Blog

Einstein told us that if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

I believe that.

Are you seeing the disconnect, though?

It’s not simplicity, or more specifically clarity, that we measure our work against.

No. It’s a volume game, modern business.

Get it out the door and get on with the next assignment.

It takes time to curate, pare back, refine, and s-l-o-w thinking is no match for our itch to scratch off the “to-do” list.

As...

Are you busier than a marketer in 1982? Objectively, yes. Subjectively, I’m not so sure.

Take the Australian TV landscape back then. There were only three commercial TV stations (channels 7, 9 and 10) and one public service (channel 2).

So the marketer’s job must have been easy, right?

They only had three networks to choose from when it came to ad placement, and a captive audience who wasn’t flicking between multiple screens.

But it’s a mistake to judge...

 It’s not complexity that kills us, it's randomness.

That’s according to neuroscientist Carmen Simon, who masterfully shares how to engage an audience in her latest book, Made You Look.

People will put up with complex ideas in a document or presentation  – indeed, they may thirst for them – but if they are communicated haphazardly, they’ll tune out.

How you structure your ideas is just as important as the ideas themselves.

“The less energy they expend on your prose, the more they’ll have left for your ideas.” - Paul Graham

Making something difficult to understand says more about the writer’s limitations than the reader’s.

You know this already.

So where are you putting your time and effort as a communicator?

Because there are two parts to this dance.

• How you communicate. 
• What you communicate. 

Don’t ruin your what by your how.

In 1996, librarian turned restaurateur Stephanie Alexander published a new type of recipe book.

Rather than simply a collection of recipes, The Cook’s Companion let you build a dish around an ingredient. It started with the constraint.

Have a turnip? Here’s what you can make with it.

Wilting broccoli? Here’s what to do.

Unremarkable now that we have internet search, but at its time a revelation because it was designed around the user. 

When it comes to your work,...

"You can't change an organisation by just talking about why change is necessary...You have to integrate people's desire for money, influence, and power..." Rishad Tobaccowala

These desires are usually unstated, but know that they’re there.

Here's the subtlety, though.

It’s not gaining money, influence and power that really motivates, although that’s nice.

It’s losing these things.

The main reason change initiatives fail is people’s fear of losing...

You may have seen it a hundred times.

It’s part of the cultural landscape. A meme, even.

But what does a TV test pattern actually mean?

I’d never even thought about this until I saw it revealed.

What looked random to me is actually intentional. Nearly every pixel in that pattern has meaning. 

It’s purposeful. Predictable. Testable.

Now imagine having that same discovery about behaviour.

The hardest thing about doing standup a few years ago wasn’t coming up with ideas.

It wasn’t having an audience.

It was having to be precise about words.

To build and land a joke you need to be very careful about what you say, when.

To get the best result, you need to understand what works and what doesn’t.

It’s no different at work.

While we’re usually chasing a sale rather than a laugh, being precise about what we say, when, can dramatically change the...

Are we eating the wrong part of the cauliflower?

Hang on, what?

There’s a wrong part of the cauliflower?

A great way to get attention is with a surprising or provocative question, which is exactly what zero-waste chef Vojtech Vegh did in his post about cauliflower.

He goes on to explain that there are….

“4 parts of a cauliflower.

One of those parts is more nutritious than the others.

And it’s not the florets.”

When communicating with your audience,...

Digital marketer Neil Patel shared stats on which length of email got the highest clicks. 

In his words, the “perfect length for email conversions”.

• The best length? 100-249 (>3.5% clicks)
• The worst? 500+ (<1%)

We can surmise that not saying much and forcing people to click through means more of them will.

Explaining yourself more fully reduces their interest in clicking.

Or does it?

Without knowing WHAT these emails communicated and WHAT the call-to-action...