Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson
Maybe we should bring that topic to the front. It seems to me that the angry response of a group of people is based on that perception of aggressiveness. I admit to being completely unfamiliar with that group's context, so I have no way to understand their reaction beyond reading the words presented here. With only those words, I can see this situation as kind of a litmus test -- if you believe Minnesota is trying to push you away from volunteering based on what you read into them, your mindset might make you a poor choice for a Key Volunteer position. If I knew more about the reality of the situation (beyond a laundry list of second-hand comments from an anonymous poster), I might have a different impression of what's going on.
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Marshall McLuhan famously said that "
The medium is the message." Not that "the medium influences the message." He says that the way we present things changes what the message actually
is, and by-and-large, he's right. As media creators, we ask ourselves all the time "what form should this take?" In some cases we're talking format (TV vs Billboard vs Newspaper vs Virus-laden Popup), but we're also talking tone, word choice, format, aesthetics.
FIRST is an organization that is chock-full of engineers. Engineers are often very, very good at talking to other engineers. That's the major strength of technical writing: hard to misunderstand clearly-written instructions with no extra fluff. However, they are also pretty good at putting feet in mouths (this is basically half of the drama I ever see on CD). Case study: Al's posts in this thread. We all know Al. We know he's
the LRI. We know he's on a Hall of Fame team. We know he knows incredible, mature, inspiring students. But he was torn apart for a bit there because his post conveyed a message that he didn't want to convey (and he had to clarify his point in later posts).
The Minnesota doc just reeks of Engineer-speak to me. You can look at it, and say "it concisely conveys the information we want it to." And that's it. It really makes no attempt to draw the reader in, to provide information in a conversational way. You might think "well, that's not necessary," except half of the posts in this thread have shown that, yes, it
is necessary. Because while it's all well and good to have a manual written in technical talk, volunteers are not robots. Volunteers are built around passion and relationships. You know what technical writing is rubbish at conveying? Passion.
A volunteer that wants to donate huge chunks of their time doesn't want to be treated like a cog in the machine. That's not how healthy FRC teams treat their students or mentors, and that shouldn't be the way RPCs (Minnesota, or any other) treat their volunteers. People like to be individually recognized. Look at the GuamFIRST copy: they have a joke about Lunacy! That's awesome! I actually chuckled to myself when I read that! That joke makes me feel connected to the author, and as a result, that makes me more interested in volunteering. I know from the get-go that this organization puts in an effort to include me, and that inclusion translates into feeling like those major volunteer roles with the prestige are actually within grasp. I feel like the organization is going to build me up.
The Minnesota copy sounds like a job ad. The GuamFIRST copy sounds like a non-profit organization looking for passionate people to help out. Which does its job more effectively? (heck,
what is the job??? he effectiveness answer hinges on the job the document is trying to do.) Again, same information, slightly different approaches (so slightly that there's trouble in this very thread identifying them). Different meaning.
The Medium is the Message. We all know to be careful about what we write, but being wary of
how we write something is often forgotten.
I know I'm sounding a little condescending here. However, this goes both ways. I like to think that I'm decent at inter-personal communications. But ask me to write a lab report, and I cannot do it. I haven't learned how to. That's why figures like Karthik are so cool - they are ideal communicators, able to effectively get their points across to anyone, regardless of their background.