After the blog entry the other day, I had a couple people ask me about the role of communications.

One of the issues I've always encountered with technical leadership is the ability communicate technical information to the leaders and followers (the audience). I've always had the problem myself of assuming they're looking at the problem from my perspective. This seems to be a trap that many people fall into. Let's face it, they are not; hey view the problem from their own perspective.

Conveying context is critical, particularly when sending a note to executives, where you want to influence and have them perceive you as having a story they're interested in, your writing style needs to adjust. They are not interested in the details, that's why you're there. If they understood the material the way you do, you'd be working somewhere else. Make communications short and direct. If you can't get it on one page or you can't get the presentation points across in 5 slides, make sure you really know what the audience wants. If it is to an audience of your peers, it is quite a different presentation than to the board of a publicly held company.

For technologist in particular, be careful with acronyms (especially those that are clear from your own contextual perspective). When there is a contextual mismatch, all communications breaks down. If there is too much work for the reader, they'll view it as overwhelming, not derive your points and loose interest.

I'm not saying I can always follow my own advice, but the main purpose of any message is to influence others and the first thing you need to do is get them hooked on what you have to say. You can't brow beat them into submission using a writing style that you prefer. Instead you need to think about how they can and will consume it. I've had this very conversation with a couple of folks recently. Just because the writer is detail oriented doesn't mean that's what the audience needs or wants to hear, in order to make their decision to support the effort. Changing the writing style will be uncomfortable, but "just get over it". That's why they call it work. ;-)

I'm not an expert or even a good example. There are whole books and professions that focus on this area. Having said that though, everyone though who wants to be a technical leader needs to focus on getting their point across.

Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog