Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> When talking with executives,
> especially in writing, brevity is important.

It's important because the dicks can't read.

I can be brief when cursing.

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On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:05:55 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> When talking with executives,
>> especially in writing, brevity is important.
> 
> It's important because the dicks can't read.

Actually, in my experience, that's not the case.  It is the case that 
when you're a highly-paid person on staff (executive or not), time is 
money, so wasting time is wasting money.

I'm sorry you've had bad experiences, as you've clearly had, or you 
wouldn't have felt it necessary to phrase it like that.

> I can be brief when cursing.

I can too, but I find that also is not particularly constructive if 
you're trying to effect positive change.  If you're trying to affect a 
change of employer, that is a very effective tool.

Jim

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On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:54:11 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> They're busy people so getting to the point quickly is critical.
> 
> Him: "That's good, but can you make an executive summary?"
> 
> Me: "You really want an executive summary of three sentences?"
> 
> Him: "I think it would be a good idea."
> 
> Me: "Then it's probably not worth presenting at all."

LOL, I have run into that a couple times as well.  Becomes an excuse to 
do something else. :-)

Jim

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On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:53:02 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> Doesn't matter if you
> have a clear text with everything needed covered and explained in minute
> detail: 

That's often the problem, though - people don't *want* the minute 
detail.  They want the overall high-level picture.

Most people don't care about the details.  Take my example from earlier; 
I don't particularly care that he's adding two lines of code.  I care 
about what the result is - and the result that was explained to me was in 
such minute detail as a single run-on sentence as to be completely 
incomprehensible.

Jim

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On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:21:57 -0500, Jim Henderson wrote:

> On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:53:02 -0500, nemesis wrote:
> 
>> Doesn't matter if you
>> have a clear text with everything needed covered and explained in
>> minute detail:
> 
> That's often the problem, though - people don't *want* the minute
> detail.  They want the overall high-level picture.
> 
> Most people don't care about the details.  Take my example from earlier;
> I don't particularly care that he's adding two lines of code.  I care
> about what the result is - and the result that was explained to me was
> in such minute detail as a single run-on sentence as to be completely
> incomprehensible.

Dang, hit send too soon.

The rest of my thought here is that I found the explanation 
incomprehensible, and I actually understand tech-speak.  If my director, 
VP, or CEO had received it, they'd have likely binned it because the 
language would be completely foreign to them.

Jim

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On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:51:52 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Even if you don't care about the answer, that's a great way to get
>> people to start talking.
> 
> I think perhaps it's better to say "even if you only care about the
> answer to the extent that it gives you something further to ask about." 
> Asking and then ignoring the answer is off-putting as well.

True, and a fine distinction.  You do have to have some interest in the 
answer even if it's a passing interest in order to carry on the 
conversation.

Jim

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On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:02:42 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:25:23 -0500, Warp wrote: Personally, I
>> prefer written communications because I have a chance to think about
>> what I'm going to say and to research my answer.
> 
> Precisely!
> 
> Despite being quite verborragic on the web/newsgroups, I'm a pretty
> silent soul on the physical side.  I don't know, I think it's the lack
> of a blinking cursor...

Could be.  I sometimes do catch myself running on when talking - I did it 
last week in a presentation, actually, and gave details that I thought 
were useful at the time, but in retrospect were just adding on to 
something to "sell" it, and my audience had already been sold on the idea.

Jim

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On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:00:44 -0800, DungBeatle wrote:

> I do that too...
> I can't answer the phone while I'm
> programming or working on a server...

Yep, it's so difficult to get your train of thought back (and some 
studies show it can take a half hour to get back to the frame of mind you 
were in when you were interrupted).

I love working at home for this reason - far fewer distractions.

Jim

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"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Only geeks care for geeks.

Makes me think of this:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/geeks

:)

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>>> When talking with executives,
>>> especially in writing, brevity is important.
>> It's important because the dicks can't read.
> 
> Actually, in my experience, that's not the case.

What I've found is that in my company, the people at the top find this 
obsessive need to feel in control of *everything*. They will not 
deligate even the tiniest, most insignificant task to anybody else, 
because then they wouldn't be "in control" of that task, and that would 
make them less important.

The result is where every time anybody anywhere in the company wants to 
buy something IT-related that costs more than $100, the IT Director 
himself has to personally approve it. If anybody in IT wants to take a 
few hours off work, the IT Director has to personally approve it. If a 
printer anywhere in the company is low on toner, the IT Director has to 
be personally notified. And so forth.

The net result of this is that the IT Director receives roughly 900 
emails *per day*, most of them nothing to do with anything. And the 
result of *that* is that if you send the IT Director an email of more 
than about six syllables, he'll read the first sentence and send a reply 
to that - which usually result in him asking a question which is 
answered two lines further down the email you originally sent.

This is severely exasperating.

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