“Are your users stuck in ‘P’ mode?”
“Why marketing should make the user manuals!”
“How to get users to RTFM”
In the book, we talk about how vivid details can make ideas more credible. Here’s an example from the annals of advertising, plucked from an article on the copywriter Claude Hopkins:Back in 1919, Schlitz beer approached Claude Hopkins. Their beer sales were in 15th place. They asked Hopkins if he could help them sell more beer. He agreed to meet with Schlitz and toured the brewery. He was fascinated with what he discovered. He then returned two months later with an ad campaign.
His ads told of the “crystal clear water from a special artesian well”. They told of the one “mother” yeast cell that produced all the yeast for fermenting the beer. It was the result of over “1,500 experiments and produced a very distinct fresh, crisp taste”. He told of how the bottles were “sterilized 12 times to ensure purity, so that nothing would interfere with the clean taste of the beer”.
The Schlitz people hated it. They explained to Hopkins that this would never work. They told him, “All beer is made the same way.” Hopkins calmly assured them that people would be fascinated with the “behind the scenes” look and, that no other beer maker had ever told the story.
After much discussion, Schlitz relented and let the ads roll out. Six months later, Schlitz beer was the Number 1 selling beer in the nation.
""They're / There / Their
Than / Then
Apostrophes (when to use them and w'hen no't to'o)
To / Too / Two
Affect / Effect
"Alot" is not a word
By / Buy / Bye
Loose / Lose
Passed / Past
Some spellings are rediculous
Plain / Plane
To unthaw something is to freeze it. (see "thaw")
Wander / Wonder
Weather / Whether / Wether
Where / Were (vs "wear")
Who / Whom
Whose / Who's
Your / You're
Brake / Break
Breath / Breathe
Compliment / Complement
Fair / Fare
For / Four / Fore
Be well, and do good work.
Lead / Led
Allowed / Aloud
Hole / Whole
"1. Vague claims. Are you a "leading" provider of this, that or the other? So's everybody else."
Be specific. Provide details. Quantify. Source your data. Where appropriate, include a quote from a third party to verify your claims.
2. Industry jargon abuse.
3. Business nonsense talk. Paradigm shift. Scalable. Best of breed. End to end. Mission-critical. World-class. Targeted completion date. Long tail. Crowdsourcing.
4. Silly superlatives. If what you were announcing were really "revolutionary," you wouldn't need to put out a press release.
So do yourself a favor and keep your press releases straightforward in structure, clear in language, and supported by facts."
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
We spent lots of time researching sticky ideas—ideas that people understand, remember, and that change the way people think or behave. The ideas we studied ranged from the ludicrous to the profound, from urban legends (no, there is no kidney theft ring) to great scientific theories (yes, the land we walk around on does ride on giant tectonic plates and when they collide they cause mountain ranges and earthquakes). We found there were six principles (“SUCCES”) that link sticky ideas of all kinds. Sticky ideas won’t always have all six, but the more, the merrier.
For example, JFK’s idea to “put a man on the moon in a decade” had all six of them:
1. Simple A single, clear mission.
2. Unexpected A man on the moon? It seemed like science fiction at the time.
3. Concrete Success was defined so clearly—no one could quibble about man, moon, or decade.
4. Credible This was the President of the U.S. talking.
5. Emotional It appealed to the aspirations and pioneering instincts of an entire nation.
6. Story An astronaut overcomes great obstacles to achieve an amazing goal.
... the villain of our book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.
Here’s the great cruelty of the Curse of Knowledge: The better we get at generating great ideas—new insights and novel solutions—in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly. That’s why knowledge is a curse. But notice we said “unnatural,” not “impossible.”
•The world is run by people who write.
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•Clear writing leads to clear thinking.
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•You don’t know what you know until you try to express it.
