Wanderlust and Words

This is the final section of a three-part summary ( Part One and Part Two ) of the key ideas in Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Good luck with your change efforts! Shape the Path We have a tendency to blame problems on the people, not the situation. If we are annoyed with our spouse or a co-worker, we blame it on their personality, whereas the problem may actually be caused by the situation. “A good change leader never thinks, ‘Why are these people acting so badly? They must be bad people.’ A change leader thinks, ‘How can I set up a situation that brings out the good in these people?’” Tweak the Environment It’s often easier to change the environment than human behaviour. For example, one individual was determined not to use his cell phone while driving so he locked it in the trunk of his car. Lawn mowers and many other pieces of machinery have an automatic off to make sure that people don’t cut their toes or fingers off. “Tweaking...

This is the second part of a three-part summary of the key ideas in Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. It draws heavily on the book and is not intended to be read as original content. (See also: Part One ) Motivate the Elephant Find the Feeling The Heath brothers state that, “In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just thought. . . . in almost all successful change efforts, the sequence of change is not ANALYZE-THINK-CHANGE, but rather SEE-FEEL-CHANGE.” Jon Stegner believed that the large manufacturer he was working for could drive down purchasing costs by $1 billion, but it would require a significant change in the company’s ways of work. So he looked for a compelling example of poor purchasing habits. His research showed that the factories were purchasing 424 different kinds of gloves costing from $5 to $17 dollars a pair. He collected an...

I thought Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath was an amazing book - both insightful and practical. I applied some of their ideas immediately at a volunteer meeting. Over the next three days, I will be posting a summary of the book's key concepts. The summary draws heavily on the ideas, examples, and language of Switch and in no way pretends to be original content. The Heath brothers outline three key ingredients for change. First of all, there is the human component. The Rider is the rational, reflective, deliberative side of human behaviour. His counterpart is the Elephant , the emotional, instinctive side of human behaviour. Finally, there is the Path , the environment or situation surrounding the human players. You can bring about change by Directing the Rider , Motivating the Elephant , or Shaping the Path . Direct the Rider Find the Bright Spots. Riders tend to focus their attention on what isn’t working rather than identifying what is. In addition, they spend a...

Spark your audience’s curiosity “You can entice, inspire, cajole, stimulate, or fascinate but you cannot make anyone listen to anything.” – Annette Simmons, The Story Factor Or, as the Heath brothers say, “Curiosity must come before content . . . tease, don’t tell.” For example, the Heath brothers recount the story of David Foster who was asked to make a presentation on his church’s finances. He doubled attendance by posting a quiz in the church bulletin the week before the meeting with questions like, “How much does St. Timothy’s spend to host coffee-hour after services in a year? a) $3,500; b) $8,000; c) $8,750; d) $9,250” and “If income and expenses are on track with the budget, at the end of the year, we will have: a) a large surplus; b) a large deficit; c) break even; d) a small deficit.”

I came across an interesting piece of information on Susan Weinschenk’s website, What Makes Them Click . Research has demonstrated that we read faster with a longer line length (100 characters per line) but prefer multiple columns with short line lengths (45 to 72 characters per line). I took a look at a monthly newsletter that I prepare, and it is normally laid out with 2 or 3 columns of 36-52 characters per line. I do occasionally use a one-column format with lines that go right the way across the page because it’s easier to fit the text around large images. But overall I’m comfortable that the current layout fits the research recommendations. On the other hand, the online software documentation that I write has a line length of 75-100 characters. I was already concerned that the Help was not very user friendly as it is long, wordy and detailed. This is just one more argument in favour of trying to find a more user-friendly layout. What line length do you prefer? Does it depend o...

Patagonia’s Tin Shed is not your typical online magazine. It’s fun; it arouses your curiosity; and it’s interactive. And the layout is unusual and attractive – a collage that combines layers of frames and photographs and drawings and videos. The experts say you shouldn’t force viewers to click too frequently. But I didn’t mind clicking on this site because I was curious and one click led to another as I uncovered the hidden information. I think the Tin Shed proves the value of building your communications instrument around beautiful, imaginative design, curiosity, fun, and audience participation. What do you think?

