arm. At 3:41 a.m., the crew will manipulate the station arm to install AMS onto the starboard side of the station’s truss structure on the zenith side.

A bit of a mouthful, but it does contain chunks of useful and comprehensible information (see the bolded text). And yes, unraveling mysteries is an attempt at answering the big and important question (viz. why?). Unfortunately, the reporter’s proposed answer is too vague to succeed. Message to news writers: cut the cliché.

Eight Tools To Simplify Complexity

Einstein said we should simplify everything, as far as possible, and no further. This demands grasp of content, contextual judgment and facility with tools of expression. Here are eight basic, but helpful tools:

1. To simplify complex fractions in mathematical equations, we look for common denominators. This principle of finding a common or base level, works with any information. Ask ’What’s a given?’ Establish the level of agreement or understanding, fromwhich everyone can safely operate and move on.

2. Break your topic into smaller, simpler parts:

a. List the main questions your audience needs answered, one at a time. Use the five Ws+H (what? why? where? when? who? how?).

b. Trim your list. Keep current and reasonable priorities. Extraneous questions confuse, by diverting attention from key issues. (You only need to ask, ’Why?’ three or four times in a row on any topic and you’re at, or beyond, the frontiers of human knowledge.)

c. Draft key words to address possible answers.

d. Group the questions and possible answers into a digestible number of themes, subjects, topics or parts. Let the time you have to communicate, the nature of your parts, and the knowledge of your audience, determine what and how many parts.

e. Name the parts. If numbering suits, use it. Saying ’There are three (or however many) aspects,’ to something, alerts your audience to what’s ahead. Counting out where you’re up to as you go along (’The second part is…’) orients listeners, readers and viewers – and you – in the middle of your words. If you get lost or distracted,someone’s likely to ask you, ’What is point number….?’ If enumerating creates the wrong tone, assign other simple names or headlines to your parts.

f. Review your parts for logical sense and flow. Are any two parts the same as each other? Collapse them. Do your parts encompass the whole in-question? If not, add what’s missing.

3. Use a visual, geometric or other model. Models can encapsulate and explain at the same time. Is your process linear? Does your content belong in a circle, a triangle, a square or some other shape? Do you need three or even four dimensions, as in a journey using steps or road-maps? If you can, involve a design expert.

4. Apply a metaphor. Winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize for Physics, Richard P. Feynman, described angstroms (atom dimensions) by comparing the size of the Earth to an apple.Harvard teaches cell biology by combining model and metaphor: the cell is a city populated by machines performing tasks. Aristotle equated effective use of metaphors with genius, though in truth, effective use doesn’t require an IQ of 180. Take George Orwell’s advice, and don’t use any metaphor you’re used to seeing in print. It will be too familiar to evoke an image. Make up your own metaphors (or simile). Aim for simple, sensible, vivid.

5. Cull jargon and use everyday words. Jargon is efficient with insiders, but it discriminates against everyone else. Jargon can perpetuate ignorance, weak thinking among communicators and cynicism in an audience. Mystery can be exciting and creative, or destructive and elitist. Keep mystery intentional and interesting, not arrogant.

6. Tell a story. Some of what we hear about story-telling and narrative is silly; you don’t need to sit in a yurt, sniffing incense. Yet expert communicators know there’s no better way to impart a volume of information to persuasive effect, than to tell a story. Stories are necessary for nations, corporations, families and individuals. At their simplest, stories are easy: introduce a person or group, forced to act, to attain or resist something. Put an obstacle in their way and make a clear point. Supposedly sophisticated narratives are not much different. People listen to and remember stories, and that means they can pass them on. It doesn’t get better than that. Stories can be short. Hemingway wrote one in six words: Baby shoes for sale. Never worn. Margaret Atwood, in seven: I desperately wanted him. Got him. #@*%! Stories tie ideas to reality. They work grammatically and psycho-cognitively to capture attention, using machinery in the brain to create theatre in the mind.

7. Emphasise. Use physical animation and gesture, pauses, colour, bolding, white space, underlining, a new paragraph or page to offset what’s important.

8. Extract the relevant information, and no more. If the job’s done, stop.

Sometimes we blame the content for its irreducibility. Sometimes, the audience for not getting it. Richard P. Feynman once said he couldn’t teach first-year university students why half-spin particles obeyed Fermi-Dirac statistics. He later concluded, ’I really didn’t understand the topic’. We can test our grasp of our own content and its portability in our hands, by explaining it to one insider and one outsider.

Two new books

Paul Ritchie’s book Stay on Message : the spin doctor’s guide to effective and authentic communication was launched in Sydney this week.

Paul is a smart and experienced communication manager, having worked with Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, John Brogden, the Sydney Futures Exchange, the National Rugby League and the NSW Business Chamber.

On his return from Harvard, where he added another masters to his growing collection of degrees, he penned the aforementioned book.

Paul’s fans include Mark Scott, the managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, who launched Paul’s book at the Argyle Centre, closely watched by yours truly, friends, family and a good number of business and political luminaries.

Mr Scott (another Aussie Harvard grad.) referred to professor John Cotter’s observations that many corporate and business failures are communication failures, not strategic failures and that communication is often underdone by a factor of 10. Management and leadership are, he said, “all about communication.”

Mark Scott, managing director, Australian Broadcasting Corporation

It was a good night. Paul Ritchie’s a good bloke. And it’s a good book. You can get it at Amazon.com.

In my next blog, I should mention my own book, The Media, The Spokesperson & The Message: the art of performance communication. It’s also a good book by a good bloke (working on launch ideas).

Will your brand out-perform others? Are you an Ideas Person?

I’ve seen several cool presentations this week, but on the basis of currency, elegance and usefulness, this was the best:

Yes, another masterpiece from The Economist. Do those guys miss a beat?