Comments on: The Curse of Knowledge – Why Communication at Work Is Sometimes Difficult

By: Vibhav

Vibhav — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:06:18 +0000

Read this book recently. I believe that this problem lies also in the fact that we want to sound intelligent and sophisticated to some folks. Though it is done at a sub-concious level, the impression we want to leave forces us to be complex at a certain level. Have you noticed some folks repeatedly say ‘you understand what I am saying, right’ is another of those sub-concious behavioral attribute we all share. There, I just did it here.

By: Lewis Green

Lewis Green — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:52:37 +0000

A Cardinal Rule of speechwriting (at least this speechwriter) is know the audience, assume nothing and always, always keep it simple and entertaining.

By: Nirmala

Nirmala — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:24:36 +0000

This topic seems to be a popular one in blogosphere…
I’ve pondered over it too…here – http://nirmala-km.blogspot.com/2007/01/curse-of-knowledge-and-language.html

By: ggwfung

ggwfung — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 04:05:12 +0000

designing wikis is probably the only solution to the knowledge explosion. It makes a central, correctable repository that everyone feeds into. Password protected, sure, to prevent outside access, but the knowlege has to be pooled into one place.

And as for email being an adhoc solution, don’t get me started! When a reply consists on nothing more than a forward with “read this” … meaningful communication has gone out the window.

Fascinating area, and glad you brought it up.

ggwfung

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 01:26:14 +0000

Eric,
“Made to Stick” is actually where I read about it for the first time. I’ll be reviewing it in the next few weeks sometime, but wanted to get the idea out there b/c it intrigued me.

By: Eric C

Eric C — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 22:24:33 +0000

Good points. I very much like the idea of the “actor” and getting into character to better relate to your audience.

The Heath brothers wrote a paper on the Curse of Knowledge that is available from Harvard Business Review and they go deeper into the subject in their new book, Made to Stick.

By: Michael Haberman

Michael Haberman — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:21:53 +0000

I run into this sometimes when I am teaching a certification prep class for HR people. I will be moving along at a pretty good pace explaining something when suddenly it dawns on me that half the people in the class don’t have the foundation knowledge to understand what I am talking about. Even we you are discussing a subject that you would assume everyone in the class would have some knowledge of you often get suprised at the lack of knowledge.. sometimes blows me away…

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:07:40 +0000

Your “actor” concept is the same thing used in good interface design for software, as promulgated by Alan Cooper, father of Visual Basic. You basically boil down to one persona (or very few) and make up a back story for that user and figure out how to make the interface easy for that one person, rather than trying to be all things to all people, or too many things, and forget your real target.

By: Wally Bock

Wally Bock — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 15:54:32 +0000

Alas, communicators always think we’re doing a great job. That’s why checking for understanding and then following up to see if that understanding shows itself in action is so important