Lecture 2: How to Start a Startup

Re:Lecture 2: How to Start a Startup by yellow_and_gray on Friday September 26, 2014 @06:41PM (#8375278)

The goal isn't just to get the concept. It's also to transmit it. You'll be surprised how hard it is to get a message through to people, even when it's expressed in plain words in a single sentence. And don't be tricked into thinking that making your ideas understandable to all people is a mark of low intelligence because it isn't.

It can't be a total accident there's a high correlation between being a good communicator and being a successful founder.

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Re:Lecture 2: How to Start a Startup by McDoku on Saturday September 27, 2014 @11:43AM (#8377296)

I agree 100%. My issue is with it being framed as understanding your work. When it is more about understanding how the public thinks and feels.

It is more political then technical. It is about connection.

Highlighting that I think helps people to focus on a completely different skill set. I know I got bogged up in the joy of my technical development and needed to remind myself to be an evangelist which is fundamentally an application of rhetoric.

It also means skilfully using cognitive short cuts that already cluster information in order to simplify.

It is not that the public cannot understand, it is just that it is hard to not use domain specific vocabulary and still communicate the concept.

Take search engine. It is a perfect example of this process.

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Re:Lecture 2: How to Start a Startup by yellow_and_gray on Monday September 29, 2014 @05:29AM (#8382172)

I don't understand what you are saying. Can you (a) tell me what you are saying in one sentence, and (b) provide a citation that proves what you are saying is true, if possible?

Words start to break once you push them too far.

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Re:Lecture 2: How to Start a Startup by McDoku on Monday September 29, 2014 @08:01PM (#8386055)

Singles sentence explanations for complex ideas tend to cluster cognitive short cuts (more formally -- cognitive misers 1).

This is because new ideas/concepts may require new words or words outside the scope of the 5th grade rule. An idiom is a cognitive miser of sorts.

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Example - search engine

search - familiar vocabulary

engine - cognitive short cut

           - machine

           - technical

           - related to car 
  
           - transports from point A to B (car)

           - familiar

           - requires steering (car)

           - most are comfortable with operating (car etc)

-----

It is a hack to communicate when the available vocabulary does not convey the true intention of the speaker.

And/or the existing level of vocabulary is inefficient.

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Videos:

Star Trek Example: http://youtu.be/ukMNfTnI5M8

Archer Example: http://youtu.be/GzHhgPgO7wA

*1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_miser

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

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Re:Lecture 2: How to Start a Startup by yellow_and_gray on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @04:54AM (#8387300)

Now I see what you are saying.

You are saying to communicate complex ideas one tends to need words a 5th grader wouldn't know.

I was saying to communicate an idea one should fit it an a single sentence.

Unless I missed something, we are not in disagreement. You are arguing for word quality, I'm arguing for word quantity. You don't disagree that boiling an idea to a single sentence is good, and I learned something new from you. The cognitive miser theory is fascinating.

Thank you for having put the effort to follow up.

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Re:Lecture 2: How to Start a Startup by McDoku on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @01:16PM (#8389459)

Yup. Correct. Cool Beans.

It is the framing 'You do not UNDERSTAND your app unless you can simplify it in a single sentence' that I disagree with.

It is more 'You do not UNDERSTAND your market unless you can simply in a single sentence'.

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