Good old Peter Drucker formalized the personas in his advice to new employees to figure out how their bosses consumed information:
1 - The lawyer. Needs walls of text.
2 - The architect. Needs diagrams, visuals.
3 - The accountant. Needs numbers, spreadsheets.
4 - The actor. Needs a conversation, verbal.
It's a generalization, of course, but I have applied this pattern successfully. The core bit is that using the wrong method with any of the 4 personas flat out does not work.
Send a long article to an accountant and they're stumped. But send them a bunch of numbers and they hear the numbers sing. Etc.
Tangent on the Amazon way of write ups - Bezos forced his persona on the whole company. I would hste it. I am an architect, a few diagrams is all I need.
"The lawyer" is probably a bad name, but I've definitely worked with this sort of person before. "The novelist" might be a better name.
Of of my ex-bosses preferred long, well-written emails to just about any other form of communication. He was a really bright guy with a degree in English Literature that somehow stumbled his way into the software industry. When he wanted to start working with a new technology, he'd ingest a small pile of driest textbooks on the subject over the course of a week or so, understand and retain all of it, then start running laps around the folks who had been working with the tech for years. He's still the only engineer I've ever met that preferred learning-by-reading over learning-by-doing.
I also prefer learning by reading. But there are some things you can only learn by doing. I usually don't like and try to avoid technology that I should be able to learn by reading, but which is so *uck*d up, that you can only learn it by doing.
Definitely agree with your approach to drafting, but I think you could be overreacting a bit here. Even the shortest contracts might seem like a "wall of text" to the lay person, and short paragraphs stringed together is a wall of text.
At any rate the preferred format in most legal contexts is still "`wall' of text" (whether big or small wall, as opposed to diagrams, spreadsheets, or conversations), which is what I think was the original point.
> short paragraphs stringed together is a wall of text.
"White space is your friend" is another rule I preach to my students. Some 40 years of dealing with contracts has persuaded me that short paragraphs with white space in between them are FAR easier to review and negotiate — which means they get signed sooner, and clients vastly prefer that.
> as opposed to diagrams, spreadsheets, or conversations
For several years there have been people banging the drum for contracts to include more icons, flow charts, etc., for improved readability. So far, that idea hasn't gotten a lot of traction — IMHO that's because most lawyers barely even know how to use Microsoft Word competently and would have no idea how to create a flow chart or meaningful icon, so they default to writing pure text (which is also the quickest and thus cheapest path to getting a draft onto someone else's desk).
About the best I've been able to come up with in this regard, as something that can be done with Word, is to create tables of, e.g., action items, with columns such as "Event | Action | Who | When" — basically, an Intel-style "AR list" [0], or in software, a CASE statement.
You are describing the "good lawyer". Judging by the absolute walls of text given in the terms of service and contracts of almost every big company out there, most lawyers are not "good lawyers".
I sometimes wonder whether some lawyers intentionally draft wall-of-words text in the hope that the other side's contract reviewer will miss something because of the MEGO Effect (Mine Eyes Glaze Over).
I hate when a long technical document doesn't use BLUF, ie omits a summary at the start with the main topics.
There's too much info on the internet, and even in internal documentation: if I have to read half the thing to understand if it's relevant, I'm gonna spend most of my time on irrelevant stuff.
This is a problem with asking engineers to document without having a writing culture. I've seen it happen: once it's written down, that's it: it's documented, great work! But we should treat it more like code, with clear divisions of concern s, scopes and even refactors when needed!
I really love how even the lawyers don't want these gigantic walls of texts they produce.
I totally get the walls of text are needed to a point, and we don't have good options to produce succint contracts. It just feels like an everybody lose situation.
> I totally get the walls of text are needed to a point, and we don't have good options to produce succin[c]t contracts.
You're too kind — literally.
Wall-of-words text is never needed in a contract. Clients should demand that lawyers do a better job in drafting readable contracts — because readable contracts get signed sooner, thus taking up less of the business people's time to negotiate and freeing them up to focus on other things (not to mention being less costly).
</rant>
The Two Great Rules of Readability above will get you at least 95% of the way there.
Wall-of-words contract language is analogous to spaghetti code in a computer program.
Jeff Bezos is known for his long-term thinking and his annual letters to shareholders are famous for their extensive detail and length.
Mark Zuckerberg is known for his long-term vision and often communicates his ideas in lengthy blog posts and public statements.
ACCOUNTANTS - needs numbers, spreadsheets
Sundar Pichai has an engineering background and tends to rely on data and analysis in decision-making.
Satya Nadella has an engineering background and has emphasized the importance of data-driven decision-making at Microsoft.
Warren Buffett is famous for his value investing approach, which emphasizes analyzing financial statements and data to identify undervalued companies.
ARCHITECTS - needs diagrams, visuals
Tim Cook is known for his attention to design and user experience, and Apple's keynotes and product launches often feature detailed visuals and product demonstrations.
Elon Musk frequently communicates his ideas through visually compelling presentations, and is known for his ambitious plans for space exploration and sustainable energy.
ACTORS - needs a conversation, verbal
Mark Cuban is known for his outgoing and talkative personality. He often engages in conversations with fans and customers on social media and in public appearances, and is very comfortable in front of the camera.
Richard Branson is known for his flamboyant and charismatic personality. He often appears in public events and media interviews, and is known for his storytelling and ability to captivate audiences with his words.
Yeah but the weekly WBR where the directors ask what a cell means on the DataNet report but the data isnt' sussed out so the L5 Data science guy that reports to the L7 PMT will spend the next week changing SQL to produce that requested view for the next week WBR.
Many L6 promos over the years went out to folks who could quickly and accurately build WBR decks that gave L8s the visibility they wanted.
So maybe Bezos is the lawyer, and all the directors are accountants.
Good old Peter Drucker formalized the personas in his advice to new employees to figure out how their bosses consumed information:
1 - The lawyer. Needs walls of text.
2 - The architect. Needs diagrams, visuals.
3 - The accountant. Needs numbers, spreadsheets.
4 - The actor. Needs a conversation, verbal.
It's a generalization, of course, but I have applied this pattern successfully. The core bit is that using the wrong method with any of the 4 personas flat out does not work.
Send a long article to an accountant and they're stumped. But send them a bunch of numbers and they hear the numbers sing. Etc.
Tangent on the Amazon way of write ups - Bezos forced his persona on the whole company. I would hste it. I am an architect, a few diagrams is all I need.