Blog Posts About: Explanation

Boing Boing pointed me to this beautiful animated video by a German studio called "finally".  From the description with the video:

Music is a good thing. But what we did not know until we started with the research for this piece: Music is also a pretty damn complex thing. This experimental animation is about the attempt to understand all the parts and bits of it. Have a look. You might agree with our conclusion!

Email or RSS readers can watch the video here. 

I think this is a great example of an experience that's both remarkable in presentation and interesting in content.  I didn't learn the details of resonance or musical temperment.  But I came away with little introductory nuggets of each part.  I came away with just a bit of motivation to keep learning. Sometimes that's all an explanation needs - a taste of an idea that invites someone to keep learning. 

Today we’re announcing a new video: Online Citizenship - Explained by Common Craft.

In The Art of Explanation, I tell a story that put me on the path to writing the book. I was at a small tech conference and a CEO was asked "What is RSS?"  His response was "RSS is an XML-based content syndication format". Yikes. That answer was the first time I saw a problem that plagues the technology and startup world.  We call it an "exaplanation problem" - and a lots of great products and services have it.

In a guest post at GeekWire, I tell a story about a startup founder who learns to overcome the explanation problem by learning basic explanation skills.  Here's an excerpt:

At a recent conference, a CEO asked about his product and he gave her an overview including the programming platform, how it works and a list of features. She smiled and asked coyly “That’s your explanation?” He nodded self-consciously. In a surprise move, she offered to help.

She took him on a tour of explanation basics and showed him that explanation is a skill that can be learned and improved.  To start, she made a few big points.

“First, think about understanding as something that has a cost.  If the cost seems too high, people will tune out and your explanation may fail. You’ve got to help them feel confident that your product is easy to understand and worth their investment in time and attention.

Alex imagined the explanation of his product as a series of steps that invite people to care.

The CEO continued by outlining a few key ideas.  “An explainer’s job is to make an idea easy to understand and to do that, you must focus on empathy. Try to imagine how your words and ideas sound to your audience, look for potential confusion and simplify.”

Alex could see that his technical language, which seemed normal to him, caused people to lose confidence. He had to look for specific words and phrases that could cause problems and find simpler alternatives.

For the gripping conclusion and more explanation tips, check out the post at GeekWire.

Today we're announcing a new Common Craft website that is focused on one thing: sharing short, snarky and useful explanation tips. The site exists in two forms:

• Explain That Sh*t (Not-Safe-For-Work, Language)
• Explain That Idea (Work-Safe)

Along with providing a way to learn about explanation, the sites are meant for sharing explanation tips.  You can click the Twitter icon on any tip and the site will copy that tip into a tweet for you.

Here's the site on computers and phones:

Backstory:

A few months back, friends and fellow authors Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo of Capulet shared the idea with us on a call. Darren pointed us to a couple of examples like whatthef*ckshouldimakefordinner.com and whatthef*ckhasobamadonesofar.com.  Indeed, profanity is a big part of this genre and something that makes the sites fun and provocative. We loved the idea and within minutes, I reserved explainthatshit.com.

Since then, a lot of work went into getting the sites hosted, designed, built and optimized. This involved the help of Boris Mann, who set us up on GitHub, Jay and Anastasia at Juxtaprose who designed it and Travis and TeeJay and Hop Studios who got the site up and ready for small screens.  We're so psyched to see how the sites turned out.

Share an explanation tip with your followers:

• Explain That Sh*t (Not-Safe-For-Work, Language)
• Explain That Idea (Work-Safe)

When people ask me who is doing the best explanatory work these days, I often point to public radio and podcasts.  The radio format, while not visual, can be incredibly engaging and effective in packaging complicated ideas into explanations.  

Lastly I'd say yes, Idea Stories are a pain in the ass, but they provide an enormous service. People feel so grateful when you clearly explain something complicated. It gives them an access point to all future stories on the topic. It can be powerful to hear a piece that gets at a big fundamental idea or question. It gets under people’s skin. There are obviously more than five tricks to take a boring or complicated topic and make it interesting. The point is if you’re fascinated by something but it seems really complicated, or if you can tell everyone is confused by something and you are too and you’re thinking it’s a monster to take on – do it. Find a way to make it work. It’s worth it.

NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.