Deliver Meaning
“We've been trying to get our arms around this whole remarkable reality of the advancements of digital communication,” confesses Tom Becker, president of the Chautauqua Institution. New, powerful ways to reach more people with specific information, he admits, are now a “compelling reality” that must be addressed. But there's a lot at stake for Becker, who knows he needs to incorporate new technology into his programming but also must preserve Chautauqua's storied tradition of oratory and discussion. The institution has survived over a century by providing a platform for great thinkers to share ideas—and their classic format hasn't changed in all that time. The digital world, however, is knocking at Chautauqua's front door. It needs to make tough decisions about its role in a communications environment driven by technology.
Each summer, Chautauqua, a historic lakefront community in southwestern New York, plays host to more than 100,000 visitors who come to participate in arts and educational programs as well as attend its famous daily morning lecture series. Since it opened in 1874, prominent intellectuals, artists, scientists, politicians, and other great minds have gathered at this “oasis” to consider the issues of the best of human values and the enrichment of life. All morning lecturers, before and after the day Franklin D. Roosevelt took center stage, have been faced with the same challenge: They speak to an audience of 4,000 with limited use of multimedia for forty-five minutes, followed by a rigorous fifteen-minute question and answer period. But big changes are on the drawing board for the celebrated institution. In the not-too-distant future, speakers will be able to incorporate state-of-the-art multimedia into their lectures. Plans to rehabilitate the amphitheater with all the technological marvels of the Internet age are underway.
The proposed technological upgrades at Chautauqua are sleek, but Becker has to make sure their inclusion doesn't detract from the human experience of people coming together to discuss and think through ideas. “I think our environment is as important today as it was in 1874 when we were founded,” Becker comments. “But in 1874 it had to do with what is now accomplished by the digital age…access to information. People needed gatherings like this as a way to acquire access to science, history, and public affairs. That's not our problem today. The gathering at a human scale in this place today is vitally important for different reasons than we first gathered.”
“Our ethic here,” he continues, “is to go into the quality of the argument itself. We ask our audiences to continue to develop their critical thinking about how someone presents a problem, defines it, lays out their proposed solution, and then gives the evidence as to why that would work and then evaluates the reasoning behind all of that.”
Becker believes Chautauqua's model for the next century isn't about competing with technology to deliver quantities of information, but to help individuals place important issues in context and help them make better sense of the world around them. Using new technological tools to move forward is great, as long as we take the time to reflect about the message. Effective communications promote reflective reasoning by helping people open their minds to dig past the superficial and find deeper meaning.
The digital age is about information. Finding new ways to obtain, analyze, and share data is essential. Providing information to audiences clearly is the essence of what we do as communicators, but shouldn't we aim higher? Our mandate should be to strive not just to deliver information, but also to bring meaning to our audience through thoughtful explanation.
The lessons we learned in school, like how to research material, select relevant facts, then logically assemble our findings, remain essential in our information-drenched world. The ability to detect patterns and marshal disjointed bits of data is even more crucial in the digital age. Information needs to be contextualized and frameworks need to be established to bring audiences references and grounding. The abundance of data—both hurtling through cyberspace and in our everyday, pen-and-paper lives—can easily push us into infomageddon—a chasm where content is plentiful, but meaningless.
Too many of us forget to deliver meaning in our communication efforts. We rush to produce presentations and reports, focusing on facts and figures we believe essential to state our case, but in our haste we neglect to tell our audiences why these data are important. The old adage “He couldn't see the forest for the trees” comes to mind. We get so wrapped up in the abundance of information available that we lose sight of the simple takeaway. Only stepping back and sorting through each element will help us to regain perspective.
Specialists—people like engineers, scientists, and Ph.D. types—are often the worst offenders. Some of our smartest citizens are often at a loss for how to explain their specialized, often intricate subject matter to the rest of us. Their communication problems can be vastly improved by understanding how to spotlight the deeper meaning among all of the details.
With so many shiny new multimedia objects vying for our attention, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of the sizzle and forget meaning. But let's remember…it's our message audiences need to remember, not our tactics. Use new tools to help people develop a deeper understanding that encourages them to think about your subject. Multimedia can be tremendously effective in helping you explain the complicated. But leave your audience blinded by thought-provoking ideas and dialogue, not the dazzle of your presentation.
Failure to Deliver Meaning: The Higgs Boson Case
How much do you know about the Higgs boson? The elementary particle confirmed to exist in 2013 was big news around the world. Physicists waited a half-century for this event. The media told us the breakthrough was huge. If you read about the discovery, can you tell me why it was epic?
