The Curse of Knowledge
Charlotte Booth • 10 May 2022
Can too much knowledge be a curse?
Knowledge is a wonderful thing - except when you are writing for non-experts.
Have you ever read an article that sounded fascinating in theory and then you've been so bamboozled by the jargon, over-complicated descriptions and industry specific vocabulary that you stopped reading? It makes you feel inadequate, right? Like you're not bright enough to understand such a complex subject?
The problem in these cases can often be attributed to the author, if they are not writing for the specific audience they are aiming their article at.
When writing for a non-expert audience (and in business marketing, this is most of the time) you need to consider a few key points.
- What does the audience already know?
- What do they need to know about the topic in question?
- What can you leave out?
The more knowledgeable you are the harder these questions are to answer. But, as an example, there is little point peppering your text with jargon (DPLs, NIBs, Splash) if the audience has no idea what they mean, so you need to carefully evaluate to what extent you need to expand, explain or simplify.
Essentially the curse of knowledge is not being able to remember or even imagine not knowing the information you have. For example, imagine not knowing the song Happy Birthday. But, there was a time when you were taught this song by somebody.
Not being able to remember not knowing, can be a massive problem when writing for your business.
If you 'forget' that your audience may not understand industry jargon you may instantly isolate them.
In the first scene of Channel 4's IT Crowd
we have a wonderful example of this.
Roy answers the phone with, "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" - nice and simple for the audience he is speaking to. Whereas Moss asks, "Have you tried forcing an unexpected reboot?" - it's not surprising the hapless user hangs up on Moss. They have no idea what he means.
So, what is the answer to this curse? The main answer is to consider your audience carefully, and then evaluate the language you are using and whether it is industry specific or not. If you're not sure ask someone - your husband, wife, or best friend; "would you know what SSL is?" If they don't know and they are in your target audience then consider an explanation or removing the jargon.
Alternatively, you could send
any finished blogs/articles to me with an idea of who it's aimed at and I can highlight those bits which don't make sense for that audience or could do with clarifying and rewrite them in an easy to understand way.
This curse is not terminal it just needs a bit of careful management.
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There is nothing more amusing than checking out mediaeval artistic renditions of lions and other heraldic creatures. These beasts, grimacing and gurning are a strange juxtaposition of human, animal and demon and as far from the cute image of Alex from the Madagascar franchise or in fact a real lion as you could possibly get. There are three main reasons mediaeval lions are so ‘bad’ and un-representational; The artists were following a very tight brief. Some of the artists may never have seen a lion, and were following the descriptions they were given. These lions were representing heraldic principals of bravery, nobility and authority; all very human characteristics. When viewed through this lens it becomes more understandable why they look the way they do, but they are still ‘not right’ and not a great tool for learning about lions. Generative AI is very similar to an uninformed but talented mediaeval artist. There is a element of intelligence but at the end of the day it is following a brief, with no actual ‘knowledge’ of the thing it is producing. As an example, if you prompt your generative AI (ChatGPT and the like) to produce a blog for your new product or service, aimed at your ideal customer avatar you will in all likelihood get a mediaeval lion out the other end. Sort of recognisable, and sort of not. This is because AI doesn’t know what a customer is (ideal or otherwise), has no idea what your product or service is and does, and has no true understanding of how this service or product will serve your ideal customer and their needs. Of course, AI is pulling all the information available from the internet to help with its answer but there is no understanding there. There is no determining fact from falsehoods or even which websites are trustworthy and which are not. So, it skims the internet and puts together content which suits the brief as it understands it. This is then when the actual work should start as this content shouldn’t be used in the raw. It should be edited and tweaked by a human who DOES understand the brief, has been a customer (ideal or otherwise) and can imagine what your ideal customer will feel when using your product or services. We are in a world now, where we have generative AI promoting products and services to humans, when it has no concept of what a human is and how it thinks, meaning the marketing department are in fact more important than ever for ensuring content and copy is aimed at humans and human emotions. You could argue that the world would be a more entertaining place if there were more mediaeval lions in it, but it wouldn’t be a great environment for learning, or for basing purchasing decisions on. If you want to maintain the human element in your content, then I would love to help . Explain the brief, your CTA and your ideal client and I will know what I need to ask to get a clear idea before writing. Then you can rest assured your content was written by a human for a human and we can leave the mediaeval lions to the museums.
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