I read something today that I found very interesting and useful. And, the fact that I found it interesting at all, is actually why I think it is so useful. What do I mean by that? What is the correlation between ‘interesting’ and ‘useful’?

Well, ordinarily I would associate ‘interesting’ with… something interesting. For example, I love high-tech gadgets, so articles about next-generation technology are especially interesting to me.

On the other hand, I am not interested in Hollywood gossip, so my knowledge of who is dating whom and how fat so-and-so has gotten, is limited to what I consume while waiting in line at the supermarket. And the annoying banner in Live Messenger – oooh, it looks like Rosie is saying goodbye to ‘The View’.

Given that there is so much information out there fighting for the limited space in my head, I have learned (or at least am trying) to be selective of what I read/watch/listen to.

The fact that you are reading this post suggests that perhaps you should consider adopting a similar strategy Or maybe you just let your guard down for a minute. Ok, I’ll get to the point now so you can be on your way.

I stumbled on an article about marketing (yawn) that described a copy writing trick – a trick employed throughout the article – and one that I am using here.

The author, Dmitri Davydov, makes the point that because our attention is often so fragmented (particularly while driving), to communicate more effectively and hold the interest of readers/listeners/viewers, information needs to be delivered in smaller, easier to digest pieces.

No, this isn’t rocket science, and certainly not news – but what I found remarkable was how the author applied the technique throughout the article itself.

All of his points were laid out in small chunks, like I am doing now. I found that this made the article much easier to read, similar to how programmers use whitespace in their code.

Another benefit of this approach is that it allows the author to organize points within a topic with much less time and effort spent on composition. This makes a lot of sense in a blog where content is delivered more like a conversation, rather than an essay or long-winded story.

Granted, this is not the way we are taught in school to construct proper paragraphs. But, the times and the medium have changed, so maybe bending the old rules to improve the modern user experience isn’t such a bad thing.