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Communication Mechanics Episode 3: Understanding Audiences
43 Plays8 months ago
In this episode Dr. Jill Fennell sits down with Dr. David Anderson, Principal Engineer at Exponent, to talk about the importance of understanding audience in Engineering Communications.
Show Notes and Timestamps
- Episode Introduction 00:56
- Why engineers should prioritize audience 2:02
- How did you realize the importance of understanding audience 03:20
- Audience influence on design decisions 05:22
- Audience needs - anticipating and addressing 12:32
- How can new engineers learn about different workplace roles and expectations 14:32
- Sharing Information for specific stakeholders 17:03
- Examples of Successes and Challenges in Engineering Communication 22:33
- Unique difficulties of engineering communication 29:43
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Transcript
Introduction to Communication Mechanics
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Communication Mechanics. I'm Jill Finnell, the Frank K. Webb Chair in Communication Skills at Georgia Tech's Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. In each episode, we'll explore how communication shapes the success of engineers, researchers, and industry professionals.
Understanding Audience in Engineering Communication
00:00:28
Speaker
Join us as we share stories of triumphs, challenges, and the strategies that fuel success.
00:00:34
Speaker
Whether you're a seasoned pro, an aspiring student, or simply passionate about engineering, listen as we demystify compelling communication in the world of mechanical engineering.
00:00:55
Speaker
Whether you're presenting a technical report, proposing a new project, or testifying as an expert witness, the ability to anticipate and address your audience's needs can make all the difference in conveying your message with impact and clarity. Today, we'll explore why understanding your audience is paramount in engineering communication and how engineers can leverage this understanding to enhance the effectiveness of their communication strategies.
Dr. Anderson's Insights on Communication
00:01:23
Speaker
Joining us for this discussion is Dr. David Anderson, a seasoned engineer with a wealth of experience in mechanical and chemical engineering. As a principal engineer at Exponent, Dr. Anderson has navigated the complexities of thermal and fluid systems across various industries, applying his expertise to solve multifaceted engineering challenges. Welcome, David. Thank you.
00:01:50
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming to talk to us. I really wanted to talk to you after I heard you speak with Dr. Fedoroff's class about just how important you found communication to be for engineers. So I guess that brings me to my first question, which is, why should engineers prioritize understanding their audience when conveying technical information?
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a great question and, you know, again, thanks for having me. I'm i'm really happy to be here. um You know, I think it comes down to, you know, you can be the best engineer in the world. You can do amazing technical work. You can come up with great insights. But if at the end of the day you're not able to effectively communicate that to others and you know help them understand what the takeaways are of the analysis you've done or what does this mean like it's really contextualizing all the good technical work you've done it's like getting like 90% of the way through baking something but then just you don't quite finish it and then it doesn't taste right right like you have to you have to see it all the way through to the end to make sure that the people who are ultimately taking that information and using it they understand the punchline they
00:02:58
Speaker
I mean, that that's what engineering is about. It's about coming up with insights and helping move the ball forward, make decisions or do whatever. But if the people that you're doing that for can't grasp what you're trying to say, then, you know, all of that great work that you did might be for naught.
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah, and if you can't actually invoke change, it's then what was the point? Exactly, yep.
Learning Audience Understanding at Caterpillar
00:03:20
Speaker
So how did you come to realize the importance of understanding your audience? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it it comes just with experience. You know, you you I mean, I've i've worked Postgraduate now for over two decades and you know my first job as an engineer was at Caterpillar I worked there for five years before deciding to go back to do a PhD and I don't know it just struck me in those early years how
00:03:47
Speaker
how much work I would do and then at the end of the day at the design review or whatnot, you know it really would get condensed to just this these few nuggets of information that might go to like the chief engineer on the product that I was working on or or whatnot.
