communication. community. cognition.
Archive for February, 2008
Single-Minded
Feb 29th
Wit is the ability to be clever. Wisdom is knowing when clever will get you beaten up.
I know many people who are clever. Some are clever when they shouldn’t be. Many times that person is me.
I’m a fan of layers in communication — being able to reach more than one audience within a single message. If a particular analogy communicates at a basic level, yet alludes to something on a higher plane, that’s effective writing. Some people learn by peeling the onion.
I first started toying with these concepts while still in television news. The size of the canvas is measured in time, and it’s hard to paint pretty pictures on a postage stamp. Every second counts, and counts against you. If you can marry the words and the pictures just so, you can squeeze more meaning than in the words or the pictures alone.
Simple
We celebrate the clever, and we appreciate the genius behind it. Comedians often get away with remarks about hecklers or others in the audience by sheer virtue of wit. Comedy writers squeeze naughty content through a device known as the double-entendre. Yes, they can be very funny. Yes, they are very clever. But it’s time we celebrate the single-entendre.
Writing in single-entendres:
- eliminates potential ambiguity
- puts the focus on your point
- puts your ego in the backseat
- respects the reader’s time
If you find yourself patting your own back about something clever you wrote, ask:
- for whom am I writing?
- how many will really get that?
- how many will enjoy it?
- how many might be confused? (or even offended)
Layers have their place, but let’s not forget where the onion gets its name: the same Latin root as the word union. Meaning one. Whole.
Single, naked thoughts are liberating.
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, language, writing, communication[/tags]
Taking a Bullet
Feb 27th
“Friendships take time to cultivate and nurture, and there is a limit to how many you can have. Better to have one friend who’ll take a bullet for you than a dozen who’ll jump in the path of a sponge.”
More Bad Economic News
Feb 26th
Actually, the economy is still growing, but the reporting and hype around it is quite bad.
This morning, our power came on just in time for me to catch a segment on Good Morning America with Mellody Hobson. I really like Mellody, but it’s clear she’s being pushed into stories that make no sense whatsoever. Unlike the bloviating fools on the finance nets, she isn’t forced to fill airtime with idle speculation. Her piece today was about Americans being over-extended on car loans, and the possible effect on the economy. A “car bubble” might be interesting, but it didn’t go that far.
She interviewed a couple that has upgraded vehicles three times in fours years, new cars every time. They think they’re worth $24,000; the loans are for $44,000. That’s called being “upside down” on the loan.
I feel for this couple, I really do. But this isn’t a sign of economic slowdown. It’s individuals facing up to the consequences of the choices they made. That didn’t stop the producers from slapping a Recession Rescue! banner on the piece. It’s misleading, either way you look at it. Any oncoming recession (if one exists) has had no bearing on this couple’s plight. Conversely, the over-extension of car loans is not a factor in creating a recession.
A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of a shrinking economy. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysts, we haven’t had a single one since 2001. (3Q 2000, 1Q 2001, 3Q2001.) That’s 24 consecutive quarters of growth, and only 3 of the 24 were less than a percentage point.
Playing Dress-Up
Which gets us back to this Recession Rescue bit. Why the banner? Why the angle on the story? Isn’t it enough to do the same piece as just a consumer-advocate story? The couple interviewed even admitted at the very end that it was entirely their own decisions and consequences! We could be having record growth and still have this same dynamic.
As for Mellody, I’m a big fan. I happened to be watching the morning she debuted, and remember how nervous she was. You could see it in the body language that she wasn’t comfortable. Her voice was low, with a little timbre. She shook, just a little. She didn’t project her voice with the same command and authority that she does now. But I’ve watched her over the last year or so really grow into the role, bringing her background in finance and honing her gentle manner of explanation.
And today? She looked and sounded just like her rookie self. Same unsure sounds, same uncomfortable look. I remember feeling that way myself, when I had to read things into a camera that others had written.
