WORD SIMPLE

Recognize our headline? 

We (ahem!) borrowed it from a well-known tech company’s marketing campaign.

After all, the same sort of principles apply when talking simplification, whether in work or in words.  At least, we think so.  Route out the extraneous and the unnecessary (according to customers and users) and streamline, right?

Not.  So.  Fast.

Ownership of words within corporations tends to be (pick one) 1) mandated by the brand, 2) dominated by corporate functions like marketing and HR, 3) supervised by leaders, and/or 4) required by message stewards.  When interminably long documents and three-paragraph sentences dominate, it’s clear that someone isn’t paying attention to the eight-second rule.

Which is now the length of our attention span.

There are all sorts of reasons why business text is so hard to understand.  Like these:

“Defensive compliance” (consider annual reports and 10Ks)

“Bureaucratic tradition” (think government forms, even do-it-yourself instructions)

“Mindblindness” (the term psychologists use when folks are numb to their own knowledge).

What we know for sure is that someone (perhaps the author, maybe not) isn’t checking with his/her prospective readers, calibrating reactions, answering questions, and ensuring that at least a handful of audience members understand the points.  And when the average 10K in 2013 accounted for 42,000 words, someone, somewhere just didn’t want to be understood.

Mark Twain had us at this:  “I would have written that shorter, but I didn’t have the time.”  [Or was it Blaise Pascal?]

PICTURE PERFECT?

The power of visuals is certainly a philosophy we heartily endorse (it’s a common subject of this blog).  After all, statistics demonstrate that illustrations and design are much more likely than text alone to be remembered – and retained.  [So what if the ad industry was behind the research?] It’s clear, in our multi-channel intersected beings, that pictures enhance and expand our worlds, and help us make our messages even more meaningful.

So recent news about the popularity of graphic novels and other pictorial applications delighted – and surprised. 

In education, for instance, pictorial versions of classics and moderns – like Capote’s In True Blood – go hand in hand with the actual text to build comprehension, develop critical thinking skills, and engage unmotivated readers.  And it’s not just used in low-performing institutions; one high-achieving school  here in Illinois actively promotes the use of graphic novels … not only in literature, but also in math, science, biography, and other subjects.  [Of course, such apps follow some pretty rigorous validation before being incorporated in the curriculum.]  No wonder that sales of graphic books over the past decade have increased 40 percent.

On the other hand, comix as serious corporate fare encounter different fates.  Conglomerate Loews (a holding company with a diverse portfolio), for example, recently issued its 2012 annual  report … in the cartoon form of The Adventures of Lotta Value, Investment Hunter!  It’s a good try, in 13 pages, to convince today’s investors of the company’s value.

But, sad to say, it doesn’t work as well as it could.  Why?  Disregard the quality of the illustrations (which are good); instead, focus on the story.  The plot is contrived … and the language, occasionally in corporate speak.  The heroine just doesn’t elicit much empathy.  

Authenticity, in short.   Do we learn from our perusals?  Sorta.  Have we produced similar tactics?  Sure, with visuals and words that work hard for a purpose.  This time, though, the message clearly doesn’t paint a clear and compelling picture.