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> I was greatly impressed by Raj's succinct way of giving me the right information in the right detail without going into unnecessary explanations. Did he thou

> I was greatly impressed by Raj's succinct way of giving me the right information in the right detail without going into unnecessary explanations. Did he though? "I'm okay" is a good start, but then maybe "there has been an accident", followed by "the car is fine" or "I hit/got hit by a bull, which is now dead".

tpoacher 3y ago
He never said "I got hit by a bull" It could be the case that he crashed into a farm and killed a bull and now the farmer is about to kill him with a shotgun. Which according to the author is secondary information.
aftergibson 3y ago
Maybe this is a cultural difference but I find this method of communication very confusing. Without context “the bull is dead” is so useless as to be meaningless. I’m OK and safe, there’s been a car accident, I am at this location, there’s no rush. This the most important and actionable detail for a parent. Bulls and their mortal status are irrelevant. This just reads like two robots trying to sound succinct but failing to communicate. Again might be a cultural difference.
- gostsamo 3y ago
  Quite agree. The example given is bad because we don't know about the bull and we don't care about it. Lots more, we are not given the final details about the accident, so the report looks rather incomplete at the end.
  - philipswood 3y ago
    The example is good storytelling, but bad reporting. When telling a story you want to introduce the maximum meaningful uncertainty into your telling to attract the listener into listening attentively to try to resolve it. "The bull is dead." immediately introduces clearly important information that tells the listener they need to focus, but at the same time makes it clear that more context is needed. i.e the subtext is "listen up important details to follow". For status reporting you want to allow the listener to stop as soon as possible to free up his/her/its limited management focus "bandwidth". "I was in an accident, but I'm fine" would fit his paradigm better. (But would make a less notable/memorable story)
  - piecerough 3y ago
    The example is brilliant and leaving it hanging for the reader is the intended purpose (e.g. a far-away third-party like me reading a team's report doesn't have a reason to care past that)
- WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
  > Bulls and their mortal status are irrelevant. But it’s India where they are pretty big on bovines in general and their mortal status in particular.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Is it India? The author was residing in California at the time of writing and the bull was a Texas longhorn [0]. Given those details and the fact that the author didn't bother specifying India as the location (even though he was writing for an American magazine), I would assume the United States as the location. [0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2567290/no-more-bull.amp.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2567290/no-more-bull.a...
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Using “the” in this case almost seems (probably unintentionally) misleading or confusing. It is a definite article, it implies that there’s a particular bull that we’re talking about. Since there isn’t a bull already introduced in the conversation, I think most people would begin searching their memory for a bull that both parties are familiar with. It is discombobulating.
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  > Without context “the bull is dead” is so useless as to be meaningless. It’s possibly because you live in a location where bulls wandering on the road doesn’t ever happen, and where the author lives it does happen? If, for example, the call was instead “I’m okay, the deer is dead”, I wouldn’t find it confusing at all.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  No it's not cultural, it's a truly terrible example. It's actual quite ironic that a blog post about emphasizing clear purposeful communication, uses a main example that is anything but. "The bull is dead" is indeed totally meaningless and irrelevant here. Assuming nobody else was harmed, the status of the car is the next important thing here.
j_french 3y ago
To be fair to Raj (the guy who had just accidentally killed a bull), from his perspective "the bull is dead" is a very important part of the story. It's maybe a question of perspective. His ability to consider his parents' perspective might have been somewhat limited by the fact that he was 17, it was late at night and he'd just been in a car crash which resulted in the death of a bull. I think he did a great job and it's a great story. Glad to hear he's ok, he's lucky! RIP the bull though :(
- wodenokoto 3y ago
  I didn't mean to criticize the kid, although I can see how it came out as such. I'm criticizing the dads ability to showcase a great example of the "right information in the right detail without going into unnecessary explanations." And I think a big part of the authors choice of example is exactly because it is "tantalizing" - it piques your curiosity because there isn't enough information to make sense of the situation.
nathell 3y ago
Yeah. You need to form a graph of pieces of information where edges are ‘X is a prerequisite for Y’ (or ‘without X, Y makes no sense’), and sort that topologically.
Spooky23 3y ago
Dad isn’t an insurance adjuster. The point of the whole piece is to just get to the point. How the bull met his fate is a story, but who cares. All dad needs to know is Raj is fine.
- pseudalopex 3y ago
  Why mention the bull at all then?
  - another-dave 3y ago
    Exactly — by front loading the bull, it's saying that this is the next most important bit of info after "I'm OK"
0xBA5ED 3y ago
Yes, the anecdote is not a good example. "The bull is dead" is tragic but irrelevant. It would be like "Milestone 4 missed. Joel is gone". Who's Joel? Is he on vacation? Did he quit? Was he fired for causing the missed milestone? Is he dead?
mrkeen 3y ago
It's fine. The shorter the first sentence is, the sooner you can move onto the second sentence. Neither party expected the conversation to end after "the bull is dead".
Wowfunhappy 3y ago
Agreed. Personally, I would have gone for: > "I'm OK, my car hit a bull." What happened to the bull isn't the most important information; the author wants to know why his son didn't come home. Saying "the bull is dead" kind of answers that question, but only via inference ("oh, the bull must have been killed by his car"), which is why the father was initially confused. And then "the" should be "a" because the bull hasn't been introduced yet.
KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
No he didn't, it was needlessly confusing and the fact that it introduced uninformed and unresolved intrigue for him and his wife goes entirely against the point he was trying to make. The reason being that: context is everything. When we structure a project status report this way, context is high and the audience desires new information over and above further context unless the balance changes. Starting with "I'm okay" was the right thing to do in context: an unexpected call from a child at an ominous time of day is the context, and knowledge of their safety is therefore paramount. But following it with a riddle about bulls is useless nonsense in the same context. Putting that aside, I didnt really appreciate this either: >Though a bit angry Angry at your son for being in a car accident? Was this before or after finding out the reason for the accident? Where is this context and why isn't it provided in the same structure you just outlined several paragraphs earlier?

