Ever been accused of sounding too technical? Maybe people just don't care
workingsoftware.com.au
workingsoftware.com.au
Wait what?
I've always defined my level of expertise in an area in relation to how easily I can explain it to someone who knows absolutely nothing about it. The more easily I can explain it, the more likely it is that I understand it really well.
Explaining is all about knowing what parts are relevant to my listener and what parts are either irrelevant... or go into too much detail for me to actually explain in context.
You don't have as good a sense of relevance/irrelevance unless you are an expert. A completely tangential problem is technical jargon, which you have to remember to avoid (and use synonyms for) if your audience isn't versed in it. Knowing the technical jargon well enough to pick accurate layman's terms is another part of being an expert.
Blowing this off as saying that 'its too technical' is the same as 'I'm bored,' seems completely ass backwards. More likely, I'm bored because I don't understand WTF you are talking about, because I didn't even take undergraduate biology.
Most people use "I" statements, and communicate the details from how they see the world.
That's right. As my teacher used to say - if a professor cannot explain the essence of his work to an elementary school student, he doesn't understand what he's doing.
I agree with this and here is something I have read which is related to this principle albeit different subject matter:
"It is true intelligence for a man to take a subject that is mysterious and great in itself, and to unfold and simplify it so that a child can understand it."
And an example from just an hour ago — my dad asked why is that RAM is used, which loses its contents, as opposed to something like USB flash stick? I had learn this past semester about this and explained it to him and asked if it was clear and he said yes.
It's an awesome feeling to explain something you've learnt to another and have them understand it though usually in a simple manner.
One thing I've noticed though is sometimes people explain something technical to someone and claim to simplify it, especially through using analogies, and in the end the person understands a near 'incorrect' version of whatever principle/idea was being explained.
I wrote a one-line email last week to tell people: "Double-click the Connect Network Drives icon on your desktop or you won't be able to get to your files." I'm still getting phone calls about inaccessible shares, over a week later. People tell me "it's too technical" or "I don't have time to read emails like that!" So OP is quite correct: they've decided it's not worth their time and effort to understand.
I usually include screen shots with red-circles for where to click when trying to communicate stuff like that.
I'd do something like, 'With the left mouse button double click the connect network drives icon on your desktop. (screenshot of desktop with icon circled).'
A lot of people don't think about what they are doing when they use a computer. It is more like speaking your first language. I can write to you in English fairly effortlessly, but if we were having a discussion about grammar, I might not know all of the terms.
Honestly, medicine is much worse than technology with sounding "technical" (technology usually doesn't have the "gory" or hypochondria-inducing aspect to it like medicine often does). The only thing that medical people have going for them is the higher percentage of women in the field, who tend to be more sensitive as to how they come across to others.
1. Some technical people deliberately explain things in an overly technical way as it boosts their ego. "You don't understand this => I am superior."
2. All communication must be for the recipient. You must bend over backwards to help them understand. This is what good communication is. If it's hard work for the recipient it's poor communication.
It struck me at the time as I was working with a CEO who thought length == quality in communication, both writing and discussions. I think that he wrote things for his own gratification, it probably gave him a feeling of productivity. Sadly a lot of what he wrote wasn't read, or not a carefully as it should have been. It takes effort and generosity to write for the reader.
People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/eng//id/848
This was the most interesting part of the article for me-- where you switched roles and became the listener that was deciding not to take the time or effort to understand.
Is deciding not to make the effort there really what you felt like you were doing? Or could the speaker have communicated in a different way to make the "blah blah blah science whatever" more accessible or interesting to you?
I'd be interested to read about your experiences putting yourself in your listeners' shoes rather than speculating about what it's like for them.
I guess it's the equivalent of blinding me with science - but see by that point in the speech I was already "sold".
He'd whipped me into a frenzy so when I didn't get something and the speech slowed down (from my perspective) I didn't close the window and stop altogether, I just tuned out a little until he came to the conclusion.
For detailed info, you'll need to break up the message into parts and reengage them at the start of each part.
It's interesting that we always hear business types (in a very general meaning ) say that technical people are unable to explain things clearly, but never hear them asking how they could understand technical subjects better. Should we really be expert at communication, business, marketing to explain to everyone in it's own jargon ?
"... Instead of just waiting for their turn to speak?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
- Fight Club
Some times people want to label you as technical and refuse to accept that you can do everything they can do because you can actually go and implement what you are talking.
Their interest is best served when you are implementing and they are doing the talking so they deliberately wants to keep you out of the loop by labeling you too technical.
Not that I'm pointing any fingers other than at myself. I can probably count on one hand the number of meetings I haven't fallen asleep in.
I'd be very interested to see that post if/when you make it - comparing the before & after videos & pages, and some stats on how well the change worked.
When I have more info I'll definitely be following up (so ahem http://workingsoftware.com.au/rss/ ;)
That is really badly written from the point of view of trying to engage and retain the reader about something he thinks is important, but the reader might not.
Ironic.
It won't be soon, though - currently too busy.
The idea being that bothering to understand your pitch, product, technology or problem has a cost. It can be a quite high cost. Most folks will take a short taste and then decide quickly that it's too expensive: they have chosen to be ignorant.
Your job, as a pitcher, is to a) simplify the pitch and b) find out the connection between you and their interests and emotions.
Rhetoric: It's not just for ancient greeks!
Having read and listened to a lot of finance training classes/materials recently, I can say that much of this is not just a lack of effort put into explaining things, it's shockingly sloppy standards of epistemology. Concepts are blurred constantly, terms are reused for different things, procedures are introduced with little attempt to ground them in related ideas. Much of the time I suspect people have learnt in a very ad hoc manner, and don't really know what they're doing, just enough to get things working.
I get that sort of lazy vibe from a lot of Unix culture too, although it's a bit more superficial.
What's important are the times when don't hear that, but you catch the eyes of the other glaze over (though he may still be unaware of it and trying to follow as best as he can). That's when you need to backpeddle for a bit and explain things in a different way. I notice this with clients a lot: they are technical, but use different terminology and have different backgrounds. 'Different' is not necessarily 'less technical': sometimes you just need to substitute some terminology and presto, understanding dawns.
I guess I haven't made a clear enough distinction in this particular post between those two types of "conversations" and how they correlate.
I notice this with clients a lot: they are technical, but use different terminology and have different backgrounds
This is key I think - when someone tells you you're being too technical and they don't understand what the product "really does" but they're not a layman in the sense that they are technical people themselves, it's easy to get confused about what "really does", really means!
My thinking after seeing this TED talk is that "what does this really do?" can be translated as "why did you build this?" and thusly "why should I care?".
This may seem obvious but to me there is a subtlety there that I feel as though I've been missing all along. When people say "what does this really do?" my instinct is to say things like the list of TiVo features he talks about - not "sell with a vision" of how much better it's going to make their life - a vision based on my belief in the product and on why I built it in the first place.
Also I've not found any significant difference between folks outside of AU and within it - although I couldn't claim to have any sort of statistically signficant sampling of either. It's mostly one-to-one personal communications I'm referring to (not necessarily face-to-face but also limited to the maybe 20 people or so that I've had discussions with recently).