A professional communicator’s job is to provide accurate information with speed and context. Accurate, speed (timely) and context – that’s three.
Speed: There’s no need to explain how quickly information travels. If you were born after 1965 and have seen a smart phone you get that.
Accuracy: It comes down to this; either you are providing accurate information fast or someone else does. Check and double check information when you send it and be sure it’s understandable; make it googleable.
Context: When someone else writes, it’s their context, their facts, their interpretation. The public deserves your context, facts and interpretation because we are the good guys. The 5 Ws includes ‘why.’ Why is the context. Don’t give the public 3 or 4 Ws; it’s incomplete and someone else is going to fill in the blanks.
Fail: I’ve been too slow. I’ve been wrong. I’ve left out the context. It happens. We can’t weigh one (accuracy) against another (speed); it’s a three legged stool. If we are too slow but accurate no one sees your shit. If you are super fast but wrong, you may lose some credibility. I can’t think of a reason anyone would ever leave out the context…but we do, too often.
The information bus is moving fast. Will you get hit by it, be on it, be driving it or are you passively waiting for it to arrive? I’m driving.