00:04:01
Speaker
And, you know, I just really from kind of experience understood coming away from some of those, either whether it was myself doing it or sitting in reviews where other people are doing it. Hey, that was effective. Hey, that wasn't effective. And like, you could really tell the difference between a review or a communication that was just structured well, that, you know, laid out the the motivated it correctly, you know, laid out the important points, laid out the decision that was being made in the rationale for it versus one that was a bit more ad hoc, haphazard.
00:04:31
Speaker
And you know I would see examples where if it wasn't laid out right, you know you might come away from with a conclusion from that review that wasn't actually reflective of what the real findings were from a technical standpoint.
Structuring Communication for Clarity
00:04:43
Speaker
And so just through that experience of of living it and seeing it, you just kind of learn, oh, wow, if I structure things this way, the reception is a lot more positive and I can get my point across and then the right decisions can be made, whether it's in you know in that case in product development, Or in my role currently as a consultant, I'm advising clients and then sometimes I'm testifying in legal matters. You know, I want to make sure that the attorneys who are working on things or the C-suite and the companies that I'm supporting, like, they understand what I did and why it matters and what what they need to do in light of the findings I put forth. Otherwise, like, why would they hire me? Yeah, good point. Yeah.
00:05:22
Speaker
So how does audience influence the other major factors in designing a communication? So for example, the extent to which you want to pursue a particular purpose or the way that the technical information gets described.
00:05:37
Speaker
Sure. I mean, I think that's really where it starts, right? Is is understanding, maybe maybe the best way to answer it is to give examples, right? Like, knowing who you're presenting to. Like, am I presenting to an executive at a company who's making a decision? Am I presenting to a director of engineering? Am I present presenting to more of like a working level?
00:05:57
Speaker
individual contributor level engineer, am I presenting to all of them, right? And sometimes that that can be, and we can talk about that more later, the mixed audiences sometimes are the toughest, right? Because you've got to tick the boxes of like, okay, with the executives, I might only have that first few minutes to like really drive the message home.
00:06:14
Speaker
and make sure they get it. But I also like i don't want to make it too simple so that the engineer, the technical guy in the room, doesn't have confidence that I've done it correctly. right And so I think sometimes understanding understanding those audience, and it really comes, I think, down to understanding what are the like what are their motivations and what are their needs.
Engaging Mixed Audiences
00:06:34
Speaker
right like this person needs to clearly understand the decision in a short amount of time because they're busy and they're going to move on. I may need to do more of like a, I call it like a bluff, like a bottom line up front. Like I just say, this is what we were asked to do and this is what we decided, right? And then that audience member may start tuning out, but then maybe I layer in more of the technical detail as background, you know, later in the talk so that somebody who's maybe more engaged throughout, like maybe an engineer or, you know, director of engineering or something of that nature, making sure that you're you're putting things in for each of them. And like I often find even like looking at that person when you say it, right? So like maybe you're looking at the executives at the beginning and you're reading their eyes, right? Like you're engaged with them, you're reading their body language, right? Do do I have this person's attention? And then, you know, when you come to the technical points, maybe you look to the people who you know, they care about this point. Like this point is one of their passion points about this endeavor, right? They want to make sure
00:07:32
Speaker
that you accounted for that and you make sure you make a point of that, right? So you're almost kind of like going into it, you're like, okay, I know these five people are in the meeting, how do I make sure that all of them have their their needs met and they understand that their input has been heard, that I've considered the things that are important to them in making my recommendations.
Designing Effective Figures and Reports
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, I can imagine that greatly increases your trustworthiness or ethos as a speaker as well. It shows that not only do you know your stuff when it comes to the engineering technical aspects, but you also know how other people should care about this information. And why it matters, right? Especially being a consultant, you know, a lot of the times that's what they're paying me for is knowing what are the right questions to ask, what are the right things to consider, right? And so generally speaking, like making sure that that you can come across as, hey, this person, they see the whole playing field, right? They see everything. But then they know what's really important. They know what to focus on. They know they can really cut through all of the extraneous stuff and get to the heart of what's important to me as a stakeholder.
