New products. Everyone needs to create them, but, of course, it’s not easy. At the Publishers Roundtable here on Monday, publishers went around the room discussing a product they were developing. It soon became clear that one of the most important parts of this process is communicating clearly to your audience:

- What the product does.
- How it best functions.
- How do we train our customers to use it? How do we price that? Is it included?
- Do we need a customer service department to work with sales?
- Do we develop separate training webinars or dvds?

Geoffrey Tumlin (pictured here), author of the new book Stop Talking, Start Communicating: Counterintuitive Secrets to Success in Business and in Life, argues that expediency—not comprehension—has become the crux of our communication exchanges today. “We want to plow through our inboxes, respond to new text or voice messages as soon as they come in, and get face-to-face conversations over quickly so we can move on to the next thing.”

There’s even expediency in getting products out to the market. It used to be you could take time to get a new product in the marketplace, but today, it’s better to roll it out, listen to the feedback and make it better. That makes sense. But Tumlin would want you to be careful:

“The glut of messages we process on any given day encourages us to think of communication as something we do mechanically, when, in fact, communication is how we make our life. Smart communicators slow down when forming a message and consider whether or not the other person is likely to understand what they’re communicating. Without understanding, there’s no communication.”

Tumlin’s thing is that digital communication has let us pretend that overall communication is now better whereas it may just be faster. “…no matter how fancy our devices may become, they’ll never be able to eliminate the misunderstandings, the confusion, and the errors that occur when people talk,” he said.

There’s another interesting parallel: “…communication gets much more difficult as you increase the number of people [you’re sending to],” says Tumlin. “More people means more perspectives to consider. When we fail to account for these additional viewpoints, we run the risk of talking, texting, or typing right past each other…It’s not practical to think through every possible perspective before posting to Facebook or sending a group email. But we should take the extra step to consider key viewpoints…”

So what’s the answer?

1. Involve everyone from the start. If your marketers and editorial people—and even those who may answer the phone—understand the product, there’s a much better chance the customers will as well.

2. Start or propel your community/forum. This will give people a place to air their concerns and you a chance to listen and respond.

3. Communicate your vision of the product well to your customers. Perhaps send out a couple test emails to customers who you know well. See what they say.

4. It’s not about you; it’s about them. “Technology has encouraged communication on our terms and led to an explosion of self-expressive, me-first messages,” says Tumlin. Survey your customers early on or call a few one-on-one. Find out what they need to become better.

5. Think about rolling it out at a live event. “Our devices can’t handle anywhere near the amount of interpersonal nuance and complexity that human interaction entails,” Tumlin said. This might be a way to get your “champions” on board (and social media-izing). “If we put people back at the center of our conversations, this really could be the golden age of communication.”

6. Empathize with your customers. Teachers are harried, health workers may be lost in a sea of red tape, HR people are drowning. “Our technical capabilities have raced ahead of our actual abilities,” Tumlin said. Be realistic about your audience.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, go to the SIIA website.

Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline