How NOT to Clearly Communicate
I was at the Catalyst Conference and had a real eye opening experience. There was large group of people all dressed in similar shirts with large, brightly colored letters on their chests. The words were Temperence, Chastity, Patience, Kindness, Humility, Diligence, and Charity. At some point, someone placed a business card in my hand (luckily it wasn’t the ‘Chastity” person) and that person walked away. On the card, in huge letters was the word ‘Humility’. As I kept walking with my friends, I said, “I wonder what this is all about?” And, as if by Jesus Magic, someone placed a letter in my hand and said, “This explains that card.”
Ok, so the LETTER was needed to explain the CARD. What? The card had a big word on one side and a a web site on the other. I figured that I needed to visit the site for more info…but then someone had the idea to ALSO hand out a letter for further information. And it was a full size page with small type… And I began to think: If you have to hand out this [the letter] to explain this [the card], why bother with the card at all?
Here is my epiphany, when you have a cool idea to communicate your message, and you have to have ANOTHER piece to explain the cool idea, you are sacrificing your message for the cool idea. I’m a creative-type guy, and I have ben guilty of this myself, but as I get older (perhaps, wiser) I learn that simple is often much better than cool.
