How to talk about technology

Communication World, April, 1995 by Mark Frey

B. Geographical - Most technical subjects can be organized around a model of the thing itself. This is the "show and tell" approach. If you are talking about computer hardware, show the hardware itself. Explain how each part works from top to bottom. You can also use illustrations that serve as "maps" of the product itself.

C. Formula - A clever method of organizing information around the letters of a key word. For example, someone once gave a speech on the topic of listening that centered around the word HEAR (Helpful, Empathic, Attentive, and Responsive). Each letter represents a subtopic for your presentation. This is a great memory device.

D. Five Ws and H - Arranging your material in terms of who, what, where, why, when and how.

E. Topical - Breaking your main topic into subtopics makes a presentation much easier to follow. Instead of speaking for an hour on "selling," break it down into manageable subtopics such as "prospecting for clients," "gaining the attention of clients" and so on.

F. Comparison/Contrast - Just as a photograph with contrast attracts our attention, contrasts and comparisons help make ideas more vivid to your listeners. Try describing personal "war stories" that illuminate your material. If you are trying to tell someone how important it is to make backup copies of your work, you'll get your point across much faster by talking about the time your hard drive crashed two hours before a deadline.

G. Use the familiar to illustrate the new - New information cannot be assimilated in a vacuum. Knowledge spreads by adding to what is already known. One way to accomplish this is described in the following section.

Use relevant analogies and metaphors

This last point - using the familiar to illustrate the new - may be the most important of all. As described earlier, information is not "transmitted"; rather, information is conveyed through the process of comparing the unfamiliar to the familiar. How you go about accomplishing this comparison is critical. One way is by Using figurative language and analogies. Analogies allow listeners to "connect the dots." Analogies can help them make connections between what they already know and what you wish to convey.

The whole idea behind using any type of figurative language is to do what Aristotle described as giving a "thing a name which belongs to something else." When you say that a computer is a mechanical "brain" you are using metaphor - a type of figurative language. Writers on the subject of metaphor characterize it as "understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another." We understand the computational power of computers by comparing them to what we already know about the brain.

To use an analogy from word processing, a metaphor is a sort of merged file in which two separate documents come together creating a third. When you talk about technology, you need to create a new file in the mind of the audience that merges the new information you wish to convey with the existing files in the listener's mind.