"Anybody can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple." - Charles Mingus

It occurred to me recently: Somewhere along the way, I've started acting as if complexity conveys cleverness -- that is, the longer and more jargon- and acronym-filled my words, the smarter I must be.

That isn't true, of course. Even worse, it misses the point of communicating. No longer am I helping to make meaning for the listener; instead, I'm just trying to make myself look good.

Clarity is a virtue. Simplicity and brevity, too, if they get the point across. If my purpose is to inform and not to impress, then flowery rhetoric should take backseat to plain speech.

It makes sense. Now, if only my ego would agree...

"There is always a way -- if I'm as much of an expert as I think I am -- to forge a path for anyone to follow into a subject or skill. If I can't make that path, I don't understand my topic as much as my ego thinks I do." - Scott Berkun, Confessions of a Public Speaker