SILICON VALLEY
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
BREAKFAST PROGRAM
Delivering the Message: How to Communicate Technical Issues to a Non-Technical Audience
As scientists wrestle with increasingly complex concepts that lead to previously-unimaginable discoveries, the ability to communicate what they are doing to non-scientists has grown ever more difficult. Yet, the need to provide meaningful information on highly technical concepts to a wide range of people – both inside and outside a company – who do not have a scientific background has never been more important. The task of bridging this communication gap frequently falls on company executives, in-house lawyers and outside lawyers. In-house lawyers must explain abstruse matters to non-technical company managers, and those executives must in turn explain them to board members and investors. Patent litigators are particularly cursed, as they have the unenviable job of attempting to make cutting-edge scientific concepts understandable to overwhelmed judges and jurors who almost certainly do not feel at all comfortable with science or technology.
Success or failure may be determined by the ability to communicate complex matters to a beleagured audience:
 | Company executives need to understand their core technologies in order to make crucial strategic decisions; | |
| Investors need to understand those technologies in order to make informed investment decisions; | |
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Judges and jurors need to understand the technologies at issue in a case in order to resolve the legal and factual issues presented to them. | |
To further complicate the problem, the best methods for communicating scientific concepts may vary, depending on whom the speaker is trying to reach – for example, what works for a company executive may not work for a jury.
In this program, a panel consisting of a lawyer, an expert witness and a graphics creator discuss how to help non-scientists understand technology. The panel will provide practical hints on communication techniques that can be used to convey technological principles to non-scientists in several different settings.
