The messaging of an idea... continued — PART 1

Well it seems Renée Cormier is under the weather and our brilliant idea of a co-written blog series seems to be sputtering at the starting line. As we get our act together (and Renée gets better) I feel obliged to keep this warm and not lose our enthusiasm — very much like a runner in the city waiting at a red light; it can look silly sometimes but it's very important not to loose the momentum.

While we wait for the light to turn green I thought I would revisit my Guiding Principles and put a little be meat on the bone as they say — and this time I have prioritized them.

Don't pitch a solution looking for a problem

This comes from the simple premise that an idea is really just a solution to a problem, and that it is very important to understand that there is a correlation between the idea, the solution and the problem that it solves for. This is a favourite saying among investors who listen to ideas being pitched to them for a living — and it's always top of mind as to what problem the idea (solution) is solving for.

It's also gets you thinking from a prioritization perspective because not all ideas are created equal (the same with problems for that matter), and you want to focus on the ideas that solve for the biggest problems — that's what people are interested in hearing about. 

No one cares about your idea. It is your job to make them care.

Here's the thing, there are a countless number of ideas created each and everyday, and idea generation is something we can do easily without anyone's help (and do) — so it's safe to say there is a glut of them (and of course ours are the best). Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that ideas are commodities but rather that because there are so many of them they are perceived as generic until an idea becomes aligned with someone's problem. So there you have it — no one cares, why should they? It's overwhelming.

It now becomes your goal to make them care — and as they say, "This is easier said then done". And this starts scratching at the next three guiding principles, which help to make people care.

It is important you know your audience and what's important to them.

Not all problems are created equal, and beyond that, what may be a problem for one person may not be a problem for another person. In the same vain though, ideas more often than not offer solutions to multiple problems (and the people who have them) — all to various degrees. You need to understand the problem that the person you are aligning your idea with has, and be aware the audience will always be changing with regard to the degree of pain that comes with their problem.

 An example - "I have this idea for the greatest humane mouse trap ever"

• Person #1: "I have a problem with mice in my house and I love animals."
• Person #2: "My problem is the price of live mice for my pet snake is just getting too expensive"
• Person #3: "I don't have a mouse problem. My problem is I'm not happy with the return on my investments"

How you present your idea will resonate with each person differently — knowing your audience helps with this.

Complicated gets confusing and people lose interest when it's confusing.

Trust me when I say this is a Truism. I appreciate you live and breathe your idea, it's built off of amazing technology, there are countless white papers and government reports outlining the shift in the market, but all this information has me thinking of lunch — all I want to do is go. I know the devil is in the detail and we will get there, but not in the beginning. This even applies to the people who really like the detail and thrive on complicated.

Be uncomplicated.

Less is more

Less is more is not a method to make it less complicated, although it can be a bi-product. The point to be made here is less, if done properly, gives to a more powerful message. It forces the development of language and "delivery of the message" in a way that will resonate more powerfully with your targeted audience.

It's like the exercise when you take 1000 words and boil it down to 250 words without giving up on the message — a painful exercise sometimes but ultimately you end up with language that is "tighter", resonates more powerfully, and ensures your key points are razor sharp. And this becomes the language that finds its way into everything: formal presentations, elevator pitches, videos, blogs, or when you are sitting across the table from someone who has a problem.

So there you go.

I do hope Renée gets better soon — I find her insight invaluable.

iamgpe

The messaging of an idea...

It seems that lately I've been involved with optimizing how to present, developing a successful pitch, how to get a complicated message across to an audience, how to catch people's attention, and ultimately get someone to listen to an idea. Slides and discussions, discussions and slides — more slides, and definitely more discussion...

