153. Flip the script (Condition #2: information format)

Let’s say you’ve decided to start a podcast to include as part of your board pre-work. You’ve got a lot of decisions to make. Will it be scripted or spontaneous? Will it be one voice – maybe your CEO – or many, like the entire executive team? Will it be short, pithy, and brilliant like OMG, or long, boring and arduous like other podcasts (sorry). Maybe it will be an interview format. Maybe those interviews will be featured exactly as they happened for completeness, or maybe they will be edited to pick out the juiciest bits with some voiceover added for emphasis. And so on, basically to infinity. Pick a medium and the formatting choices are kinda endless, from font and font size, to length, to punctuation styles, to pull quotes. Some of the formatting might be intended to keep the consumer’s attention, and some might be intended to just add fun flair. Some might be intended to make sure specific pieces of information get seen…and retained. You might use one format for communicating facts and another for commentary. What I hope is obvious, though, is that you have *a lot* of control over formatting. I might even argue that formatting can serve you really well, but that if you don’t put much thought into it, it’s probably serving you poorly. So…let’s be intentional about it, shall we?