The year was 2001 . . .
There was no Spotify.
No music on our phones.
Instead we were listening to CDs.
For a while I was a rep selling “portable” record players. Then Steve Jobs launched a revolutionary new product: The iPod.
Developing the iPod was no mean feat. It had to be powerful enough to contain 1,000 songs. And small enough to fit into a pocket.
Engineers had worked hard to develop that prototype. And they proudly presented it.
Jobs weighed the iPod in his hands, played with it, and then … He rejected it, too big. The engineers said it was not possible to make it smaller. No way.
Steven Jobs considered this for a moment. He then walked to the aquarium in the room and dropped the prototype in the water. The iPod sank and a few bubbles escaped. Jobs snapped, “Those are air bubbles. That means there’s space in there. Make it smaller”
The lesson here for writers for eLearning? Our writing can always be tighter. Most people think that tightening our writing means just dumping a few words.
Words like really, very, and actually. That’s a good idea but often not enough.
A much better practice exists for tightening your writing.