Ben Goodger, lead engineer for Firefox, embraced the Hemingway mindset in describing how busy people should approach writing.
The pride of Auckland University, New Zealand, has some words of advice for busy people out there. His instructors emphasized writing in a “succinct, well organized” manner.
Doing this makes one’s work ready to be consumed and understood by the audience one wants to impress: decision makers. Goodger must get a lot of unwieldy emails and other communications, judging by the points he denoted in his post:
• Making important points up front
• Clear taxonomy of headings, and lots of them
• Writing clearly and succinctly
• No long, unbroken paragraphs or tracts of text.
• Preferring bulleted lists with clear points to paragraphs.
• Use of emphasis in formatting to make important things clear
“My eyes definitely glaze over when i see a large block of unbroken text with few headings,” Goodger wrote. “At the very least, it’d be very helpful if folk would structure their thoughts into: “Problem” and “Proposed Solution”.”
Personally, I’ve used this method of writing, albeit without the benefit of an excellent Auckland education. In my experience, the most important bit is the structure Goodger suggests. Managers and higher-ups deal with all kinds of issues each day.
Most people do not submit a solution with their problems, or at least not a reasonable one. The typical manager likely will cite some obscure legal precedent associated with the suggestion that a problematic co-worker or department be summarily executed for stupidity, for example.
It has been said that brevity is the soul of wit, and that simple Shakespearean truth applies to writing today.
Building readership in one’s blog means being able to post on a reasonably regular basis. Not all blogs need the succinct approach, but some do. Tell us if yours does or not at SyndicationPro.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.