Concreteness

Paul Williams at Idea Sandbox has written a fantastic piece on the admirable simplicity of TV-show intros. As he says:

It can be challenging to boil down what you do into a short blurb… For inspiration, I suggest paying attention to the 30-second narrations at the beginning of TV shows.

At the start of each episode producers deliver the swift backstory and premise of the show. If this was our first viewing, we would understand what makes the show worth attention.

This is EXACTLY what you need for YOUR elevator pitch… What’s your 30-second blurb? Your backstory that builds awareness of the premise of you (or your project, company, etc…) and lets me know why you’re worth my attention?

As an example, The A-Team, which incidentally may represent the greatest artistic achievement of mankind, manages to communicate a complicated and not altogether coherent backstory in the space of 20 seconds:

In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit.

These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune.

If you have a problem. If no one else can help. And if you can find them. Maybe you can hire…

The A-Team.

Link via John Moore of Brand Autopsy, who points out that these intros are admirably sticky by Made To Stick standards. Absolutely. And one thing we can learn from these intros, that is directly relevant to more everyday work communication, is that we should start presentations with a little bit of context and a little bit of mystery. Context: “In 1972, a crack commando unit…” Mystery: “If no one else can help, and if you can find them…”

Giving a presentation implies that you’ve been asked to state your POV on an issue that is non-obvious. AKA a mystery of sorts.

Here’s a bad way to start a presentation: “Good to see all of you at the Volleyball Happy Hour last Thursday. Now let me start by reviewing the basic assumptions of our research.”

Good way to start a presentation: “Our sales have always been weak among exurban buyers. And yet they visit our stores in reasonable numbers. But only 58% make a purchase, versus 78% of urban visitors. Why? Last time this group met, we committed to figuring out why the exurbans were leaving empty-handed. Today, we’re going to tell you what we heard from them, loud and clear.” It isn’t the A-Team, admittedly, but it will keep the audience conscious.

Via Guy Kawasaki and Electric Pulp, there’s now an “Asshole Rating Self-Exam” (ARSE) for Bob Sutton’s new book The No-Asshole Rule. And what a brilliant first question: True/False: You feel surrounded by incompetent idiots.

Clarke Ching sent over a link to the Penn & Teller show Bullshit! The Numbers. (30-min Google video) There’s some great stuff here — some cockroach wrangling, some binge-eating, some live street cons, some cursing at Frank Luntz, and a hidden-camera expose of a timeshare salesman. The theme is the way numbers, especially big ones, tend to fuzz our judgment.

Favorite quote: “Your odds of being killed by tap water in the next year are 20 times greater than your odds of winning a multi-state lottery jackpot.” Erp.

Interesting teaser article on Pinker’s new book The Stuff of Thought, due out this fall.

“We have to do two things with language. We’ve got to convey a message and we’ve got to negotiate what kind of social relationship we have with someone,” Pinker says in a telephone interview from his home in Cambridge, Mass.

Even something as seemingly straightforward as asking for the salt involves thinking and communicating at two levels, which is why we utter such convoluted requests as, “If you think you could pass the salt, that would be great.”

Says Pinker: “It’s become so common that we don’t even notice that it is a philosophical rumination rather than a direct imperative. It’s a bit of a social dilemma. On the one hand, you do want the salt. On the other hand, you don’t want to boss people around lightly.

“So you split the difference by saying something that literally makes no sense while also conveying the message that you’re not treating them like some kind of flunky.”

Via the always-interesting Mojo Mom, a link to an interview with the professional “sensory analyst” Pat Patterson. As described by MM: “Imagine a day at work where you eat dry dog food and rate how meaty it is, and describe the smell of used cat litter. Pat has traveled to New Jersey to feel men’s faces after shaving, and flown to Indonesia to taste fresh fruit.” I wonder if you could just sign up for the Indonesia part.