I had the honor of speaking and doing a little consulting at a conference last month with a group of highly educated and qualified scientists dealing with what is likely the most serious problem that we know facing humankind. I was the community engagement and communication guy. I felt a little out of place. Think of it as, Mr. Ed speaking at NASA. Anyway, they’d asked me to help them understand how to better talk to and engage people like you and me – people who don’t understand what they know, but desperately need to grasp and then talk about what these experts are learning, doing and why.

It was three days of conversations filled with a lot of letters like CDR, OAE, CO2, IPCC, NASEM, RFP, OAEMIP, NOAA, MRV, H2O. People in groups would talk and nod thoughtfully and sometimes laugh hysterically without anyone having used a complete word. I exaggerate, but you get the picture. I would often find myself wondering; what the heck are they talking about (WTHATTA)?! All of us – plumbers, carpenters, candlestick makers, rocket scientists and public engagement people – speak our own unique languages and often compress it into acronyms that save us time and space, but confounds the heck out of everybody else. Lose the acronyms if you can or at least abide by the following.