Speak for yourself
Body language and comfort level speak volumes. I was never a good enough actor to pretend that I knew things I didn’t on television. That’s why I took advantage of every opportunity I had to rewrite copy, and say things the way I naturally speak. Sometimes it was a light touch-up on phrasing– sometimes the merging a couple of thoughts — sometimes a complete re-organization of the script to put the facts in a more logical framework. But it always needed to sound like it was coming from me, because ultimately it was.
When you’re not speaking for yourself, not speaking your own words, people catch on quickly. (And Mellody, I feel for you. I’ve been overruled by producers too, and still have the scars to prove it…)
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, broadcasting, GMA, economy, news, recession[/tags]
Friendz
Feb 26th
What does it mean to be a “friend?”
If you’re young, and growing up online, the word can mean many different things. And there are other words that can cloud the issue: followers, acquaintances, allies, supporters…
So think for yourself how you can categorize and differentiate the terms. I broke things down this way, but it’s not the only way:
- People you like
- People who like you
- Over a long period time
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, friendship[/tags]
A Community of What?
Feb 26th
When it comes to what we call Social Media, “community” is the coin of the realm. It’s also a very fickle thing to define, because the ideas, memes, and dreams that knit a community together can be made of very different material. And we’re heading for an even larger generation gap, because the notion of “friend” is becoming more slippery too.
It used to be that a group of friends was easy to spot because of affinity for clothing. Matching bowling shirts and funny-horned lodge hats made things too easy. There are still communities like that online and they won’t go away any time soon — but they might not be the communities you need to reach. A former co-worker on mine stayed with AOL for years simply because she was tied to a genealogy forum there. Too much of her internet identity was tied to being a part of that group, even though her membership there was costing an additional $20/month.
Future communities are going to be even harder to engage, because the incoming generation of the web-enabled isn’t platform dependent. They use browsers, IM, cell-phones, Xboxes, and whatever else comes down the pike to stay connected. And they don’t always use the same network; like birds and bees, they are prone to random migrations. When a few influentials leave and critical mass is reached, the others quickly follow them to the next point.
Down the rabbit hole
From the individual perspective, it gets even more tangled. The community is no longer a single entity. A person connected to one group through a set of common contacts might not belong to several joint communities. The clusters are not neat, and rather look more like synapses randomly anchored to neurons across the way. It’s a spaghetti map, and it’s messy. It’s fickle. In some instances, the prevailing factor might be the time of day a subset of users might be free to congregate or chat online.
It’s an awful lot to log and chart. Some are trying, by aggregating and quantifying “influence” across networks and platforms. They may yet succeed, but you don’t have to chase them down that rabbit hole. The best way to engage the community you need online is to create it. Don’t follow the crowd, be the hub that attracts a crowd. It’s done by sharing and adding value without strings. It might be money-saving tips or advice — or even better, a vehicle that allows your biggest fans to do it for you. It might be special offers or information that isn’t shared anywhere else. Give your potential advocates a reason to come to you, and they will. And they’ll drag their friends.
If this sounds scary, it should. Not everyone is equipped to get in and get their hands dirty and make Social Media work as it can. You’re better off not jumping in until you know what you want to accomplish, because embarrassing early stumbles can cripple your corporate reputation and become a new obstacle.
(Ike Pigott writes regularly at Occam’s RazR)
An Angry Man
Feb 25th
Every day or so, I post interesting links over to the side. They’re called “RazR’s Choice Cuts from the Web.” While I tend to focus on various aspects of communication, persuasion, and explanation, the Choice Cuts can vary wildly. You’ll find articles and essays about a wide array of topics:
- Culture
- Pop culture
- Strange crime
- Political theory
- Climate study
- Environmentalism
- Economics
It’s in that last category that you’ll find a few hits from a guy I’ve never met: Russ Nelson. He calls himself The Angry Economist, and he is a master of breaking down big academic theories and making them understandable. I’ve been kicking in several of his links lately.
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, economics, Russ Nelson, The Angry Economist[/tags]
Mass Communication by the Numbers
Feb 22nd
“If you want to connect through mass communication, you still have to reach people one by one. Do you feel more special being one of 5,000 eating fish, or one of the 12 drinking wine?”
