communication. community. cognition.
Language
Ugly and Rough
Apr 21st
“Ugly” and “rough” – at least in the English language – sound sort of like they are. They certainly don’t roll off the tongue like “pretty” and “smooth.” There’s a whole chicken-and-egg argument that we could make about whether ugly-sounding words describe ugly things, or if we associate the ugliness of a word to that sound because of its meaning.
But that’s for another day.
This is really a brief thought about the value of the Ugly and the Rough.
Walmart Wins with Rough
I know this may seem like an alien concept to many of you, but there are many Walmarts at which I might shop depending upon where in the metro area I am. And I’ve noticed something peculiar in each of them: from the time you get in the front lobby to the time you enter the actual store, the floors have all been replaced with a textured, stone-like surface. It looks very nice and stylish, and even somewhat trendy. And it’s now in all the stores where I happen to be.
It also aggravates me, because it happens to be in that area where the shopping carts are stored. Because of the rough floor, by the time I get into the main part of the store I can’t tell if there is a bad wheel on the cart, or if the cart is going to squeal or drift. By the time I figure out that I have a bad cart, it’s usually more of a bother to go back than it is to live with the annoyance. And that, my friends, is human engineering at its most scientific.
If the floors were smooth, I’d be able to test my cart right there on the spot, and if it was a lemon I could move to the next cart in the stack. And so would you (if you shopped at Walmart.) And so would everyone else. And the carts would all be scattered, and there would be a traffic jam as the picky and the persnickety all jockeyed for the Golden Cart that holds the magic ticket to Willy Wonka’s factory. The expensive new flooring actually serves a hidden purpose — to keep people moving into the store.
Google Wins with Ugly
Have you been to Google.com lately? Don’t bother clicking over on my account. Aside from occasionally changing the cartoony image in the logo, it’s pretty much the same. A simple white page with a search box a third of the way down in the center. No glitz, no glamor, no videos in your face. Google is flat-out ugly. Because of the ugly and simple, it also loads very quickly, meaning a massive cost savings in terms of bandwidth and time. Given the number of searches processed, adding an additional quarter-of-a-second to the pageload times would be a lot of time wasted for end-users.
How much more popular would Yahoo! Search be if the search experience weren’t so noisy? Granted, Yahoo! has always been more interested in being a portal, but Google lets you have a portal page too. It just doesn’t jam it in your face. When I want to search for something quickly, I don’t want stock quotes, headlines, the weather, links to my mail, and a giant banner ad for my credit score. When I want the portal, I’ll go to the portal. When I want to search, I want a search. Ugly and simple wins.
My Experience
I’ve been very grateful for those of you who enjoy this site enough to subscribe. For the longest time, there was a slow linear progression of the subscriber base. That slope got steeper the day I added those big ugly orange subscription buttons to my sidebar. I had a couple of people tell me they were ugly and had to go. Yet the previous ones were too small, the colors didn’t stand out, and too far down the page to attract attention. For most people, the buttons appear on the site with no scrolling necessary.
Yes, they are ugly. Yes, they break the color theme. Yes, they eat up valuable real-estate. And yes, they work. They’ve helped me connect with more people, by encouraging them to consume these words at the time and place of their own convenience, not mine. (Tired of seeing those buttons? Peruse Occam’s RazR in an RSS reader, and tell the Subscription Monsters to be gone.)
Ugly and Rough are ugly and rough… but at times are elegantly effective.
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, Google, Yahoo, Walmart, user experience, web design[/tags]
Good Writing
Mar 18th
Recently, I’ve focused on the creative craft of language and communication. Knowing what to say is important, but knowing how to say it and what not to say is also crucial. It can be the difference between informing and inspiring. Along this kick, I’ve mentioned writing at multiple levels and sources of inspiration.
Now, I want to share some short insights from some people I solicited in the Twitter community:
Good writing is…
Meg Fowler
is that which delights, annoys, inspires, impassions, entertains, challenges… or otherwise demands a response.
BL Ochman
is clear communication of thought with flair, artfulness, heart, good grammar, talent, and skill
Rob La Gesse
“alive”
Nedra Weinreich
…is like one of those wooden 3-D puzzles that fits together sequentially and tightly, locking together into a perfect whole.
They were limited to 140 characters or less. In the comments below, feel free to expound, rebut, reclassify, or answer the question in your own manner. Good writing is..?
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, communication, writing, language[/tags]
Naked Effort
Mar 11th
“Good writing just doesn’t happen, it takes hard work. Great writing doesn’t take hard work, it takes the courage to bare all. Perfect writing is hard and courageous, and it happens through you.”
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]
Talent Revisited
Feb 20th
Seth Godin has a notion that corporate philosophy will change if we quit referring to “Human Resources” as such, and instead re-christen it “Department of Talent.” He says the idea of HR came about in an industrial age, and demeans employees by treating them as a natural resource. Allow me to make the counter argument:
Treat people like people, and they won’t care what the department is called. How you treat them is more important than a word. And that particular word has a track record of negative effects.
Airheads
I started working in television news behind the scenes, doing graphics. I worked my way up to eventually handle any and every job behind the scenes of a newscast, including two years as a director. By age 20, I was responsible for coordinating and executing on deadline with a crew of seven reporting to me. But I wasn’t ‘talent.’
