The Sanford Berenberg Experience: Message of the Day

Good Morning,

I find it interesting when people try to share ideas with each other, and one has a solid understanding of a subject and the other people know next to nothing. Like trying to show someone how to make their first PowerPoint Presentation when they never used the program before.

The savvy instructor is certain it is an easy message to pass along as the software is very user friendly. Yet, those who have little knowledge of the software may see it with large horror filled eyes. All the buttons, the icons, the animation, oh my!

This gap in understanding, or perspective, happens in many different areas of our lives.

Karen and I recently had a great vacation, and on our flight home, our Captain informed us that a leak was found in one of the hydraulic components on the front landing gear hatch (some folks after reading this are already lost). He told us that we had to wait for mechanics to look at the leak and see if they can fix it, and if not, if we can get onto a different airplane, and he would update us in five minutes.

Five minutes later the Captain came back on the intercom and made mention to car repairs. Like when you go in for one problem, the mechanics often find more things wrong, that this was our situation too. He also mentioned that they had found two other airplanes we might be able to use, but both of those had mechanical issues as well.

The Captain said that the mechanics would remove the working part needed for our airplane from another airplane and thus have one working airplane instead of three non-working. He then looked down the aisle at the passengers and said: "Those of you whose eyes just became extremely large...TRUST ME...It will be okay'.

To the Captain's perspective, this was a routine fix, to the rest of us, we were a bit unnerved, fearing all the things that can go wrong with an airplane with problems. Enough on that.

Anyway, we were deplaned while the repairs were started and sat in the terminal just long enough to be told that a new, working airplane was found and quickly we were boarded and went on our way, and obviously home safely.

Having innate or deep knowledge in a subject and trying to share with others who do not requires us to cross a sometimes large gap in perspective.

Bridging that gap takes clear words and thoughts which our audience can understand and allows them to build the mental bridge between where their understanding is now, and to where you wish to bring them.

One of the challenges is understanding where the gap exists and working to shrink it by building on what the audience knows, not what WE think they know.

Prattling on about how easy PowerPoint is to use while showing feature after feature on a fancy presentation may not make the new user any more comfortable, rather may make their fears worse. I know, I recently did this.

A better approach, which I hope to use next time, is to start where the audience's knowledge is, by opening up a blank presentation, and starting there.

Bridging the gap is a lot like bridge building, and we can be successful if we know where to start building to close the gap.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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