00:08:40
Speaker
And I think that's just so important as you communicate. It might be that you have a XY axis figure, and you've got the very technical names on the X and the Y axis. And that works for the director of engineering or the individual contributor engineer. But then maybe next to that axis, you have an arrow pointing up on the Y axis that says like, more efficient, or whatever it is, right, like better, or, you know, what's the takeaway, like,
00:09:06
Speaker
if maybe the actual access label is is like units of widgets or whatever it is, but then, you know, you layer on a more layman term definition of it next to it, and then that way it's like the technical person can see it and get what the real metric is, but even the layperson who's maybe more of a business manager or more of a whatever, they can look at it and say, okay, I understand this plot too.
00:09:30
Speaker
Right. That's also a technique that I often employ is like having dual axes or dual a decoding of what the term means in addition to the rigorous definition of what a term means. Nice. Yeah. And the lab courses we tell our students it'd be ideal to design your figures in a way that the client could just rip them out of the report and take them with our stakeholders.
Using Footnotes and Backup Slides
00:09:52
Speaker
Yep, absolutely, I agree with that. And often when I'm writing technical reports, which would be, you know, rather than a presentation, I'm writing a document report, I really start with those figures, right? And I almost want the figures alone to tell the story. Like I want somebody to be able to say, I look at figure one, two, three, four, five, and even without reading the text, I generally understand what the author was trying to say, right? And then of course the texts there to augment it,
00:10:22
Speaker
And it's sometimes it's maybe for the more rigorous or more curious reader. And I even go a step further and I layer footnotes on top of that. Right. So I use footnotes pretty heavily to where I'll i'll make statements that are easier to understand and contain. But then like for the curious reader. right What's the really thorough justification for that? Put it in a footnote at the very bottom. It doesn't disrupt their flow to read it, but if somebody is a skeptical reader and really wants to understand where does that come from, put it in a footnote. And I find that is a very effective way in in written report communication to hit the needs of all the audiences, give enough for the really most rigorous reader without upsetting the the reader who just wants to understand.
00:11:05
Speaker
No, no. That's also a great idea whenever you're still developing your trustworthiness
Empathy in Communication
00:11:09
Speaker
with maybe a new client. Is that you don't want them to think that you don't appreciate their need for concision and identifying the most usable data points, but you're still developing your ethos or your trustworthiness with them. So I think that footnote idea is really great.
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the corollary to the footnote idea when you have a PowerPoint or ah you know a presentation is backup slides. I'm very big on backup slides, right? So it's like, think about what questions they might ask and have a good backup slide prepared, but don't necessarily give it to them all. Like wait till they ask the question, right?
00:11:44
Speaker
Because if you try to give it to them all, you know there may be five different topics that they may ask questions on. It's overload. It's overload. But then one person in the room asks one question and you're like, OK, let me pick the right backup slide. And I find that to be very effective as well, because it's like they can see that you've identified what really matters to them. But if they're curious.
00:12:07
Speaker
They've seen the tip of the iceberg, that's your presentation, but there's a lot of the iceberg underneath the water as well that there's foundation there that you can show them if they're curious. right And I think that audiences respond really well to that. And I think that also goes back to the fact that in this early stage of an engineering career, it's really important to start developing an understanding of what different roles need from you as the engineer. Yep, absolutely.
00:12:32
Speaker
You said that in understanding the audience, one of the greatest factors is understanding audience needs. So what strategies can engineers employ to anticipate and address their audience needs when designing communications?
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think one of the big things is just empathy, right? Like being able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. Like think if I were this person, what would I care about, right? And I think I ask myself that question a lot when I'm figuring out how to put together a presentation or I have a meeting or I have something like this. Like what makes these people tick? What do they care about?
00:13:10
Speaker
and if you If you don't know, because you don't know the people well enough, mean you can get information in a variety of ways. right like you can do some you know You can do online research. right like You can learn about the company. You can maybe look up people on LinkedIn or like figure out what their background is. Sometimes I'll go in and I'll just be introduced to a group of people and I don't know what their background is. There's nothing wrong with just asking.
