If I can explain it in mundane words by means of trivial examples, I know I’ve got it.

About exposing to different experiences, I agree with you, I was just talking about it with Bikkuri in the latest comment.

What do you think of it?

You are right, as we have a wider knowledge in different areas we can establish more connections to common grounds.

I think your idea about common experience is a very good one. Those terms are what people really understand and we should use them more.

So now my question is, if your knowledge is spread over different fields, then the difficulty is in how to establish bridges or metaphors with common ground domains. If you don’t think about it as we are doing now, it might prove very hard to do for many people. I suppose it’s like finding the answer to a riddle. It’s hard to find it, but once you see the answer we always think wow, that was easy.

About Searle yes indeed, it might sound very haughty, but I suppose that when you are the one that asks, watching a guy that is able to read your mind and tell you what you really wanted to ask must be pretty astonishing hehe I know that I would be impressed. I suppose the explanation problem is bidirectional, you can see it also in people’s questions.

But yes, some people might get offended by it.

As a side not, I just saw this video that does just what we are talking about:

I think the “Knowledge Curse” probably comes up when you know a lot, but your knowledge is too narrow. If one has a wide breadth of experience and ponders how these experiences are interconnected, it becomes easier to find alternate explanations.

You are absolutely correct that this is a developed skill. We should explain ourselves often, so that this ability is finely tuned.

One thing I have tried to do when explaining difficult concepts is to put it in terms of common experience. For example, explaining multivariable model-based control, by starting from a thermostat in a room or an accelerator and brake in a car. These are manipulated variables which virtually every adult has used to control temperature and speed.

I thought your example of Searle’s question correction was funny. The words used in the example would actually put off a lot of people: “What a jerk! He thinks I don’t even know what I’m asking.” Doing that without offending is indeed a difficult art.

What you say is so true! I’ve seen it many times. I’ve also suffered it! I have such a hard time looking for non specialized words to describe or pitch an idea that I forget the main point, why do my listener should care about it.

So, I’m going to take everybody’s advice and I’ll focus on the listener not on the technical side of the idea/product/company.

Btw, as you point out, the lack of a “stress point” in many products and business plans is quite worrisome.

I agree with you in nº1. It’s absolutly necessary that you know your stuff. As you say, the more you know it, the better you’ll explain it. But (there is always a “but” hehe), there is a point in which having so much knowledge can stand in the way of a simple and clear explanation. That was what Lee pointed out as being the “knowledge curse”.

About your second point, I also agree with you. But I don’t think it’s always because of disdain but because understanding what the person is asking you is an Art. Few people (very very few) are able to do this in a consistent way. Due to your experience you might know what a person is asking you, but even in those cases it isn’t easy.

Sometime ago a friend of mine went to one of John Searle conferences. She told me she was amazed at Searle’s answers. He was able to even correct the person that had asked him something by saying: “No, you didn’t want to ask me this, what you really are asking is …”

Not too many people can do that. So back to you point, I think that, apart from personal issues, people don’t do it, because it’s very hard. It’s probably something you learn how to do with time.

The same applies to good design. Doing a simple and good design is one of the hardest things someone can do. It requires the ability of thinking how people are going to interact with your design.

What do you think?

Btw, nice project with columnesia! Keep the “GAP” closing.

Love the phrase about GAP

So even the most trivial explanation usually goes unanswered by us.

One of the problems within the tech community is that most companies are terrible at explaining what their products/services do and why you should use/need them.

When I was a technology reporter, it was a fairly common occurrence for a CEO to ramble on about their company’s service or product. Then, I would say something like “That’s great, but can you tell me in English what your company actually does?”. The CEO would inevitably be flustered, and need some time do what I asked.

Sad and funny at the same time.

1. How well do you truly understand the thing you are trying to explain? If you can only describe C by using B, then perhaps you don’t understand C as well as you thought. Just because someone can use a tool fairly well doesn’t mean they understand it. My father proved completely unable to explain how to drive a manual transmission, but a girlfriend did it in a couple of minutes.

2. How well can you understand others? If you keep using B to explain C and your audience doesn’t understand B, then you are failing. Some people do this because they don’t consider their audience important. They are just trying to seem important to anyone who will listen (often subconsciously), and fail to put the effort into understanding where the audience is. Others just prove too inflexible to adapt to other people’s ways of thinking. When giving directions to your house, some people might strictly follow compass points (turn north onto the turnpike…), others desire relative positions (turn right onto the turnpike…), still others need visual cues (two blocks after passing the Circle K, turn onto the turnpike heading away from the Shell station…).

The more we study connections between information, the easier the process becomes. The more highly we consider others, the better we get at being flexible and improving our explanations.

(Oh, one question: is Facebook important technology which I should be adopting?)

I have also found myself getting into unnecessary details loosing the point of transmitting the importance and use of the gadget/technology or program.

Lee, I will look for the book.