Give Your Story the Twitter Treatment

It’s no surprise audience attention spans are getting progressively shorter, but you may be interested to learn just how short they have become.  According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the average attention span in the year 2000 was 12 seconds – an already dismal figure – but by 2013 our ability to stay focused had dropped to a measly eight seconds. 

In a world where many people now get their news from Twitter in 140 characters or less, it makes sense why so many have a tough time staying engaged for long periods of time.  As technological advancements continue to create more distractions in our daily lives and feed the growing “instant-gratification” mindset - if you’ve ever binge-watched an entire season of House of Cards or Breaking Bad over a weekend, then you’ve become a victim as well - we expect this number to drop even further.

When it comes to defending lawsuits, these shrinking attention spans highlight the importance of developing themes and language that appeal to how today’s jurors process information, and presenting it in ways that get through to the easily distracted.

The simplest way to do that is put your messages, themes, explanations and opening and closing statements on a diet.  No matter how many moving parts a case has, there is no reason opening arguments should take 2.5 hours.  Our exit interviews reveal that many jurors view these kinds of drawn-out presentations, as well as long, repetitive witness examinations, as disrespectful of their time.  Whichever side has the simpler, shorter story always has the advantage and looks better in the jury’s eyes – so make sure that’s you.

We recently monitored a medical malpractice trial where opening statements took less than 30 minutes – for both sides.  The plaintiff testified, both direct and cross, in just 18 minutes.  Although not every case can be presented so quickly and not every trial can proceed at such an accelerated pace, we firmly believe the goal should always be to make things as short as possible.  A good rule of thumb is:  If you can’t fit your explanation on a Post-It note, then you can’t explain it adequately.

In response to that we often hear, “But this case is too complex to be reduced to a Twitter-friendly format.”  If that truly is the case, and trial research and even inter-office discussions are unable to reveal ways to explain each side’s position simply and concisely, then you should seriously consider that when deciding whether to take a case to trial.

And this “shorter-is-better” philosophy doesn’t start and end with juries – mediators, judges, committees and claims managers are people too, and are highly receptive to short, simple and easily digestible explanations, theories and messages.

Not every case is simple, but all cases can be simplified.  If you have a case that could benefit from some simplification and juror feedback, please contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at cluna@juryimpact.net or 714.754.1010.