Tech aversion therapy: writing technical copy for non-technical people

Not long ago, MarComments blogged about the adventures of preparing English copy for translation. Think of this as a follow-up. But this time it’s about an even trickier subject: converting technical language into English.

It’s tricky, but it’s important. That’s because you and we are often trying to communicate about highly technical products to not-so technical people. They might be very smart people with advanced degrees and whizzes at whatever it is they do. But that doesn’t mean they know bupkis about storage interfaces, including multifunction, Fibre Channel, RAID, iSCSI, and SCSI adapters.

Yet these people are often the decision makers when it comes to buying what you and we are selling. If we’re not careful, prospective customers will find themselves browsing through our brochures, white papers, and websites—and never know what we’re talking about.

This can lead to lost sales. Not to mention lost jobs.

At Harding Marketing, these difficulties led us to think about practical ways to help our writers write technical copy for non-technical readers.

First, know your audience. If your audience is all engineers, no problem. Usually.

But what if they’re ophthalmologists and you’re trying to describe some new device for laser eye surgery? Or what if they’re Chief Financial Officers who need to approve funding for a new data center? In that case, if the writers start listing the benefits of virtual storage before the readers have even heard of virtualization, we’re headed for the abyss.

This same principle explains why school teachers usually cover addition and subtraction before they get into fractions.

So before writing something like a networking brochure, we try to find out if the audience knows the difference between networking with old college chums and networking with blade switches (not to be confused with switch blades).

Next, define your terms. This can get touchy because none of us wants to offend readers by explaining stuff they already know. Stuff like a PC. Or a USB.

But what about SOA? Wikipedia says, “In computing, service-oriented architecture (SOA) has different… and openly-debated definitions.” This means our readers might have a different definition than we do. Or no definition at all. The trick is to make sure every reader knows what we mean.

For acronyms and other clumps of initials, the standard practice is to spell them out the first time, then follow up with initials in parentheses. For example: “service-oriented architecture (SOA)…” But sometimes that’s not enough. For a Hewlett-Packard white paper, one Harding writer explained SOA in a way that even a CEO could understand:

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has been called, “a style, not a thing.” The reason is simple: SOA is not about better hardware or software; it is about a better way to use the hardware, software, and other IT resources already on hand.

BTW, if we fear that sophisticated readers will think a definition is offensively tautological, we sometimes begin by saying, “As you know, service-oriented architecture (SOA) has been called… “

And as you know, a glossary is often a good place to define new terms. No one takes umbrage when we include one. And when they come across something unfamiliar, everyone is grateful for it.

One caution: We try to make sure our definition is either the standard one or else clearly explained. There are, for instance, about as many definitions of “cloud computing” as there are clouds. An explanatory phrase or two can put a silver lining around your copy.

Finally, ask a non-techie to read it. It’s SOP to run technical copy past the engineers for accuracy. But we can often learn more if we run it past an MBA—or even (gasp) a history major. If they stumble over a word or phrase, the target CEO might also stumble. And that might mean it’s time for a rewrite.

At our Harding Marketing offices in San Jose, California; Grenoble, France; and points in between, we write marketing copy for clients as technical as Hewlett-Packard, Google, Symantec, and many others. Some of it’s intended for engineers and other techies. Some of it’s intended for the rest of us. We work hard to make all of it clear, direct, and understandable.

If that’s the kind of copy you need for an upcoming marcom project, we’d be delighted to talk with you about it. Technically speaking, that’s our job.

To reach us in San Jose, click michelle_contreras@hardingmarketing.com. Or for our Grenoble office, try stephane_labartino@hardingmarketing.com.

By Harding Marketing