My learning experience with the Higgs boson wasn't so much a revelation about physics, but about how many communicators fail to deliver meaning to their audiences. I read several articles and blogs that described great zeal over the discovery. Yet in some of the world's most respected media outlets, no reporter or blogger could explain why this particle was a paradigm changer in a manner I could understand.
It bothered me that I couldn't comprehend this story. I wondered…am I just that dense when it comes to physics? Or are these articles ineffective? So I surveyed the morning regulars at Peregrine Espresso here on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, to see if any of them got it. A group of mostly middle-age-plus guys, and an occasional brave woman or two, meet there most mornings to discuss politics, sports, relationships, and just about anything on anyone's mind.
This collection of college professors, lawyers, international aid workers, government executives, a few random politicos, and a social worker turned handyman aren't shy about expressing their opinions. If this group of highly educated, well-informed latte drinkers didn't grasp the significance of the Higgs, I figured, most of America wouldn't, either. My suspicions were confirmed: Everyone had heard about the discovery, but no one comprehended it. Later, a physicist I interviewed for this book, who chose not to be identified, told me he estimates that probably less than a percent of Americans can speak knowledgeably about the Higgs boson or why it's important.
Frustrated, I dedicated a couple of days to doing nothing but research to discover the mystery of the famous particle. I read and reread dozens of articles and blogs to see if I could find a glimmer of light that would lead to some low level of understanding. But in everything I read, nothing seemed to bring meaning to me. I felt either assaulted by physics jargon or underwhelmed by fluff. Nothing was helping me figure out why this was a big discovery and why I should care about it. It doesn't matter to me if physicists are excited about confirming a theory; I wanted to know what's in it for me! Why should I care about the Higgs boson?
If I had been asked to write about the Higgs boson at this point in time, my summary would look something like this:
Scientists are celebrating because the discovery of the Higgs boson confirms that the Standard Model of particle physics is consistent with what they hypothesized. Physicists use this theory to explain how the universe works. The confirmation of the Higgs boson's existence can help them better understand how the Big Bang occurred.
That summary may be factually correct. But we could do much better. My readers can take away from this that the discovery is an important scientific breakthrough, but there's nothing there that is particularly meaningful to them.
After hours of research, I finally came across a video clip of Columbia University physicist and best-selling author Brian Greene lecturing on the Higgs boson at the Aspen Ideas Festival (like a Western Chautauqua). Eighteen minutes into the twenty-minute video presentation, he said something that finally resonated with me. The clichéd light bulb went off over my head. Greene said that the Higgs boson discovery has no practical implications of which scientists are aware—yet. That piece of information gave me some relief. I'd been waiting for something tangible to help me comprehend this revelation…and it turns out there is none—just yet. We humans crave tangibility.
Ironically, it was the understanding of the lack of tangibility that finally created the spark that helped me grasp the enormity of this discovery. Greene, apparently a supercommunicator, eloquently explained: Sometimes we need to “wait for theoretical discoveries to turn into practical applications.”1 He drew an analogy to the discovery of quantum mechanics back in the 1920s and 1930s. Apparently, quantum mechanics was as abstract to people back then as we find the Higgs boson today. But Greene explained that quantum mechanics helped scientists and engineers in unprecedented ways—they understand more about molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. The discovery of quantum mechanics ultimately led to the invention of things that today we couldn't imagine living without. Take, for instance, personal computers and cell phones. Anything with a circuit wouldn't have been possible without the discovery of quantum mechanics.
With this example I now understood that the Higgs could soon usher in a new era of scientific understanding that could lead to more, greater technological breakthroughs.
Now, let me try again to rewrite the summary. This time with meaning:
The discovery of the elusive Higgs boson confirms the theory scientists have been using to understand how the universe works. Physicists are celebrating this breakthrough because it can lead to other significant findings like the discovery of quantum mechanics did almost a century ago. Quantum mechanics led to the invention of many of the twentieth century's most notable technologies…like cell phones, computers, and even the atomic bomb. The discovery of the Higgs boson could be equally important…if not more so. It can lead to innovations we can't yet imagine.
By linking the Higgs boson discovery to tangible examples that resulted from the discovery of quantum mechanics, I was finally able to grasp some of the significance of this highly hyped science story. The discovery of the Higgs boson is possibly much bigger than opening the door to new technologies, but this simple comparison helped me put the Higgs discovery into a context I could comprehend. From here I could grow to understand more about this great physics discovery. Finally, I found meaning.