00:13:32
Speaker
like hey we're talking about this topic like you know before i get started like how many of you are engineers or how many of you have technical backgrounds or like just ask the question like go around the room and say okay what do you do with the company what's your role i think people really appreciate that when you take the time and pause up front to like say i want to understand like what matters to you and not only what matters to you but also like where are you coming from in terms of your background and understanding because do I need to kind of go into a more more of the background material or am I going to bore you if you if I go into the background material right there's absolutely nothing wrong with just asking that question and I think people will respect you for
00:14:13
Speaker
okay, this person cares about first understanding me and what I need, and then they're gonna, they're not just gonna launch a pre, you know, ah a pre-canned diatribe about whatever topic, they wanna know what I need to know, and then they're gonna tailor it to me, and I think people really like that and respect that.
Advice for New Engineers
00:14:30
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. How can new engineers, like our seniors graduating or even our underclassmen who are preparing and and hoping to go into the workforce with a strong start, how can they learn about different roles in the workplace and how those roles may correspond to expectations or preferences?
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think that as you're looking to try to understand where you're gonna fit in the workplace and like how you can kind of apply some of these things I'm talking about, one thing is just exposing yourself to it and practice, practice, practice, right? like You have opportunities to present things that you do even when you're in a university setting, whether it's you know presenting class projects or being a part of clubs. or you know I think there's there's a lot of ways to to get practice at this. and like try to understand what you might like to do and what your style is, right? And so I think also just almost being like a sponge when you're early on in your in your career, right? Like any situation you're in, like a lot of times, you know, for example at Caterpillar, I did an engineering rotational development program. Like they hired me in and I worked like three or four months in four different roles in my first year, year and a half. And just really soak that in and like understand
00:15:49
Speaker
okay, why am I being asked to do this? what How am I contributing to the bottom line here? And then why am I doing that? and And observing the people who are assigned to you either as formal mentors or informal mentors, right? Like, I like to view it as almost like a, you know, you're trying to become yourself, right? Like, you're trying to figure out who you are gonna be in the workplace. Well, you can kind of pick and choose all a la carte. Like, oh, I really like what my colleague over here does with regard to this and that.
00:16:15
Speaker
I don't really like what they do here, like that's not my style, it doesn't really work with me. But I really like what colleague B over here does, right? And so at the end of the day, you know, a lot of it is kind of early on, it's sampling and seeing how different people function, behave, how they're effective, ways in which maybe you think they're not effective.
00:16:34
Speaker
figuring out what you think would work for you, figuring out what maybe wouldn't work for you. And it's almost like as a scientist, like treat it all as an experiment, right? Well, let me try that. Does that work? Yes or no. And then adapt from there, right? It's it's almost like a series of experiments that you can almost envision yourself doing. Like, let me let me try that roll on and see if I like it and see if it resonates with me. And based on what I learned from that, do I then pivot or, you know, do I keep more down in this path?
00:17:02
Speaker
Right. yeah Thinking about different roles in industry as the audience that you're communicating to and how those roles will have different needs for the communication, how can brand new engineers start learning that ah certain kinds of stakeholders might want this type of information versus other audiences might want the information delivered differently?
00:17:27
Speaker
yeah I think a good way to do it is honestly just ask. right like I think there's a lot of hesitancy sometimes to do that because you want to you don't want to seem like you're a novice or you don't want to seem like you don't know what's going on. you know i mean i think just I remember when I was a brand new consultant at Exponent, right there's a lot of people there that have been doing this for over a decade or two decades or three decades. right And, you know, I would just say like, hey, I'm preparing this presentation. I'm kind of struggling with the balance of this and this. Like, what do you think? Right. And so, i you know, I think a really good way is just to to ask people who've done it more than you. I mean, sometimes it is also like ask them the rationale behind certain things, like even if they're the ones presenting.
