Interview with Anne Janzer, Author of Writing To Be Understood
In last week’s Build episode, we talked about why if somebody doesn’t understand your explanation for a technical concept, it’s not OK to just tell them to look it up or Google it. We also covered the effects of doing this, the main one being that you don’t come off as someone who is credible!
In today’s episode, we’re going to dive into the specific tactics for how you can explain abstract technical concepts to an audience of either lay people or one that may be a little bit more advanced.
Anne Janzer is back to help us out. Anne is a prolific author and recently published Writing To Be Understood: What Works and Why.
Here’s what you’ll learn as you watch today’s episode:
- What things we need to take extra time to explain
- How to gauge your audience’s level
- How to handle mixed audiences and explain in a way that is inclusive
- How to avoid “dumbing down” an explanation
- Why writing out an explanation is harder than sharing it verbally
- How to pick analogies that are going to resonate with your audience
- Which contexts to apply these techniques to
Listen to the episode on iTunes!
You can listen to this episode of Build on iTunes.
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Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.