Maybe by the end of all this, it'll turn out to be as much a catharsis for me as any insight into the art and science of optimizing a message, but let's see where this takes us before we make a decision on that. I might as well start here —

About a week ago I happened to mention to an associate that I was working with a small team to build out a pitch for an idea that we wanted to put in front of some potential investors — as part of this mention I happened to add we were on draft 24 of the presentation when we had to make the "pitch". To that there was a look of surprise (along with a smidge of shock) regarding the number of iterations we had worked through, and this became the tipping point into a rather long conversation about optimizing a message — particularly if it was something as nebulous as an idea. Below are some of the considerations that ebbed and flowed throughout our conversation: 

• Why is a simplified message important? 
• What constitutes a complicated message? 
• What is the best vehicle for presenting a message? 
• Do you know your audience? 
• How do you boil down the message without losing meaning?
• Et cetera, et cetera.

And then we simply ran out of time and had to stop our conversation — something to be picked up at a later date no doubt. There was also no doubt this is a meaty topic — and frankly a very important one.

As this catharsis builds momentum it's very clear that this is bigger than one blog post, and although I have some insights in this area, there are others who have greater skill with messaging an idea — and more importantly, getting buy-in and moving it forward. My hope here is to engage those who are really good at it, expand the discussion, and make us a little better tomorrow than we are today. 

Since I was the one who started this, I'll put a stake in the ground and say I approach messaging any idea (or proposed plan) using these guiding principles when figuratively putting pen to paper —

No one cares about your idea. It is your job to make them care.

Complicated gets confusing and people lose interest when it's confusing.

It is important you know your audience and what's important to them.

Less is more

Don't pitch a solution looking for a problem

For right or wrong, this frames up my thinking process and the approach I use when messaging any idea — and I suppose, encourage me to write more in short order. To be continued...

And hopefully, just maybe, I'll get a little help from my friends,

iamgpe

Where have all the tacticians gone?

My experience is when you get into discussions associated with Goals, Objectives, Strategies, Tactics, Stratagems, Tacticians and the like, it quickly turns into a fuzzy semantical stew that leaves everyone full but always slightly unsatisfied.

Goal [ɡōl] NOUN— the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result

Objective [əbˈjektiv] NOUN— a thing aimed at or sought; a goal

Strategy [ˈstradəjē] NOUN— a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim

Tactic [ˈtaktik] NOUN— an action or strategy carefully planned to achieve a specific end

Stratagem [ˈstradəjəm] NOUN— a plan or scheme, especially one used to outwit an opponent or achieve an end

Tactician [takˈtiSHən] NOUN— one versed in tactics

and the like [and, (ə)n] [T͟Hē, T͟Hə] [līk]— and similar things; et cetera

See what I mean?

After all these years whenever I find myself getting into the stew I always ground myself with a simple story that was told to me many years ago... 

A very long time ago there was an island city named Andorra that was the envy of all the land — the only way to reach the city was over four bridges that linked the city with the mainland. One day a particularly envious King in a neighbouring kingdom called his council together and said this — 

• My goal is to conquer the city of Andorra and make it part of my kingdom before the end of the year.
• The strategy to do this will be to starve the inhabitants into surrender.
• The tactic we will use to accomplish this is destroy the bridges so the city cannot get any food.

And with that, the King went about the task of achieving his goal.

I've always liked this story because it is a reminder of how we can complicate things with nuisance and semantics, and it is a strong example of what a goal, a strategy and tactic truly represent — something easily translated into various situations.

I also like this story because you may have been saying to yourself that just destroying the bridges won't work because the people of Andorra can always fish or have food brought in by boat (which is a very good point, as well as a very important reminder) — there is one goal, maybe a handful of strategies, and a large number of tactics needed to ensure the goal is achieved. 

Unless you are tactically effective, you will never achieve your strategies and most definitely not your goal.

If this is true, and I believe it is, why does everyone want to be a strategist? Why do many people, in some form or another, say they are good at strategy, a senior marketing strategist, or a strategist to something (or someone) very important? Is it because deep down we all want to be king? Although, if we are all king, how does anything actually get done — I mean, who is actually going to destroy the bridges?

Where have all the tacticians gone? Maybe they are just strategists in disguise.

iamgpe