00:18:09
Speaker
you can afterwards say, hey, like, I noticed you framed it this way. Like, why, why did you do that? Like, I thought I might have done it this way. And, you know, having a really creative discussion about it, right? Like actually saying, there are other ways that we could have set up this review or this communication. And I just want to understand, you know, your decision making in terms of getting there, right? and And doing it not in a confrontational way, like not in a, hey, I think you could have done this better way, but just a hey, like I'm trying to learn, I'm trying to grow, i'm I'm trying to understand. At least in my role at Exponent, you know I think a lot of the more senior consulting staff really will respond well to that because they like working with younger staff who are inquisitive and who want to get better and who want to practice things and who want to understand why we do things the way we do things. and Ultimately, the aim is for all of us to get better. and so I think asking is really a great way to do that.
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. If you cannot determine your audience's needs, you can't really make good assumptions about your audience based on looking them up online or just word of mouth and in your workplace asking is way better than putting together a presentation that is putting forth the information in a way that's not
Practicing Communication Skills
00:19:27
Speaker
usable. Absolutely. There's one other point I think I'd like to maybe loop back to as well and that is like try to do it and as many times as you can in a mistake situations, right? Like if you're always intentional about this kind of messaging and this communication, try to practice it where it's not the huge review with the head of the department or whatever it is, right? Like practice it in your weekly one-on-ones with your boss.
00:19:52
Speaker
or you know again back to the the Georgia Tech example you know practice it before you even start in your professional workplace like find opportunities on campus through club involvement or through whatever so that you've already come into it and done it in a way where You might fall flat on your face. That's fine. You learn from it, right? like But don't fall flat on your face for the first time trying something when you're in the big meeting with the key stakeholder. Right. Yeah. We've actually been making some changes to the web communication program here within the Woodrow School to try to help students practice those things. And one of the things that we do is that
00:20:30
Speaker
All of their assignments that have a communication component have a scenario around them. And that scenario has an audience member that is supposed to be the receiver of the communication. yeah And we do this to hopefully help train our students to make better communication choices depending on the situations that they find themselves in. That's great. I love it. great I love to hear that from alumni.
00:20:55
Speaker
So, for example, one of our 2110 class where they're doing a lot of ideation in the beginning, they do a problem understanding. okay And they use a few design tools to really develop their problem understanding. and We have the scenario worked up to where there is a sort of favorite client of the firm has dropped a last minute request on us. And so we're like we're just through all of available designers towards this problem. So we're bringing in the the project manager and he just wants to see a lot of ideation really quickly so he can choose one.
00:21:32
Speaker
and go forward with it. So if you're giving us a presentation, this is not the place for you to tell us how this design tool works. In fact, that might be insulting for this particular audience and his needs at that time. Instead, we want to see how you developed a particular perspective on the problem that is trustworthy because you use design tools and interpreted those in a certain way.
00:21:56
Speaker
Gotcha. Yeah, that's interesting. I think that's a ah great example. And you know, I do think it's an under emphasized, maybe until now, it sounds like you are emphasizing it under emphasized aspect of engineering education. I mean, i I feel like I didn't get that much in my undergrad, for example, like it was just so very focused on the technical details. And, and I've kind of had to learn the communication part of it experientially. And to some extent, I mean, there's no substitute for the experience, but at least to have prompts in there to get you thinking about that. I think at the undergraduate level, I mean, I commend that. I think that's that's excellent to hear.
Interactive Presentations
00:22:33
Speaker
Can you share any notable challenges or successes you've encountered in engineering communication?
00:22:39
Speaker
Yeah, you know a lot of the things I do are confidential and I can't talk about. But one of the aspects of my job that I can talk about is I'll often give like webinars or speak to audiences just about general topics of interest. And so one, I spoke to a um ah group of attorneys about the importance of how you measure moisture content. um in For example, like in buildings after, like inclement weather after a hurricane or or a storm or something like that.
