Page 32 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

“I’ll Read It My Way” 23

THIRD THINGS FIRST

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that people today don’t necessarily
take in information linearly, as many who present it have thought for
so long. Whether in books, periodicals, theater, film, songs, TV, adver-
tising, even spoken language, we have all been taught that to commu-
nicate clearly we need to state our case in a basic order. Our
communications typically have a beginning, a middle, and an end. A
case is often presented in brief, the details are given, an analysis or
argument is presented based on the facts, and then a conclusion is
reached. At least, that was what was practiced for centuries.
Now we’re finding out that people don’t need or necessarily want
an order in the communications thrown at them. They want access to
all of the elements, to be sure, but they want to navigate the data their
way. In this hurry-up world we live and work in, where to-do lists are
longer and longer and attention spans are shorter and shorter, people
don’t want the big five-course feast of information; they want to reach
and grasp from the information buffet when and how they please. Wit-
ness channel surfing, web browsing, and radio button pushing as evi-
dence of this information consumption behavior.
Consumers of information also want it in smaller, more easily
digested portions, as indicated by the layout and portion size of the
Wall Street Journal front page, People magazine articles, CNBC’s news
sampler, and innumerable other communications vehicles of our time.

“I’LL READ IT MY WAY”

Exhibit A in this argument is how people find their way around an
individual web site. If you have access to the “back room” of a web site,
look at a detailed web report. Check out the section on “top paths
through the site” or whatever they call it in your web report.
Here’s what you’ll learn: With the vast number of visitors to a web
site, even the most frequently chosen routes are used by only a very
small percentage of people. What does that tell you? That, given the
choice, people say, “Thanks anyway to how you wanted me to navigate
this information. I’ll find my own way.”
So, where am I going with this? Well, this book is not a web site, I’ll
grant you that. But it is not one of my seminars, either, where I have no
choice but to bring everyone through the material in the same order
and at the same pace.