I’m sorry I wrote such a long letter. I did not have the time to write a short one.
– Abraham Lincoln

For a long time, I strove to be efficient in communication. I would carefully consider the right words for things, especially when writing. But I realize now that good communication should have some redundancy.

Most of the time, the point of communicating is to convey information. Of course, there are other reasons people might converse. Redundancy is nice because it gets the message across eventually. Communication is inherently a very lossy channel.

For example, in Permission Marketing, Seth Godin says “you have to run an ad twenty-seven times against one individual before it has its desired impact. Why? Because only one out of nine ads is seen, and you’ve got to see it at least three times before it sinks in.” (87)

You can apply this to your own communications. One tweet or one phone call or even one meaningful conversation probably won’t get the point across.

Good teachers are redundant. They might approach the same subject from different angles by giving an audio, tactile, as well as visual learning experience.

Most religious leaders are probably pretty redundant. How many ways can you express the same fundamental truths?

An interesting side effect of being alright with redundancy makes for more personable communication. I am not as worried about getting the exact right words at all times, because I know that with time, the errors will work themselves out. As a result, conversations are less curt, which enables both people to feel safe.

Interestingly, people change their minds over time. If you assume they still think and do the same things as when you last talked to them, you are likely incorrect. So while you might have the same conversation twice, you might just learn something new or say something in a way that the other person understands better than the first time you said it.

Instead of getting bothered at needing to repeat myself, I should welcome the opportunity to say how I feel and what I believe. (Perhaps this is for relatives who haven’t adjusted to my internal perception of myself.)

Even if you ask the same questions multiple times, you might hear something you didn’t the first time, or the other person might be in a different state of mind than the last time.

The other concept that this relates to is to just start explaining what I am thinking before worrying about whether it is the best way to express the ideas within. An article doesn’t need to be perfect before it can help someone. People who really want the value are ready to read past typos and poor construction.

So be mildly redundant. It might be more useful than you think.

Original article: Redundant Communication Redundancy

Owning concepts

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout contain a few laws that I’d like to highlight:

• The Law of Exclusivity: Two companies cannot own the same word in the concept’s mind.
• The Law of Leadership: It’s better to be first than it is to be better.
• The Law of the Mind: It’s better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace.

Now consider the following categories and who pops into your mind:

• a giving person
• a great programmer
• a do-it-yourself mechanic
• a politically liberal or conservative person
• a talented artist
• someone who sells things online
• someone who is in fantastic shape

My experiences

Generally I can think of only a person or two for any given category. I don’t know why this is the case. But not knowing the reason does not stop it from being a useful thing to know about.

I notice that I associate people with a concept and believe them to be knowledgeable in a certain area when they are the first person I heard about the concept from. Until I have evidence to the contrary or find a more knowledgeable person, this is the working assumption. Whether they are really the most qualified people on these subjects, I would go to them first with questions. Their face pops up when I think about the category. I try to be more open-minded than believing that my mental model of them is accurate, but I am fallible.

When a consultant came into work and wound up a Pomodoro clock, several people glanced at me and I guessed that they were thinking about the Pomodoro Technique article that I wrote. I did it at work for a month or two, and it elicited some strong responses. It must be that when people think of the Pomodoro Technique, they think of me. While it was not my idea, it was one of the earlier published descriptions of using the technique. I don’t think this is egotistical or out of left field–it is just the way the mind works. We associate concepts with specific people.

In my own mind, for example, one or more people “own” the following words:

• Windows Azure
• dependency injection
• exploratory testing
• Stoicism
• jQuery

So what should you do about it?

Ask people what they know you for. Does their response mesh with what you think they know you for and what you want them to know you for? This understanding is critical in developing your personal narrative. You are the stories you can convincingly tell. Who would not want to be first in the mind for something they care about? Who wants to be first in the mind for something that they don’t like or identify with?

Do you associate yourself with positive or negative concepts? Being early is risky, because the concept’s associations might change or be run into the ground. But you could be first in the mind if you are early.

Do you read about new concepts and breathe life into existing ones? By writing about things that already exist, you reach people that have not heard of them.

Generally it’s hard to disassociate yourself with concepts, even if they are value neutral. Robby Slaughter writes about this and more in the excellent (and quite relevant) The Tyranny of the Niche:

The worst part about switching your major in junior year is not the administrative paperwork or the additional coursework. Rather, bailing on art history and heading to journalism means you will spend the next few years of your life reminding every acquaintance and distant family member that you no longer plan to work in museums. Your assertions will grow more firm and flustered as you repeat them to the same people. Our tidy stereotypes cannot weather the complex nuances of individual choice. Change is hard; getting others to actually remember that you’ve changed is often more work than the initial reinvention.