00:23:05
Speaker
and I did this recently and and the way I framed it was in what motivates them is their attorneys that are hiring experts who need to make these measurements and then use that to argue legal cases. right Like, hey, is so-and-so liable to overhaul this building that may or may not have been damaged by the moisture ingress, things of that nature.
00:23:29
Speaker
and so I framed it up, in ah I think in a great way, and then I said, hey, there's there's different there's different techniques to measure moisture, and here's a really popular one that I often see used. And then I said, I actually built like a little mock build it knock wall, like a knee wall, and i and i had before the presentation, like i took I used this to make measurements in different locations, and I didn't tell them anything about what was in there. I just showed them, hey, I measured it here, here, here, and here,
00:23:58
Speaker
these are the answers, and there then there was a lot of variation. And so I said, you know, which of these measurements do you trust? And I kind of left it as like an open-ended question to get them thinking, like, well, he's using the same technique and like it doesn't, they all look dry, but yet it looked, it's saying there's moisture here, it's saying there's not moisture there. And then I gave more technical insight into how the instrument works.
00:24:20
Speaker
And then I said, well, here's here's why you're getting these different answers, right? And I said, if you use a different method, you can get, and I showed what, I kind of overlaid, well, here's what the same measurements in the same locations and they're all consistent and equal. And so I was able to give them and ground it, like give them a really practical example of initially, like I kind of put myself in their shoes and it was like, if if I can catch up, if I can kind of hook them by saying,
00:24:46
Speaker
I don't understand, like, why do those measurements look weird? Then they're kind of like thinking the whole time you've captured their attention and they're thinking, something's going on here, I don't understand it. And then they're thinking as I'm presenting about the different measurement techniques, what might be the reasons behind those differences. And then they, you know, and then we ultimately come to it and it's like, oh, okay, I get it. So I think that was a good example where I got really good feedback after that presentation where people were like, it was really interesting, engaging, like it had me thinking about kind of like framing it or setting it up as a mystery, right? Like, what's going on here? And then, oh, let me explain it to you. And then, oh, now I understand. Versus just like going monotonously right into, well, you can measure it this way and this way and here's the pros and here's the cons. It was more of a, I think I properly introduced it and motivated it by kind of introducing a bit of ah of a question or a mystery.
Designing Audience Experience
00:25:39
Speaker
Yes. I think that I think that it's important for anyone in the sciences to understand, especially if they're communicating something new for the first time, or at least for the first time to that audience is you get to control the way that person thinks about the information. And so you're not just.
00:25:56
Speaker
communicating. You're designing that person's experience of the information. Absolutely. And that will make a lasting difference on the way that they use that information and talk to other people about that information in the future. Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's it's pretty exciting when you look at it that way of like I'm designing how do I want them to engage with this material? And a lot of times the audience that is more of the layperson is the most exciting because they're a blank space, right? Like, you know, they're coming in with really not much experience and you can, you can frame it in however you think is going to be most so interesting and compelling to them. So I enjoy that. I think it's a fun challenge.
Adapting to Cultural Communication Styles
00:26:33
Speaker
Yeah, and I think maybe you like half the battle with novice engineering communicators or novice communicators in general is just taking the time to realize that that is a choice available to you. think Oftentimes we get used to communicating things in order that they happen just because it's easy for us to remember that.
00:26:53
Speaker
But communicating something in chronological order, is something that happened first, second, third, is sometimes a a messy process on the part of the listener. yes And while that choice can be a good one at times, it is one choice among many.
00:27:08
Speaker
yeah it's like We tried this, it didn't work. We tried that, it didn't work. That led us to this, you know, versus like, here's what we found, right? Up front, this is the key insight, right? My PhD advisor, Andre Fedoroff, used to always say that is like, you don't write a journal article in like a, you know, a paper, go in an academic journal in the order that you did the things. You write it in the order that makes sense for the reader.