I was helping a friend’s son with his resume this week, and it reminded me that resumes are not only a record of our past experience. We are also positioning ourselves for the dream job that we hope to obtain in the future. And, in order to be successful, we have to keep that dream job front and centre in our minds as we write our resume. Research Research is always the first step. If my dream job is to be a chef in a three-star Michelin restaurant, my resume should highlight my experience in high-end restaurants. Or if I really want to work for a company that writes open source software, I should highlight my experience with open source. We may not have all the qualifications our dream employer is looking for, but we can highlight those we do have and start thinking about ways to improve our qualifications and increase our odds of landing that job we’ve always wanted. Be Concrete A bare bones resume that simply lists where I’ve worked and when doesn’t give a pote...

Infographics Graphic artists are awesome. They can turn a mundane piece of information into a dramatic statement. Here are two great examples. Airspace Rebooted From ItoWorld - A visualisation of the northern European airspace returning to use after being closed due to volcanic ash. Airspace Rebooted CO2 from ItoWorld on Vimeo . Hockey Night in Canada From Flowing Data – Canada: the country that pees together stays together. As writers, we don’t always have the resources to produce such amazing infographics. But we can always consider the visual impact of our work. See Also:   Communicating with Numbers #1

I played hooky this morning and went for a walk in the country. Now, people who don’t live on the Canadian Prairies tend to think they are flat and boring. But that just isn’t the case if you take the time to walk slowly and look carefully. There were so many tiny flowers blooming along the paths – early blue violet, American vetch, golden-bean, late yellow locoweed, and prairie onion (slideshow below). There were baby ducklings on the river, and five deer were startled but curious about my presence. And, completely unexpected, I found a small patch of morel mushrooms when I bent down to take a photograph. Business Writing As I observed the river’s gentle, circular currents, I thought about how business writing is so often forced to be loud and showy in order to catch the attention of busy people. But what if we want to create a document or website that still captures people’s attention but encourages them to slow down and look and think? Here are some tools that I think would s...

Free resource materials on my website. I have fixed the links to the following handouts. My apologies for the broken links in the original version. Plain Language Tips Effective PowerPoint Presentations Dynamic Tables and Graphs

Imagine that you are offered a free trip to one of 36 countries. That’s a tough choice. How are you going to decide? Now, imagine that you’re offered a free trip to one of 3 places. That’s an easier decision, isn’t it? Let’s look at another scenario. Imagine that you have 12 items on your To Do list. How are you going to remember them all? It could be tricky. Human beings crave information, but if we’re offered too much information all at the same time, we can’t cope with it. Lots of Choices = No Decision Researchers set up two sample tables in a supermarket. One table offered 24 varieties of jam while the other only offered 6. 60% of the people stopped and tasted jam at the table with 24 options. 40% tasted the jam at the table with 6 options. So the table with more options was more successful at attracting attention. However, only 3% of the people who stopped at the table with 24 jars actually made a purchase. Six times as many people purchased jam from the table with only 6...

Show and Tell Involve the audience in your presentation and you’ll keep their attention. Steve Jobs includes a demo and stage props in all his presentations. When he introduced the new MacBook, he passed around samples so the audience could touch and feel them for themselves. Jobs has fun too. He demonstrated the use of the iPhone by calling Starbucks and ordering 4,000 lattes – and then telling them he had the wrong number. The Heath brothers recommend skipping the long-winded introduction and bio. Instead, capture the audience’s attention by parachuting into the action. One woman introduced her presentation by turning out all the lights in the meeting room. As she explained to the audience, this is what it is like for people who are blind in a museum. Additional Resources:      The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs      Presentations Made to Stick Tip #1: Capture the audience’s attention with the title of your presentation

