When you’re communicating truly novel ideas to an audience who doesn’t share your expertise, you face what I call the Innovation Gap.
On one side of that chasm, you stand with all the knowledge you’ve accumulated through years of study and experience. You have deep insight into the problem you want to correct as well as the solution you envision.
On the other side of the chasm is your intended audience. Depending on your situation, that could include a stakeholder mix of policymakers, funders, investors, customers, clients, patients, partners, or members of the general public.
Regardless of your audience’s exact profile, most of the people you’re trying to reach are likely non-experts. That means they lack your understanding not only of the science, technology, or research you’re describing but also of the problem it addresses.
You know you need to bridge the distance between you and the people who can help transform your brilliant ideas into tangible outcomes. So, if you’re like most of us, you likely start by trying one of the five mistaken strategies I see many innovators and knowledge mobilizers default to using.
If your ideas aren’t landing—if you’re getting polite nods but no forward-moving action—then it could be because you’re resorting to one of these outdated approaches.
Sense-Making, Not Clarity, is Your End Goal
Standard strategies for bridging a knowledge gap make sense if you’re merely presenting technical ideas rooted in a well-established context and language familiar to your audience. They might help, for example, if you’re explaining a next gen version of a well-known app or medical device.
But when you’re engaged in innovation communication, sharing pioneering ideas that push the frontier of both language and understanding, these standard approaches flop. They fail to enable non-experts to make sense of complex concepts and value their significance.
When you’re trying to wrestle multi-faceted ideas into words and graphics, it can feel like your primary task is to present your evidence and proposals clearly. It’s easy to fixate on Clarity as your end goal and to misconstrue communication as an exercise in channeling accurate information to a certain person or group.
For those of us communicating at the edge of innovation, this common view of the communication process is self-sabotaging.
Communication isn’t about informing. It’s about sense-making.
As someone with innovative ideas to share, your number one job is to empower non-experts to situate those ideas within their world and make sense of them on their terms. That’s the key to transforming ideas into impact.
It’s also why standard approaches to bridging the Innovation Gap leave non-experts stranded on the far side of the chasm, unable to appreciate the value of your breakthrough ideas.
Recognize Any of These Five False Strategies?
I’ve now been teaching technical and scientific communication for more than 25 years, across a wide range of industries. This experience has allowed me to identify problematic patterns that show up time and time again, regardless of the sector or organization.
The five false strategies I’m about to outline show up as efforts to bridge the innovation gap in a wide variety of settings. I’ve seen attempts to implement them in many different contexts, including IT, academic research, engineering, consulting, social entrepreneurship, cleantech, medtech, and more.
Do you see your own efforts mirrored in any of these mistaken approaches?
If so, remember that self-knowledge is the most potent form of power. What you recognize you can change!
False Strategy #1: Hurl a Toolbox Across the Gap
What this looks like: The expert provides a ton of background information—white papers, toolkits, links to peer-reviewed articles—so that non-experts can educate themselves on the topic at hand.
The false assumption: That non-experts can become experts overnight. How long did it take you to develop your expertise? Don’t undervalue the years of study, professional development, and life experience it's taken for you to build your base of knowledge and professional judgment.
False Strategy #2: Install Ladders
What this looks like: Rather than creating a bridge across the chasm, the expert tries to guide non-experts down into the chasm, across the bottom, and up the other side. They do this by providing reams of technical detail: complex data visualizations, in-depth specifications, hefty spreadsheets.
The false assumption: That non-experts have the aptitude, capacity, and interest to immerse themselves in a highly specialized subject. Non-experts tend to be interested in end results, not the method or process that will achieve it.
False Strategy #3: Helicopter-Drop a Trampoline
What this looks like: The expert feels so passionate about an idea that they believe their enthusiasm will carry the day. They jump up and down with excitement and give their audience a trampoline, encouraging them to jump with them. The theory is that the audience will get so excited and jump so high that they’ll propel themselves across the Innovation Gap.
The false assumption: That non-experts will be willing to take a leap of faith based on an emotional appeal. Yes, I often urge experts to infuse their communication with emotion, especially as a means to grab the audience’s attention. But non-experts aren’t nonrational, and they need logical explanations to justify their decisions, especially if they need to sell those decisions to others.
False Strategy #4: Use a Megaphone
What this looks like: The expert attempts to win over the audience by making their message louder. They try to rise above the noise by being noisier. They make more social posts, circulate more impact reports, send more emails.
The false assumption: That exposure matters more than messaging. A weak message that fails to bridge the Innovation Gap won’t land, no matter how widely you distribute it.
False Strategy #5: Build a Partial Bridge
What this looks like: The expert dumbs down complex ideas. They take the common (misguided) advice to “tell it like you’re talking to an eight-year-old.” As a result, their communication is so sketchy that it allows non-experts to take only a few steps across the gap. They’re left hanging in mid-air, confused and unconvinced.
The false assumption: That complexity is a four-letter word when communicating with non-experts. Complexity isn’t the enemy; obfuscation is. Effective innovation communication respects sophisticated ideas and makes complexity accessible. It helps non-experts to make truly informed decisions and feel confident about them.
So What Works?
Each of the strategies above is rooted in a false assumption about what non-experts need to buy into innovative ideas. An effective communication strategy corrects this error by taking the audience’s needs as the starting point.
In most instances, the audience you want to reach doesn’t need more information or even clearer information. If they have access to the Internet and a junior high education, then they can get their hands on a Plain Language summary of your topic within minutes.
What they need is someone who understands their world and their concerns. Someone who views the world from their perspective, who supports their aspirations and empathizes with their constraints.
The sturdiest bridge across the Innovation Gap is built on human connection. And here’s the good news: that’s also the easiest kind of bridge to construct.
Find the feelings, dreams, and values that you and your audience share, and you’ll unlock the language and concepts that will invite them across the Innovation Gap. You’ll create a bridge built not just on cognitive understanding but also on the firmer platform of common passions and genuine trust.
Looking for more insights to help you navigate the complexities of innovation communication. Download my free eBook, a collection of 10 of my most helpful blogs for innovators in any field.
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