00:27:29
Speaker
And it was kind of eye-opening, it's mind-blowing, wow, I'm not bound to do it in the order that I did the thing, that I conducted the experiments. It's a cool realization. I know you're alumni here at Georgia Tech, I don't know if you're originally from the South, but we have the saying, there's no sense in preaching to the choir, because the choir already knows everything, and says you have to preach to other people's wherever it is that they happen to be at that time, whether they're a blank slate, as you said, or maybe they even have a prior misconception that you're going to—unfortunately, you still have to start there, and you have to figure out how you're going to do it. Maybe how to undo it, unravel it a bit. Yeah, exactly. No, I'm from North Carolina, so I've kind of been in the South my whole life, and I definitely understand that.
00:28:15
Speaker
and's i mean Another part of it is it's interesting the cultural aspect of it as well. i mean One of the fun things for me working at Exponent is I do work internationally. and so like I've worked with you know European clients, I've worked with Asian clients, and there's a bit of that too about understanding just the way business might be done in different cultures and and in a lot of ways as a consultant.
00:28:36
Speaker
you know you you need to meet your clients where they are, right? So not force your communication style or preferences onto them, but rather it's a balance because you you don't want to completely go away from the things that make you who you are, like you want it to be
Balancing Detail with Clarity
00:28:51
Speaker
authentic. Exactly. But how can you kind of bridge that gap and meet them where they are as well and and and knowing how certain cultures they might want you to be a lot more direct.
00:29:01
Speaker
others, they might want you to tap dance around things a bit or like, you know, and and and and understanding that, whether it's a cultural thing or whether it's an individual person thing as well. I mean, that's part of it is then once I get to know clients a lot better, then I know them as an individual and I'm like, I know this person cares about this. Let me tailor my message in that way, right? Exactly. But it's it's it's almost ah an optimization problem for us engineers, right? It's like, how can I optimally get through to this person based on what I know about them?
00:29:30
Speaker
Absolutely, I can agree more. I like to to think that there's no such thing as good communication. yeah There's only the maximally appropriate communication for that specific scenario. Is there anything unique to engineering information that makes it difficult to communicate well?
00:29:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think the big aspect is that it's so easy to get bogged down in the details when it comes to engineering. There's so many layers that you can go down when you're solving an engineering problem. And so often I think kind of right sizing the communication and the analysis is really important. like How do I manage the flow of information so as not to overwhelm the audience but to also convey to them that I really did something rigorous, right? It's almost like kind of think about like you're the chef turning up and down the the heat input into a pressure cooker, right? Like you want to just get the right amount. You don't want to overdo it.
00:30:26
Speaker
and have too much steam be released, but you also, the temperature needs to be high enough to to do the action, right? So I mean, I think it's like figuring out how to meter in the information appropriately. To dual purpose, don't overwhelm somebody, but also make sure that they understand kind of the rigor and the analysis that went behind it.
Reducing Cognitive Load
00:30:45
Speaker
I think that's like a unique thing to engineering and technical communication that you don't necessarily get maybe in in some of the other, maybe softer types of communication that that you try to get across. Exactly. We have developed ah one sentence that we think really encapsulates the heart of our communication program, which is that the technical communicator's job is to transfer information to the audience with the smallest cognitive load possible while still being trustworthy and actionable. And this has a hidden task. And one of the hidden task is balancing content and cognitive load. Yes. And so you have to be decisive.
00:31:28
Speaker
i Can you send that to me in writing because i the way you said that was spot on. I entirely agree with all of it. um and And I like that you brought up cognitive load because I think that's something I'm really intentional about when I develop presentations and communication is like if somebody is struggling to like for example read the size of labels on your plots right they can't see the text because it's too small there's cognitive load there they're squinting they're trying to figure it out or like if you have too many acronyms or jargon or if
00:32:01
Speaker
the leader arrows that are pointing to the things that you want them to see There's not enough contrast, right? Like, I think being a really good communicator, it's not just about, you know, verbally speaking well, but it's about these visuals that I'm preparing. Like, are they clear and compelling? Is somebody gonna be looking at their squinting or are they gonna be able to absorb it? Or I often really will animate information in on a slide, right? And I don't want to overdo it and make it seem like,
00:32:28
Speaker
you know I don't want to make it seem cheesy, but on the other hand, if you flash up a full slide of a bunch of plots and charts, like I like thinking about where do I want the audience's eyes to be when I'm saying something, right? And I want to have the rest of the slide blank, right? And so I'll kind of layer it in. And sometimes I'll maybe even like gray out the stuff that I just talked about. So like I'm drawing your eyes here, look here.