tpoacher 3y ago

He never said "I got hit by a bull" It could be the case that he crashed into a farm and killed a bull and now the farmer is about to kill him with a shotgun. Which according to the author is secondary information.

aftergibson 3y ago

Maybe this is a cultural difference but I find this method of communication very confusing. Without context “the bull is dead” is so useless as to be meaningless. I’m OK and safe, there’s been a car accident, I am at this location, there’s no rush. This the most important and actionable detail for a parent. Bulls and their mortal status are irrelevant. This just reads like two robots trying to sound succinct but failing to communicate. Again might be a cultural difference.

gostsamo 3y ago
Quite agree. The example given is bad because we don't know about the bull and we don't care about it. Lots more, we are not given the final details about the accident, so the report looks rather incomplete at the end.
- philipswood 3y ago
  The example is good storytelling, but bad reporting. When telling a story you want to introduce the maximum meaningful uncertainty into your telling to attract the listener into listening attentively to try to resolve it. "The bull is dead." immediately introduces clearly important information that tells the listener they need to focus, but at the same time makes it clear that more context is needed. i.e the subtext is "listen up important details to follow". For status reporting you want to allow the listener to stop as soon as possible to free up his/her/its limited management focus "bandwidth". "I was in an accident, but I'm fine" would fit his paradigm better. (But would make a less notable/memorable story)
- piecerough 3y ago
  The example is brilliant and leaving it hanging for the reader is the intended purpose (e.g. a far-away third-party like me reading a team's report doesn't have a reason to care past that)
WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
> Bulls and their mortal status are irrelevant. But it’s India where they are pretty big on bovines in general and their mortal status in particular.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Is it India? The author was residing in California at the time of writing and the bull was a Texas longhorn [0]. Given those details and the fact that the author didn't bother specifying India as the location (even though he was writing for an American magazine), I would assume the United States as the location. [0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2567290/no-more-bull.amp.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2567290/no-more-bull.a...
bee_rider 3y ago
Using “the” in this case almost seems (probably unintentionally) misleading or confusing. It is a definite article, it implies that there’s a particular bull that we’re talking about. Since there isn’t a bull already introduced in the conversation, I think most people would begin searching their memory for a bull that both parties are familiar with. It is discombobulating.
pfannkuchen 3y ago
> Without context “the bull is dead” is so useless as to be meaningless. It’s possibly because you live in a location where bulls wandering on the road doesn’t ever happen, and where the author lives it does happen? If, for example, the call was instead “I’m okay, the deer is dead”, I wouldn’t find it confusing at all.
crazygringo 3y ago
No it's not cultural, it's a truly terrible example. It's actual quite ironic that a blog post about emphasizing clear purposeful communication, uses a main example that is anything but. "The bull is dead" is indeed totally meaningless and irrelevant here. Assuming nobody else was harmed, the status of the car is the next important thing here.

