eye socket messaging

I was part of an honor society in College whose entire focus was to help its members develop harvard-look-a-like resumes and develop interviewing skills so that they could "sell themselves" to potential employers.  We studied strategy on how to steer interviews in our favor, how to highlight our strengths on resume's, and how to negotiate a mutually satisfactory employment agreement. We practiced over and over the message that we wanted our potential employer to recieve.  Some of the least qualified people got the best jobs because they packaged the presentation properly. 

Preparation separates the fluff from the real stuff.  Less qualified applicants often beat out more qualified ones by communicating a less impressive message more impressively!  When video tapes came to market, VHS and BETA were competing to be the industry standard.  BETA was the better product but VHS communicated a lesser message more impressively and won out.

McDonalds certainly doesn't have the best hamburgers in the world.  But they have communicated their message more impressively.  This principle is found everywhere.  Often engineers and accountants have much more important and useful information than a salesperson but the salesperson often presents a lesser message more effectively.

The world's greatest news, if packaged poorly, will fall on deaf ears.  So communicating a message is critical. So critical that sometimes simplicity and storytelling are the most effective presentations.  Why did Jesus teach in parables... Because shepherd related to sheep stories! When sending a message, why not send a message that will be easily processed and remembered.  A picture is worth a thousand power point slides of text!

Many years ago, Mark Twain delivered a memorized speech around the country.  He had a number of key points to make and relied on notes to keep on point.  He once lost his notes and delivered a terrible speech; after which he decided that he needed to have a better method of delivering his points. He took a bottle of ink and etched the first letter of each key point on his fingernails.  After he delivered that message he would rub off the ink and move to the next point.

This was a distraction to himself and the audience, who thought it odd that he kept fidgeting with his fingernails.  One Mark Twain decided to draw six pictures of his speech, which he did in two minutes.  He immediatly tossed the pictures away and never used notes to deliver his speech again.  He claims he could rewrite the speech 25 years later because he still retained the images in his mind!

The lesser message, communicated more effectivly, makes the greater impact.