« Post-it® Persuasion | Main | Tough love about your publication »
November 21, 2005
The need for speed
I know you probably didn’t have time to read the newspaper on Saturday—I sure didn’t—but that means we both missed a great piece, “The need for speed,” by staff writer Don Aucoin in The Boston Globe, about the trend toward extreme brevity, even when it comes to complex subjects.
Since you’re so busy, I’ll help you out by summing up the article (which I skimmed): People have so little time to absorb information that almost every kind of communication—from books to broadcasts to sound bites—is getting shorter. (Stay tuned for a few examples).
And I’ll cut to the chase about what the trend means: If you’re still creating long content, you have to stop. No one (except maybe the senior managers who review your content) has an appetite for three-screen e-mails, detailed web pages, 1500-word print articles, etc. You’ve simply got to condense and chop—or risk losing your audience altogether.
Mr. Aucoin cites a number of examples of how communication is slimming down. Here are three highlights:
- A British publisher recently issued “The 100-Minute Bible” which summarizes the Good Book into a 64-page paperback.
- In 2004, the average sound bite that network news shows allotted presidential candidates had shrunk to eight seconds.
- Time-pressured Boston Red Sox fans can see a two-hour compliation of each game, thanks to the regional cable network NESN, which broadcasts the condensed version at midnight on game days.
Even the Oxford University Press has acknowledged that shorter might be better, by publishing a line of books on important events such as D-Day, each of which has fewer than 100 pages.
The end of literacy and leisure as we know it? Maybe shorter is actually better. “You don’t have to go on forever to be able to communicate important, fascinating and complex ideas,” says Leonard Steinhorn, a communications professor at American University in Washington, D.C. After all, maintains Mr. Steinhorn, one of the greatest speeches in history was The Gettysburg Address, which had only 272 words.
Agree? Disagree? Share your (brief) comments.
Posted by Alison Davis at November 21, 2005 05:01 PM