j_french 3y ago

To be fair to Raj (the guy who had just accidentally killed a bull), from his perspective "the bull is dead" is a very important part of the story. It's maybe a question of perspective. His ability to consider his parents' perspective might have been somewhat limited by the fact that he was 17, it was late at night and he'd just been in a car crash which resulted in the death of a bull. I think he did a great job and it's a great story. Glad to hear he's ok, he's lucky! RIP the bull though :(

wodenokoto 3y ago
I didn't mean to criticize the kid, although I can see how it came out as such. I'm criticizing the dads ability to showcase a great example of the "right information in the right detail without going into unnecessary explanations." And I think a big part of the authors choice of example is exactly because it is "tantalizing" - it piques your curiosity because there isn't enough information to make sense of the situation.

nathell 3y ago

Yeah. You need to form a graph of pieces of information where edges are ‘X is a prerequisite for Y’ (or ‘without X, Y makes no sense’), and sort that topologically.

Spooky23 3y ago

Dad isn’t an insurance adjuster. The point of the whole piece is to just get to the point. How the bull met his fate is a story, but who cares. All dad needs to know is Raj is fine.

pseudalopex 3y ago
Why mention the bull at all then?
- another-dave 3y ago
  Exactly — by front loading the bull, it's saying that this is the next most important bit of info after "I'm OK"

0xBA5ED 3y ago

Yes, the anecdote is not a good example. "The bull is dead" is tragic but irrelevant. It would be like "Milestone 4 missed. Joel is gone". Who's Joel? Is he on vacation? Did he quit? Was he fired for causing the missed milestone? Is he dead?

mrkeen 3y ago

It's fine. The shorter the first sentence is, the sooner you can move onto the second sentence. Neither party expected the conversation to end after "the bull is dead".

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

Agreed. Personally, I would have gone for: > "I'm OK, my car hit a bull." What happened to the bull isn't the most important information; the author wants to know why his son didn't come home. Saying "the bull is dead" kind of answers that question, but only via inference ("oh, the bull must have been killed by his car"), which is why the father was initially confused. And then "the" should be "a" because the bull hasn't been introduced yet.

KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago

No he didn't, it was needlessly confusing and the fact that it introduced uninformed and unresolved intrigue for him and his wife goes entirely against the point he was trying to make. The reason being that: context is everything. When we structure a project status report this way, context is high and the audience desires new information over and above further context unless the balance changes. Starting with "I'm okay" was the right thing to do in context: an unexpected call from a child at an ominous time of day is the context, and knowledge of their safety is therefore paramount. But following it with a riddle about bulls is useless nonsense in the same context. Putting that aside, I didnt really appreciate this either: >Though a bit angry Angry at your son for being in a car accident? Was this before or after finding out the reason for the accident? Where is this context and why isn't it provided in the same structure you just outlined several paragraphs earlier?