Being able to communicate a complex topic is an essential skill. It becomes increasingly more valuable when the audience is less technical and has decision making power. Aphorisms capture this idea: “learn something so well you could teach it to a five year old”.
When thinking about how to communicate a topic, you must start with empathy:
- Why does my audience need to know this information?
- More specifically, what’s in it for them?
- Where is my audience’s baseline on this topic?
- How do a start there and bring them to the level of information they need to know?
When crafting a topic, think about making it as simple as possible and as universal as possible(Mikolay 2020).
Antipatterns
References
Mikolay, Justin. 2020. “How to Write Something Compelling.” Substack Newsletter. The Mikolay Letter. https://letter.substack.com/p/write-like-naval.