Reading meanings into information (Was:: Replacing "master" and "slave" terminology)

[Ned Bedinger]

Michael West wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ned Bedinger  

> And here's a real-life example. In this case, as in the exercise cited by
> Ned,  the audience was innocent of any hidden agenda. This isn't always the
> case.
> 
> I recently gave the CFO and the GM a preview of a slideshow I prepared to
> inform the company about a new business initiative.
> 
> In the slideshow I had some clip art of generic office-buildings that I
> intended to represent the concept of "office".
> 
> Our GM has an engineering background, so to him the buildings were objects
> of interest. He asked me questions about the buildings. 

That's funny!  This is a guy who has the vision of what computers can 
do. I know people who're that way--they're consumed with ideas about 
building interactivity into everything everywhere, touch screens and 
layers upon layers of information available for everything in sight. The 
web was made just for them, I think. I'd bet your GM has lots to say 
about the slow progress of automobile designs?

 > The CFO, on the
> other hand, who wasn't an engineer, took the drawings as I intended them --
> just non-specific representations of buildings: any buildings, anywhere.

<Yawn>  :-)

> The slide show was a success, they told me. But as soon as I got back to my
> desk, I ripped out the "building" clip art and replaced it with
> non-representational figures. Extrapolating that 50-50 split across the
> entire organization, the risk of confusion or distraction from the main
> topic was just too great.

Wow, that seems confining.  But it has the ring of sound design: Use 
elements that contribute their momentum to the message.

I like the idea that there's no confining an audience's attention to 
only what is formally on the agenda, because nothing short of an 
absolutely riveting presentation can succeed if distractions represent 
failure. But within that range, removing distractions seems like a solid 
approach.  Still, after so much effort over the years to get us to the 
point where we have great color, and huge varieties of design templates 
and clip art, it seems a shame not to entertain as well as inform. 
Depending on the audience, of course.

I'd like to see presentation skills that work <em>with</em> the tendency 
of enquiring minds to explore unintended messages. Knowing the interests 
of the audience might be one way to devise something along those lines.

Still, if the way people interact with words is any indication of the 
way we're going to we interpret slides, then every person is potentially 
different, and some even more so. I think it might be prudent to do away 
with the words too. Let the audience think whatever they want.  Heh.

--Ned