Friday, February 3, 2012

Simple - I know it when I see it.

We have been working with some balaks on speaking skills with a focus on simple, unexpected, and stories. It was interesting that the balaks seem to get tripped up on simple (the other two the get right away). What do you mean by simple? It turns out that this is a really deep questions. In Made To Stick there was a large section  of the book that explored this idea. I keep coming back to the notion that you know simple when you see it. For example:

The iPhone interface is simple (but not simplistic).

Today (2/3/2012) is a good day to check out the following simple (but not simplistic) website.

In both these examples the purpose is clearly defined and the interface reflects exactly that. In giving our talks we must first really understand the material and then synthesize what message we want to convey. This takes time and most people skip this step. However it is time well spent since it is really understanding what you want to say that enable you to say things elegantly. 

No comments:

Post a Comment