What words or phrases or terms do you own? The rewards of being first in the mind are disproportionately large. There’s only so many slots one typically lumps a person into. Consider what concepts you mention in passing that people might begin associating you with. What do you need to drop to be first in the thing you care most about? Consciously manage these perceptions. They are real.

This post generally relates to using meta-information, although that is a bit theoretical.

Feedback

Have you seen the principle of owning concepts in life? Am I full of crap?! Post a comment!

Original article: What Does Everyone Know You For?

Hmm... what's in the box?

Strange...

Ah, that makes sense.

With that much attention paid to a free t-shirt, it’s little wonder that Apple is seen as an innovator and leader.

Original article: Some Pictures

“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.”

This book is self-described by Seth as a book that was supposed to be about leadership that happens to have a lot of marketing information, or a book about marketing that happens to have a lot of leadership information. The main point is that with the advent of tools to facilitate interactions between groups of people with common interests, being a leader is easier but even more important than ever. Tribes can be smaller and more precise because geographical limitations are mostly gone now. Apart from others’ need for leaders, being a leader increases your happiness because you are in control of your destiny and are constantly challenging yourself. Seth makes an even bigger point: we need YOU to be a leader, and there are huge benefits to be gained from doing this. Sometimes the going can be tough, but if everyone were doing it, then it wouldn’t be worth as much when someone provided true leadership. Godin emphasizes creating a movemen and working with it to allow it to thrive.

Seth makes a distinction between managers and leaders, stating that the former are risk-averse because they are trying to meet goals and are typically rooted in the “factory” mindset. The latter go against the status quo by having a vision and passion for what they are working for. Seth consistently describes these people as heretics because they have a vision and are willing to commit to that vision, challenging authority and old ways of doing things if necessary. Deciding to lead and not manage is a critical choice that you must make in your life.

Being a leader is not about talking. It’s about listening and sometimes even stepping out of the way so that your tribe is empowered. Seth is clear several times that if you are not passionate about what you are trying to do, you should not lead. Just sit this one out and wait until it is your time. But if you need to and want to, then you must step up. The only thing holding you back are your own fears.

One of my favorite parts of the book (not necessarily a revelation) is when Godin describes the safest thing being the riskiest, and the riskiest as being the safest. With the world as connected, fast-moving, and ever-changing as it is now, it is actually less risky to innovate and be proactive. There might have been a time when a large establishment or bureaucracy could have been seen as a positive, but now it’s seen as restrictive. But Seth is clear that organizations are critical to getting important things done in a timely manner.

Tribes is kind of like Who Moved My Cheese for grownups. Seth constantly talks about not settling and rising above the status quo. He warns about “what everyone knows.” Often the best innovations are created when people disregard what “everyone knows.”

Godin also discusses risks, whether real or perceived, associated with assuming a leadership role. In the end, it boils down to there being little true risk and a large possible upside. Most of the time risks are all in your head. People don’t start things because they are afraid of failure or of being criticized by others. However, Godin makes it clear than anything worth criticizing is worth doing. It would be much worse to do something and be ignored than to do something and have half of the people hate it. At least they are talking about what you did. To further show that most risks have little foundation, let’s say that you are leading a project and things go horribly wrong. More than likely you will not be fired for having a cause go awry, and you will definitely learn from the experience. In the event that you get let go, it must be easier to find a job knowing that you have been trying to innovate and change things up.

It’s not all about companies though. Seth talks about local leadership and non-profits, as he has been involved with working with those groups. Another nugget that I enjoyed was the discussion of faith and religion and how they parallel leadership and management. Indeed, leadership takes a great deal of belief in what you are striving for.

Seth makes the point several times that everyone is now a marketer, whether you think you are or not. You need to be able to sell, whether for your personal ideas or for your company. Jeff Atwood describes a nice analogy for seeing how more balance can increase your effectiveness. I listened to the Steve Yegge podcast that Atwood references, and I’m inclined to agree with his Yegge quote: “If there was one thing I could teach every engineer, it would be how to market.”

There are numerous concrete examples in the book, which makes internalizing the concepts easier. I highly recommend reading or listening. It definitely fired me up. There is a whole lot that I’m missing, you can see an outline that I created for Tribes.

I learned about this book when Seth put links to an audio recording of him reading the book available for free or nearly free in his blog. Seth practices what he preaches, so he asked me to pass this information along.

Original article: Review: Tribes