And when youre describing your science, beware of jargon. Jargon is a barrier to our understanding of your ideas. Sure, you can say spatial and temporal, but why not just say space and time, which is so much more accessible to us? And making your ideas accessible is not the same as dumbing it down. Instead, as Einstein said, make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. You can clearly communicate your science without compromising the ideas. A few things to consider are having examples, stories and analogies. Those are ways to engage and excite us about your content. And when presenting your work, drop the bullet points. Have you ever wondered why theyre called bullet points? What do bullets do? Bullets kill, and they will kill your presentation. These are ideas relevant to any specialized field. Some are more prone to failures of communication than others, and some need to reach non-specialist audiences more urgently, but all can benefit even, or perhaps especially, the military. We talk to non-specialists in our leadership, OSD, and Congress all the time, and failures of communication can be especially costly.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 00:32:22 +0000