00:32:58
Speaker
you know, don't keep looking at this plot over there and thinking about the plot and not listening to what I'm saying. Gray that out and think about what I'm showing you over here. Think that that metering of information in and that I love the the the way you said like reducing the cognitive load. I think that's I mean, often people will the lack of understanding is not because you didn't say something that they couldn't understand. They don't understand it because they were distracted or there were so much other things going on cognitively that they couldn't focus on what you were trying to say. And that's something that I think I'm glad to hear you're teaching it because i don't think I don't think that I learned that in school. I think for me that's just something that I've come around to realizing through just practice over the last two decades.
Iterative Presentation Design
00:33:43
Speaker
And I love that you used the phrase drawing the audience's eye, because we've talked about that here as well, because I love the affordances that the presentation genre give you, because it gives you so much control over your audience. You can control the pace of information. You can control the way their eyes move. And I think that that has been a big change in the way that we're using technology.
00:34:10
Speaker
especially with presentations, because I remember when I was in college, if you used animations or transitions, they were often cheesy, as you said, like they spin in or bounce in. Why would you ever do that in a professional environment? But they've changed now to where you can make things seem more or less bright. So you can allow them to look back if they want to, but really show them what they're supposed to be paying attention to right now. Or even like the morph transition. So you can zoom in on a piece of a larger chart.
00:34:40
Speaker
so that they can actually see what it is you're talking about, but still understand its relation to the whole. Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think the more you practice it and do it, you figure out the ways that resonate and don't seem cheesy versus the ways that do. And, you know, back to the point about, like, do it, practice it with the low stakes, right? Like, try something new when you're just having a meeting with your team.
00:35:01
Speaker
and then see how it works, right? But I do think a lot of it, what we've just been discussing here, like a lot of it comes down to storytelling, right? And what is the narrative that I want to get across? And and and a lot of that comes back, I used the word empathy before, right like put yourself in the audience shoes, like pretend pretend you are them, pretend you're starting from where they are and what they know and what they care about. And how would I receive this presentation as I'm as I am planning to give it. How would it be received by that person, right? And I think there's a lot of it's a very iterative process, right? Like putting together a presentation, you might go through it five times where you start with one thing, and don't be afraid to like think about and say, No, that's not gonna work. Like,
00:35:47
Speaker
If I do it this way, they're gonna get hung up here. Okay, let me restshuff well let me restructure it, right? And then try that. And then, you know, I think ah being willing to view it as i'm I'm almost writing my own story of how I'm gonna roll this out to them. I think it's a great approach. It's a good story. It's a well crafted story. It's not a story that just gives us, here's what we did in order through the day. It's not reality TV where you just watch someone go through their day. It is a well structured, maybe it's in the day of race where it starts in the middle, let you know where we're going and then it takes you back to the beginning.
00:36:26
Speaker
like a thriller of some kind that withholds information to give it to you at the most opportune time. yeah So yes, story time, but storytelling that that we like is usually designed very well and it's designed in a way that gives us only the information we need to really enjoy it at that moment.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Thinking about the structuring it of the impact, right? Like how is this going to be most impactful to the audience is, you know, I think you just can't, you can't emphasize that. You can't overemphasize that. I just think it's so important in in setting up good communication.
Conclusion: Audience-Focused Communication
00:37:06
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming in today. I love talking with our alumni about communication. It seems that a lot of the things that we talked about today were of course the importance of understanding your audience and making communication choices around the impact that your audience is going to want to have and that you also want to have on your audience.