Slides or write-ups? Which one is best?
According to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, write-ups. But I never understood it until very recently.
Bezos defends why writing is better. Ironically, his write-up has all the flaws that he complains about in powerpoints:
According to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, write-ups. But I never understood it until very recently.
Bezos defends why writing is better. Ironically, his write-up has all the flaws that he complains about in powerpoints:
“The narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what's more important than what, and how things are related”
Ok so his hypothesis: idea importance and interconnectedness are crucial, but write-ups achieve them better.
Why?
Ok so his hypothesis: idea importance and interconnectedness are crucial, but write-ups achieve them better.
Why?
“Ppt-style presentations somehow give permission to gloss over ideas, flatten out any sense of relative importance, and ignore the interconnectedness of ideas.”
Ok 3 causes. W/ ppt, ppl:
-gloss over ideas
-don’t make idea importance obvious
-ignore their connection
But why?
Ok 3 causes. W/ ppt, ppl:
-gloss over ideas
-don’t make idea importance obvious
-ignore their connection
But why?
Why do write-ups achieve that better?
Here we are, with a write-up from Bezos, where he glosses over ideas, doesn’t make it obvious why they’re so important, and ignores how they are connected.
Therefore, write-ups do NOT force ppl to explain their ideas better.
Here we are, with a write-up from Bezos, where he glosses over ideas, doesn’t make it obvious why they’re so important, and ignores how they are connected.
Therefore, write-ups do NOT force ppl to explain their ideas better.
I still think he is right. Why?
I have made hundreds of presentations in my life, and I’ve written hundreds of write-ups.
Until very recently, though, I had never made a presentation *and then converted it to a write-up*.
That’s when I realized it
I have made hundreds of presentations in my life, and I’ve written hundreds of write-ups.
Until very recently, though, I had never made a presentation *and then converted it to a write-up*.
That’s when I realized it
Writing pushes you to write the entire logic on paper *because it’s meant to be read*.
A presentation is supposed to have some writing and some speaking complementing each other
But every thought that’s left to speaking doesn’t get as much oversight because it’s not specified
A presentation is supposed to have some writing and some speaking complementing each other
But every thought that’s left to speaking doesn’t get as much oversight because it’s not specified
The speaking part doesn’t get broken down into sentences you have to sit and observe. The level of detail coming from the speaking part is lower, so the ideas are less detailed and get less oversight.
What are the takeaways of all of this?
1. Writing specifies more reasoning than speaking, and write-ups achieve that better with a higher % of written thoughts
2. This is only as good as the written reasoning, which most ppl are still bad at
1. Writing specifies more reasoning than speaking, and write-ups achieve that better with a higher % of written thoughts
2. This is only as good as the written reasoning, which most ppl are still bad at
3. A good solution is to add a template of what’s expected in a write-up.
4. I believe the template should have goals, problems broken down in hypotheses and evidence, and solutions broken down in hypotheses and evidence.
4. I believe the template should have goals, problems broken down in hypotheses and evidence, and solutions broken down in hypotheses and evidence.
Thought about this while reading @lshackleton ‘s article, which also cleverly points out the need for knowledge crowdsourcing, not 1-way write-ups
coda.io/@lshackleton/t…
coda.io/@lshackleton/t…
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