This post originally appeared on The Software Life , thoughts and experiences from the world of commercial and open source software. I’m sure all of us have used the Help feature on a software program and been frustrated and annoyed because it didn’t make sense or didn’t answer our question. One of my goals as a technical writer is to develop a good relationship with the customer. I want them to turn to the documentation feeling confident that it will help them complete their task quickly and successfully. I don’t want to confuse or antagonize them. Avoid Confusion I prepare the online documentation for customers of an integrated trucking and accounting software package. I used to use the verb “select” when telling customers to pick the appropriate option on a pull-down menu. Fortunately, one of the trainers pointed out to me that this was really confusing for the customers because there was a Select button at the bottom of many of the screens. Now, I only use the word “select” ...

Free resource materials to help you communicate more effectively are now available on my website : Plain Language Tips – for business writing that is easy to read and easy to understand Dynamic Tables and Graphs – to help you communicate with numbers Effective PowerPoint Presentations – to visually enhance your public speaking Resumes – a series of articles to help you prepare a killer resume

One of the most important things I do when helping someone with their resume is to listen to them talk, press them for details and help them identify what they have to offer an employer. Here are a few examples with names changed to protect people’s privacy. I hope they help you to identify your own abilities and to include them on your resume. People Skills Trump Lack of Education Jake doesn’t have much formal education, but he’s got fantastic people skills. So that’s what we highlighted in his resume: “Recognized as the ‘go to’ guy who will find solutions to problems (knows who to phone and how to phrase the request in order to get the desired result)” “Comes to the table with solutions not problems by using the knowledge of what different groups need to find mutually beneficial solutions” Volunteer Skill Development Lisa had a great deal of volunteer experience, but she failed to relate what she had learned or done to the skills required in the workplace. Everyone kn...

It’s Hard to Compare Shapes. Which piece of the pie is bigger – and by how much? It’s hard to say because the human eye finds it very difficult to judge how much bigger one shape is than another. Pie charts and three-dimensional shapes may look attractive, but they won’t do a good job of presenting your data because the viewer won’t be able to tell how much bigger one quantity is than another. On the other hand, a simple bar graph makes it easy for readers to compare one line length to the next. See Also: Dynamic Tables and Graphs

Celebrate the past year and plan for the next – those are just two of the ways that you can transform your organization’s annual meeting from boring to outstanding. Celebrate! FTH:K in Capetown, South Africa, is a young, funky theatre company integrating deaf and hearing performers. They view annual meetings as “excellent marketing opportunities to publicly celebrate the successes of the previous year.” Here’s how they describe this year’s AGM on their blog : “This year, our AGM was a kid’s party. Not because we behaved like children (although…) but because we were turning 5! So all FTH:K members hauled out their most kid-like clothes (from Snoopy, to Superman, to nappies, to tutus, to PJ’s – we had it all), Tina from Queen of Tarts made personalised cupcakes, Angela made Chico Clowns and racing cars out of Boudoir Biscuits, Tink made Jelly Oranges (although it seems that not all mums made these for their kid’s parties!) and we even had a game of Pass-the-Parcel – wrapped expert...

Imminent environmental catastrophe frightens me. And so I avoid reading about it. The books about global warming are too black, and leave me feeling helpless and hopeless. On the other hand, Eco Barons by Edward Humes filled me with hope and also pride. Some people are taking a stand. There are small triumphs. There are ways that I can contribute by following in their footsteps. Eco Barons is the story of Doug Tompkins who “abandoned his fashion empire, found a rugged cabin . . . and started saving and restoring paradise, one plot, one fence, and one tree at a time.” It’s the story of “two owl hooters [who] lived like monks and found a way to use the law to save forests, species, and clean air.” It’s the story of a cosmetics queen who “is spending her fortune to save the last great forest of our forefathers”, of a media mogul who “lies awake at his ranch and listens for the return of the wolves,” and of a ‘turtle lady’ who “walks along a beach each spring and waits, her heart in her ...