

Ever been accused of sounding too technical? Maybe people just don't care - dools
http://www.workingsoftware.com.au/page/Maybe_people_just_don%27t_care

======
ohyes
"If you work in a technical field, there is an automatic stigma about you: You
are incapable of communicating technical concepts to the lay person."

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.

~~~
m0nty
It's really about the perception that you don't know how to communicate. You
also have no dress sense, don't date, have poor personal hygiene, talk
gracelessly and have weird hobbies. This allows people to return to their
default view that they are vastly superior to you, even though you are
demonstrably smarter than many of them.

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.

~~~
ohyes
That is too technical for a lot of users. What is an 'icon'? Where is the
'desktop'? How do I 'double click'?

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.

------
bluekeybox
Two of my roommates are in the medical field. Hearing them talk about hospital
business really gives me a perspective on how I myself can sound when I talk
about technology in the presence of "normal" people. In those cases I comfort
myself, with the thought, "Hey, at least when I talk about technology, I don't
cause other people's stomachs to turn and make them run to the nearest
bathroom."

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.

------
parallel
Two quick points on this.

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.

~~~
politician
I wish I could up vote your second point independent of your first. It stands
apart at a higher elevation, so to speak.

~~~
parallel
That idea was from a concept I came across somewhere on the web; "No one wants
to read your s--t" . I think it's something of a mantra in the advertising
world.

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.

~~~
dools
Generosity! There's something to meditate upon ...

------
jmathai
The TED talk linked to from this talk is a must see.

People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
<http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/eng//id/848>

~~~
perfunctory
why should every talk about innovation start with a mention of Apple.

------
astrofinch
All this, including the TED talk, falls in to the category of "how to sell". I
agree with my friend Tom that sales skill is more important than most folks
realize:

<http://www.rationalfuturist.com/writings/startupsales.html>

------
carols10cents
"...and it's kind of the "slowest" part of the speech where he starts talking
about biology and the lymbic system and blah blah blah science whatever
(that's literally how I remember that section of the talk in my head)..."

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.

~~~
dools
Haha I definitely decided not to make the effort to understand that part of it
:) I could have gone back over that bit but I felt as though the conclusion
was really the most important bit and the precursor to it was really only
there to give credence to the conclusion as being something he hadn't just
plucked out of thin air.

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.

------
billpaetzke
This is true for any time you're explaining something--technical or not. You
begin by engaging the listener/reader--giving them context, piquing interest,
making them care. Often times you can do this in one sentence: are you X? Do
you use X? Or are you tired of having to do X? Etc.

For detailed info, you'll need to break up the message into parts and reengage
them at the start of each part.

------
ecaradec
I've always felt that it's socially ok to say that you don't understand
technical subjects. Might be this is the trace of the nerd thing : people
don't really want to be seen understanding technical things because that would
require showing interest into it.

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 ?

------
wcchandler
"I don't know. When people think you're dying then they really really listen
to you instead of just..."

"... Instead of just waiting for their turn to speak?"

"Yeah. Yeah."

\- Fight Club

------
known
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite
direction." --Einstein

------
sudhirc
This post assumes that people on the other end are dealing with you
fairly.This is not always the case.

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.

------
yters
The problem is that not every true, important concept is an item of common
experience, nor necessarily relatable to common experience. And, even in the
case where it can be explained using common terms, the explanation can often
be too long for most people's limited attention span.

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.

------
angusgr
The part that seems still-to-come: how did you change your marketing & product
communication after adopting Sinek's theory? Did it work out better for you?

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.

~~~
dools
That'll certainly be on the agenda. I've only just started this journey myself
really so still doing lots of learning and figuring out the best ways to
gather data and store it for later comparison.

When I have more info I'll definitely be following up (so _ahem_
<http://workingsoftware.com.au/rss/> ;)

------
ColinWright
I got part way through the article and started to turn off. I forced my way to
the end, and I've decided - he still hasn't learned the lesson.

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.

~~~
dools
I'd place this post more in the category of "shambolic musing" that "carefully
crafted marketing communication" but I would be interested to know which parts
of the writing you found turned you off - it will certainly help hone my
craft.

~~~
ColinWright
Valid question - I'll try to put together a coherent answer and I'll post a
link to it here on HN.

It won't be soon, though - currently too busy.

------
jacques_chester
I think economists grapple with some of these problems under the heading of
"rational ignorance".

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!

------
Tycho
Hmm. I don't think this is exclusive to IT workers. Finance workers are as
bad, or worse.

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.

------
Confusion
The times that you are accused of 'talking too technical' (let alone
_sounding_ too technical) aren't the important ones. Then at least you have a
pointer to go on, whether rightfully or not.

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.

~~~
dools
Right - yeah the "not hearing" can be bad - especially if the "conversation"
isn't actually a conversation so much as marketing exercise.

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.

------
etherael
If the submitter is the same as the poster, I'm curious about something, do
you experience this same degree of generalised apathy and intellectual
laziness with audiences outside of Australia? And if so, is the extent
smaller, greater, or exactly the same?

~~~
dools
Hello, yes it's me. Firstly I'm not saying it's anything anti-intellectual or
lazy on the part of those I'm attempting to explain things to, it's just that
the decision is being made by a part of their brain that's not charged with
doing the understanding.

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).

~~~
etherael
I understood you weren't actually saying that, merely that I've personally
found it to be far more pronounced in Australia than elsewhere. But yeah, if
your experiences are limited to mostly Australians not a very valid question.
Thanks for the feedback.

