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According to restaurateur Grant Achatz, restaurants often use tablecloths to hide crappy tables. 

Problem is, these tablecloths end up costing about $70,000 per annum to launder. 

It’s not only restaurants that fall into this kind of trap.

A lot of businesses pour money into dressings like social media and marketing, without first considering whether they (or their agency) actually know how best to influence their market.

Sure, you can keep paying for laundry, but why...

You were supposed to want the white picket fence.

To wear the uniform.

And take the corner office.

A TV ad for Lexus is a nice illustration of what to do when you are a Challenger brand: appeal to the outsider.

But isn’t everyone an outsider?

When it comes to influencing people, we can:

• Show what others are doing, which can make people more inclined to follow. Think of ‘best seller’ book lists and ‘most popular’ product options; or
• Signal how you,...

Einstein told us that if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

I believe that.

Are you seeing the disconnect, though?

It’s not simplicity, or more specifically clarity, that we measure our work against.

No. It’s a volume game, modern business.

Get it out the door and get on with the next assignment.

It takes time to curate, pare back, refine, and s-l-o-w thinking is no match for our itch to scratch off the “to-do” list.

As...

Are you busier than a marketer in 1982? Objectively, yes. Subjectively, I’m not so sure.

Take the Australian TV landscape back then. There were only three commercial TV stations (channels 7, 9 and 10) and one public service (channel 2).

So the marketer’s job must have been easy, right?

They only had three networks to choose from when it came to ad placement, and a captive audience who wasn’t flicking between multiple screens.

But it’s a mistake to judge...

 It’s not complexity that kills us, it's randomness.

That’s according to neuroscientist Carmen Simon, who masterfully shares how to engage an audience in her latest book, Made You Look.

People will put up with complex ideas in a document or presentation  – indeed, they may thirst for them – but if they are communicated haphazardly, they’ll tune out.

How you structure your ideas is just as important as the ideas themselves.

“The less energy they expend on your prose, the more they’ll have left for your ideas.” - Paul Graham

Making something difficult to understand says more about the writer’s limitations than the reader’s.

You know this already.

So where are you putting your time and effort as a communicator?

Because there are two parts to this dance.

• How you communicate. 
• What you communicate. 

Don’t ruin your what by your how.

In 1996, librarian turned restaurateur Stephanie Alexander published a new type of recipe book.

Rather than simply a collection of recipes, The Cook’s Companion let you build a dish around an ingredient. It started with the constraint.

Have a turnip? Here’s what you can make with it.

Wilting broccoli? Here’s what to do.

Unremarkable now that we have internet search, but at its time a revelation because it was designed around the user. 

When it comes to your work,...

"You can't change an organisation by just talking about why change is necessary...You have to integrate people's desire for money, influence, and power..." Rishad Tobaccowala

These desires are usually unstated, but know that they’re there.

Here's the subtlety, though.

It’s not gaining money, influence and power that really motivates, although that’s nice.

It’s losing these things.

The main reason change initiatives fail is people’s fear of losing...

You may have seen it a hundred times.

It’s part of the cultural landscape. A meme, even.

But what does a TV test pattern actually mean?

I’d never even thought about this until I saw it revealed.

What looked random to me is actually intentional. Nearly every pixel in that pattern has meaning. 

It’s purposeful. Predictable. Testable.

Now imagine having that same discovery about behaviour.

The hardest thing about doing standup a few years ago wasn’t coming up with ideas.

It wasn’t having an audience.

It was having to be precise about words.

To build and land a joke you need to be very careful about what you say, when.

To get the best result, you need to understand what works and what doesn’t.

It’s no different at work.

While we’re usually chasing a sale rather than a laugh, being precise about what we say, when, can dramatically change the...