EYN#047: Do You Need To Murder Your Darlings?

Woah! Before you do anything silly - I am not talking about actual murder.

This week I`m speaking at 2 big conferences: Big Data LDN at Olympia and Technology For Marketing at Excel. They're pretty nerve racking events.

When I`m prepping for big events like this "Murder Your Darlings" is in my head.

"Murder Your Darlings" is a great quote basically saying "Less Is More". Cut stuff out, get rid of your excess content. We reduce the clarity, punch and impact of our message because we stuff too much in. And we need clarity, punch and impact in our messaging.

The Curse Of Knowledge

We all have so much knowledge, and when we talk to people we want to give them as much of that knowledge as possible. We want to teach them, inform them, edify them. In our enthusiasm to do that we end up overwhelming them, confusing them and reducing the power of our message. It's often called "The Curse Of Knowledge".

We need to reduce and focus what we say in order to increase the impact.

Create Your Key Message

Create 1 sentence that contains the key message for your session. It should be short sharp and punchy. Here's mine from the session next week.

"The AOREN framework will make you more influential, memorable and successful with your stakeholders."

Everything I say this week will support that sentence. Nothing more. If it doesn't support that sentence it's being murdered.

Create Your Subthemes

You need the subthemes that give your key message substance and strength. Three is the best number of subthemes but 2 - 5 can be fine. It shouldn't be 17 or 111 subthemes.

In my session this week, the substance will come from expanding the AOREN mnemonic and explaining how to use it. So you can argue it's 1 subtheme of 5 subthemes :)

I'll deliver a tight overview on: Audience, Objective, Remembered, Emotion and Next Steps.

Anything that distracts from this topic, or makes the session too long will be brutally cut, no matter how great it is (and I have a lot of great material :) ).

So when creating your next session, think "Less Is More". Don't be scared to "Murder Your Darlings".

Hope this helps.

Ben

-------------------------------------

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

• Podcast:  The latest episode is "Planning Your Cloud Career Journey" with Prasad Rao Check it out on the Elevated You website,  Apple, Spotify, YouTube or Amazon Podcasts.
• Technical Storytelling Essentials: Accelerate your career, increase your impact and influence people.  Affordably priced, world-class course digital course for individuals.
• Technical Storytelling for Organisations: Programs designed to increase the impact of your team.  Inspire, develop and motivate your team to influence key stakeholders and generate action with your customers.