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04/15/2023 · 2:11 pm

Are You Talkin’ to ME?!

(First in a series of three)

Oui. Si. Da. You bet.

I’m looking you right in the proverbial eyes. As you read.

If I’m doing my best job as a writer for a fairly defined audience, yes, you should understand what I’m saying because I am talking to you!

My words, my message, should be as easy to understand as a signal my son Christopher’s baseball third base coach used to communicate to his players, “Run on the next pitch”: fingers from one hand dancing along his other forearm, not unlike graceful fingers tickling the ivories. (Was it more amusing that the opposing runners couldn’t steal this sign, or that his own players sometimes missed it?)

As a battle-tested communications pro whose base skill is writing, I always stick up for the little guy out there – the one who needs to understand the corporate/organizational message as simply as possible. And as for the outsized intellects out there, who need only can scan that same message to comprehend? You’re welcome.

Writing to the audience is an art form that I continue to practice, and hope that on most days I improve on yesterday’s skills. My writer’s soul can actually drip with excitement when I write about a subject that I believe deep in my heart can inspire, inform, elicit emotion, or maybe even effect change.

And that same soul can cringe when editing documents drier than toast sitting under the midday desert sun. Like insurance documents. Right now, it pays the bills – my bread and butter, I guess. Or croutons. So I try to scrounge up some passion by thinking about who ultimately will read these manuals, payment policies, and such – so that they can do their jobs sitting in some doctor’s office. I still try to put myself in these readers’ eyes and engage them.

It’s a professional passion, but I have to dig wide and deep to understand its origin. I’ve been working this gig for a long time in my career, and personally, for my own self-reflection and growth.

It’s not clear to me sometimes if I am achieving my writing objectives, and I hadn’t thought for a long time about how I got here. Until August 3, 2022.

That day, someone who once inspired me to become a writer did speak to me. Directly (despite the other humans seated in the small presentation room). And with his voice rather than just his written words. He WAS talkin’ to me, just like he’d talked to me through millions of words since I was an adolescent.

On that glorious day, I stepped into my personal Field of Dreams and knew how I got there.

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Tagged as baseball, BobRyan, messaging, writing

04/18/2012 · 4:13 pm

From The Mouths of (Baseball) Babes: Crystal-Clear Messaging

“Call me Nomar!” my two year-old demanded whenever we stepped outside to play whiffle ball or catch. To neighborhood kids buzzing by on scooters or bikes who called out to him by his (actual) name, the message echoed loud and clear. “My name is Nomar!” he tossed back with a sparkle in his eye and fire in his baseball soul.

My #2 son’s message was clear, and it had little variance. He was a communications (and baseball) prodigy!

Any organization or program can follow his lead—and should. Your message matters most. It’s your pitch. Really. If the pitcher doesn’t actually ever throw the ball, the play never begins. You need to focus on the message as the essence of your communications effort.

It must be crystal-clear. It has to be crafted so that anyone responsible for communicating that message formally and informally can deliver it easily—in person, in written communications and across social media platforms.

Refine messages to be vibrant, focused and simple to repeat. They must be simple enough for your customers to understand and creative enough for them to remember. Depending on your customer groups, create a series of messages that are focused on various benefits of your program, service or product that specific customers or audiences value.

Without a focused message, you’re left without a fastball, sinker or a mysteriously fabulous Wakefield knuckler. You can’t begin your own play.

So take it from my own black-haired “Nomar,” now a veteran 11 year-old Little Leaguer with a tenacious approach behind the plate, on the mound and at the plate. A clear message delivered consistently and with great passion will be the best pitch you ever threw.