July 2, 2015 | less than a minute read

'No one will complain that you made something too simple to understand'

Passle

I was reading an article where 16 experts shared what they felt were the biggest content marketing mistakes. I was struck by Ann Handley's phrase (the title of this post).

It turns out that she's written a wonderful piece on the topic (linked to below).

Jargon, she says, is great when delivered to the right audience, but avoid it if it's likely your audience won't know it. There's nothing wrong with simplifying things.

There are words that we hide behind, I call them placeholders. We use them so much that we forget what they mean, and use them to end rather than expand on the conversation.

'Problematic' is one such word. You say that 'xx is problematic' and that ends the topic. Explaining why xx is problematic is trickier, but much more valuable. Doing so will clarify your stance, make you question yourself, and create a less fuzzy sentence too.

I feel the same way about jargon, they're a useful shorthand for the right crowd, but take the time to untangle them from time to time and you might be surprised by the answers.

Jargon is like cholesterol, my friend Doug Kessler says: There’s a good kind and a bad kind. The good kind signals to others than you are an insider and you understand their world. The bad kind is often used when the speaker isn’t creative or smart enough to find better words. Or (worse) it’s used falsely: To elevate the speaker by making everyone else feel dumb, or to obscure meaning on purpose. Don’t correct your customer. Don’t use your own language or buzzwords to reframe, because it makes your customers not trust you. In other words, metaphorically speaking: if it’s a forced triple, call it a forced triple.