Teevee news, like the entertainment industry, reserves the word ‘talent’ for those who appear on camera. My colleagues who would get freelance production gigs for sporting events and the like were warned about what was and was not considered appropriate when speaking to the ‘talent.’ The ‘talent’ was simply too important to be bothered. Once I made the transition to an on-air reporting job, I loathed being called ‘talent.’ I often quipped that I’d rather be known as ‘hustle’ or ‘effort’ or ‘ingenuity.’ But not ‘talent.’
I found the word loaded with self-importance, and frequently applied to people who in fact had no talent. Many assumed the mantle of the word, which granted instant puffery to recent college graduates who would lord it over the rest of their (limited) known universe.
Generation ME
We’ve already seen the forecasts of the Worker of Tomorrow; the Millenials. I call them Generation ME. Like Windows ME, it looks like an upgrade but won’t play well with your existing system and might just crash everything. This is a generation that as a whole has a completely new paradigm for employment and career, and wants to know right off the bat what is in it for them. (No, not every single individual. We’re talking trends here.)
This is the generation that flings caution to the wind and posts career-limiting information to Facebook and MySpace and personal blogs. This is the generation that has grown up in a nearly consequence-free environment. This is a generation that has no problem with self-esteem and ego… do we really need to feed that right off the bat by saddling them with the word ‘talent?’
I’ve seen the effects. It’s not pretty. I’m thankful every day that I escaped that environment with my identity and self-worth intact. And the notion of wantonly extending that culture across the board in every occupation scares the hell out of me.
Seth is right: what you call a department can have a great impact. He just picked the wrong replacement. ‘Talent’ is not a panacea. It is the first step toward malignant narcissism.
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, broadcasting, language, human resources[/tags]
What’s In a Name?
Feb 12th
I’ve been known by many names in my life. Been called a few too – some of those deserved. The name you answer to has a powerful affect not just on you, but the others with whom you’d like to relate, in both business and pleasure.
From birth, I was known as Isaac. (EYE’-zick). Pigott is how you’d think it would be if you stopped trying to overthink your old French classes (PIG’-utt). Rhymes with spigot, simple enough.
Shifting Sands
Then somewhere in the sagebrush desert of southern Idaho, the accents started to tip the vowel in the second syllable, making it (EYE’-zeek). Yeah, try saying it a couple of times. Think of Frances McDormand’s accent in Fargo, then tone it back to about 20%. From there, it naturally shortened to “Zeek.” Or, as only my very closest friends would say, Zeekers. (ZEEK’-uhrs).
After moving to Alabama, I was pretty much Isaac again for a good while (EYE’-zack). Think of Frances McDormand’s accent in Fargo, and cranking it back 100 percent and then another 20 for good measure. By for the most part, ‘Isaac’ I stayed all the way into the beginning of my television and radio career. Isaac Pigott is not exactly the easiest name for either medium. In fact, it probably isn’t too terribly great for print, either; both names get misspelled more often that spelled correctly.
While trying to break into my first on-air job, we joked about how much easier it would have been if my name had some sort of ethnic or international vibe. We thought about going with a faux French pronunciation (ee-SOCK’ pee-JZOH’). That would have been fun for awhile, but it wasn’t me.
Overdub
In 1996, the television station I was working for was bought, and being moved up from market 186 to market 39. That’s a big jump, both in economics and talent level and expectations. Or, at least it used to be. Our jobs were by no means secure, and several did not make the cut. We were essentially interviewing for the chance to stay on the payroll a couple of months down the road.
I had a great interview, but before I left my next news director asked how I felt about changing my name. To be honest, I had never given it a thought. It seemed a little crazy to change my name, while working in the same market and coverage area where I had been known on-air for years, and had gone to high school and college. My gut told me that wouldn’t play very well. (As it stands, I still didn’t get an invitation to my 20th high school reunion. I realize I am so difficult to find.)
“How about ‘Ike’?” he asked. We didn’t run through the whole history of what I’d been called, just went straight to ‘Ike.’ Actually, my father and a couple of our family friends had referred to me as Ike in the past. It wasn’t the most popular alias in my upbringing, but it wasn’t a brand new nickname. Since they were insisting on sending my paychecks to Ike, I was more than happy to cash them.
Power in a name
I did discover an advantage to being ‘Ike’ reporting in Birmingham, Alabama. Not too many Ikes to compete with. I had an advantage in cold-calling possible interviewees, because “Ike” is rather conversational, and there aren’t many of us. Being able to keep everything on a first-name basis from the outset pays huge dividends. Instant rapport. (To be fair, it’s not like there were many Isaacs floating around the state.) The only pitfall was to keep them from hearing “Mike” instead of “Ike.”
I’m not on teevee anymore, not nearly to the extent I once was. After four years out, should I try to reclaim ‘Isaac’ and prep him for the triumphant return? Does “Ike” keep riding a wave of goowill Ike acquired along the way?
And have any of you experienced anything approaching a behavioral shift when you’ve changed names, even for just a while?
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, nomenclature, names, personality, identity[/tags]
The Art of the Insult
Jan 31st
I’ll come back to this after some reflection, but for a quick end-of-the-week read, here is a piece of brilliantly pointed writing from Slate.com’s review of Meet the Spartans:
Isn’t it massive consumer fraud to charge $10.50 for a barely hour-long movie? Perhaps, but it would’ve been unforgivable to make Meet the Spartans any longer than an hour. This was the worst movie I’ve ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a “movie” and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization’s decline under the weight of too many pop culture references.
Feel free to weigh in with why you think this is (or is not) good (or funny) criticism. (I love the line about the bear.) I’ll come back to this theme later…
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, Meet the Spartans, movies, movie reviews, writing, criticism[/tags]
