Few topics are more complicated than nuclear weapons. If the world’s leading scientists in the field can be taught to communicate more simply, anyone can.
Over the past few years I’ve been invited on several occasions to work with scientists at America’s leading nuclear labs in California and New Mexico to help them communicate what they do more effectively. In these private sessions I’ve learned that nuclear labs do a lot more than build weapons. They maintain the integrity of the world’s nuclear stockpiles. They are involved in non-proliferation efforts (keeping the big weapons out of the hands of bad guys) and advanced research in the areas of counter-terrorism, bio-defense, and global warming. The communication challenges I helped the scientists address involved several areas: explaining what they do to the media and the general public, updating political leaders, pitching their ideas for budgetary considerations, and internal presentations.
After reviewing some of their very complex PowerPoint presentations, I realized they needed a radical approach if they hoped to simplify their communications for audiences who are not physicists and, in many cases, not very technical. I turned to USA TODAY for help. In each session, I passed around copies of that day’s newspaper and emphasized that simplicity, brevity, and interesting graphics could help them explain what they do to outsiders.
When I read about the passing of USA TODAY founder Al Neuharth at the age of 89, it reminded me of how difficult it must have been for him to convince people that brevity is often preferable to lengthy, complex, confusing, and convoluted writing and speaking. In 1982 Neuharth launched a national newspaper and had the courage to defy his critics who predicted “McPaper” would “dumb down” public discourse. USA TODAY went on to become the most widely read newspaper in the country and forced newspapers around the world to follow its example.
Turning back to nuclear scientists, I gave them three lessons they could learn from USA TODAY:
Create a Twitter-friendly headline. Every presentation should have one big idea, one takeaway that easily fits within a Twitter post of 140 characters. The brain needs to see the big picture before details.
Stick to the rule of three. As I’ve discussed in a previous column, the rule of three is one of the most profound concepts in public speaking and communication. We can only retain about three or four chunks of information in short term, or working, memory. USA TODAY product reviews often stick to three or four features of the product. For example USA TODAY’s James Healey recently reviewed the new BMW 740LI sedan. A text box at the top of the article read, “What Stands Out: Big doors, big price, big comfort.”
Use Snapshots as model slides.
USA TODAY snapshots are creative graphics that display data in a visually appealing way. Snapshots are the graphics that you find on the front page of each section of the newspaper, including the front page, money, sports, and life sections. Each graphic is a model of simplicity and an excellent example of an ideal PowerPoint slide for the interpretation of data. Each has a short title, about six words, and a visual image that complements the data. The graphics are uncluttered, showing only the relevant data and nothing more.
When I presented these ideas to nuclear physicists, I was challenged for hours on every concept, but I was armed with the science to back up my arguments. The result was even better than I expected. Many scientists reworked their PowerPoint decks for congressional presentations. With a week of one session, an attendee used the techniques for an internal safety briefing. His boss emailed me to say it was the one of the best briefings they had ever seen in their department (as you can imagine, a safety briefing in a nuclear lab is something everyone takes really, really seriously).
Albert Einstein once said that nothing is so complex that it cannot be explained simply. Al Neuharth proved him right.