Say it in Ten Words or Less. Or Else!

05.02.08 | Category: Simplicity

Fenwick & West - 100 Best Places to Work

“Remember that 10 words is not a speech. It is a statement!” said East Bay Business Times Publisher Mike Consol. Over a thousand businesspeople had gathered in San Francisco Hilton’s grand ballroom for the presentation of the 2008 list of the 100 Best Places to Work in the Bay Area.

“You get 10 words…Or Less!” Consol prepped the winners in the audience for their moment on stage and urged them to start consolidating their ideas right away.
Realizing that they had to create a “corporate haiku” on the spot, the audience reacted audibly.

An unexpected exercise in Zen brevity– great idea! My takeaways:

1) Simplicity is Hard – Condensing thoughts in 10 words or less – not easy. But it makes you think carefully about what’s important. It’s like packing a small suitcase full of words for a long journey.

Best Places to Work Ceremony in SF

2) Information Intolerance – In an information-overloaded world, Consol didn’t need to enforce his challenge. The crowd was more than happy to do it for him. When Meebo ventured into the 20 to 30-word range, they were sadly booed off the stage.



3) Expose the Essence – Strip people down to ten words and you learn a lot about them. Companies broke down this way:

  • The Quitters –Gave up on Consol’s challenge by stepping up to the podium with a disappointing and ho-hum “Thank you” or worse just plain “Thanks!”
  • The Marketers – Seized the opportunity with a hard-hitting marketing pitch. They made each of the ten (or in some case 12 or 13 words) sell sell sell, as in “Buy Real Estate in Marin County —NOW!”
  • The Buzzword Lovers – Made dramatic statements with 3-second pauses between each of the words: “Respect. Teamwork. Balance…”
  • The Recruiters – Smiled, simply took their trophies, and said “We’re Hiring.”
  • The Chatterboxes – Ten words and then some.

In my estimation, the best speeches were those that conveyed their company’s brand without being offensive. They respected the 10-word limit but tried to stretch its creative possibilities.
There were 125 rankings, and I was happy to report to Bill that Fenwick & West earned a 5th place ranking, making it the top ranked law firm. This was a great honor: 506 nominated, and 193,881 employees surveyed in 12 bay area counties. Managing Partner Kate Fritz, along with 12 Fenwick & West employees, accepted the award. Fritz’s statement came in at half the 10-word limit!

“It’s all about the people!”

-Drue Kataoka

17 Comments so far

  1. Vlasta Diamant

    To remind ourselves of the value of succinct brevity is important in a culture, which admires verbosity and speed of delivery. Often comedians bank exactly on these: like William Robbins and Jim Carey, whom I don’t find funny at all. But try to be simple and word-sparing in a job interview, and most likely you won’t work in those best companies to work in! What is good for individuals in their private arena, may not be so good and applicable in social situations.

  2. Jeff McNeill

    Excellent! This is akin to the #twitpitch that Stowe Boyd is talking about http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2008/04/twitpitch-is-th.html as well as the (longer but still compressed) Pecha Kucha format http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecha_Kucha .

    I would love to see the various 10 word formulations. Dig the concept of “Zen words or less”.

    Cheers,
    Jeff

  3. Drue Kataoka

    @Vlasta- A word-sparing interview style can work well, that is:
    -Listening as well as talking,
    -Valuing pauses and natural spaces in the conversation
    -Choosing words well

    @Jeff- Appreciate your “Zen words or less” riff.

  4. sandra

    Fritz and Fenwick and West employees: You’re hired!

  5. Drue Kataoka

    @Sandra – An inspiring team.

  6. Vlasta Diamant

    Drue,

    Yes, in your kind of interview, where you’re the interviewer,
    but not in a job interview, where you would be an interviewee, if you had such an experience.

  7. Morgan Cooper

    consolidation
    large thoughts in laconic flow
    true message exposed

  8. Drue Kataoka

    @ Morgan – Thanks for your response!

  9. JohnR

    Every great company should have a concise focus and “elevator pitch”. Every great company leader should be able to summarize and express her/his thoughts quickly in 10 words or less. I’m sure the responses revealed *A LOT* about the companies! What a great exercise!

  10. Drue Kataoka

    @JohnR – Well said!

  11. CarlW

    to the point quickly, with style and meaning

  12. Susie

    ‘Succinct equals success’ doesn’t only apply to the business world. While I shudder to even acknowledge on a public forum that dieting is an ever-present part of my life, I was delighted to see Friday’s blog giving the nod to the power of pithiness! A great poet’s voice once echoed ‘Yet do much less…so much less! Well, less is more.’ So true. And after years of turmoil trying to discover and decipher the magic formula of weight loss in an ever-increasing world of food fads, diet trends, and medically suspect nutritional hocus-pocus, a recent guest speaker at Stanford finally brought it all into focus for me with only seven words. EAT FOOD. NOT TOO MUCH. MOSTLY PLANTS. Thank you Michael Pollan. It’s brilliant in its simplicity. And while my daily nourishment still errs on the side of chocoliciousness (thank you Drue!), I am heartened and also calmed by his commonsensical philosophy. (and as you can tell, completely incapable of being economical with words myself!)

  13. Mark Evans

    Ten words to get to the point. I agree. However, what about the next step, slightly longer pitch? I attended an Elevator Pitch Round Table last night, 90 second pitches…. very few were able to get their message across well… There should be an entire organization dedicated to the art of the pitch. I constantly practice my pitch (in traffic, mostly)and am never quite satisfied with it; hard work and worth it.

  14. Aliya

    I love this post; I often think that sometimes, the more you speak, the less you have to say!

    In terms of technology, this is precisely the reason why I love Twitter; with only 140 characters, you have to ensure that your post is concise and to the point. Twitter gives you good practice at succinctly expressing original thoughts in fewer words. And, it actually can be surprising difficult!

  15. Drue Kataoka

    @ CarlW – Yes!

    @ Susie – Interesting connection you make to dieting. I agree many sentences are too caloric with much fat to be trimmed. Chocolate may be a temptation for a dieter. Excess words, the temptation for a writer, but discipline and restraint leads to clarity and beauty of form.

    @ Mark- Practicing your pitch in traffic, in the slow lane and fast lanes alike must mean you can deliver it at any tempo.

    I bet you had fun at such a Round Table. When time for a presentation is reduced, I think the challenge for “pitchers” is not to rush or cram in ideas. Space at the right moments is as compelling as the words themselves.

    @ Aliya – I agree. And since you are such a super-twitter-star, you’ve had much practice. Your twitter wisdom is on the mark.

  16. Mark Evans

    Aliya:

    Agreed, Twitter is an excellent platform for practicing the art of simplicity and meaning…

  17. Kathi Smith

    “And in short measures, life may perfect be.” 8 words.

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