A year ago, my fellow employees and I officially launched the Town of Chapel Hill’s Plain Language program with an online center of excellence, a style guide, and an ambitious plan to train as many of our staff as possible in plain language basics. To celebrate everything we’ve accomplished this year, we decided to host a half-day conference and invited our neighboring local governments to join in on the fun.
We wanted to end the afternoon with a keynote speaker. We could have gone with a plain language expert to reinforce some of those how-tos and talk about the value of plain language, but we lucked into something different. Our North Carolina Piedmont laureate, Steven Petrow, a journalist and author, came to talk with us about fear and connection.
What do fear and connection have to do with plain language?
Everything.
Because the benefit of plain language isn’t having a better document, or a streamlined presentation. It isn’t writing better emails. The real benefit for us in local government is serving our community the best we can.
Steven shared his perspective on the social cohesion we’ve experienced here in North Carolina, responding to the disaster laid down by Hurricane Helene. You’ve probably seen photographs showing how, in one devastating push, the storm broke our physical connections, but it also obliterated the invisible lines we draw around ourselves. Race, religion, and politics fade when we’re focused on giving out food and water, or delivering insulin by drone and bringing medical care on horseback.
Times of crisis highlight what’s really important: our human connection to one another.
What does this human connection have to do with plain language?
Everything.
If you look up plain language, you’ll quickly find a lot of “how-to” information. How to write, how to edit, how to measure – and it’s all really important. But ultimately, plain language isn’t only about posting a finely edited document; it’s about what that information means to someone else. It’s about how we’re connecting with each other every day, crisis or not.
Underneath all the how-to tips and tricks for implementing plain language or building your skills is our fundamental need to connect.
We put our conference together in hopes of celebrating the hard work our staff has done and to share our enthusiasm with our neighbors. We included sessions about prototyping documents, writing better emails, and applying plain language to presentations, but on their way out the door, what people said was that they had fun. They were glad to meet each other. They enjoyed the interaction and hoped we’d do it again.
It was a good reminder to come home to the fundamental why of plain language. We do this work because we want to connect, to share, and to learn. It’s a fitting reminder as we close out International Plain Language month and look ahead to the year ahead.
About the author: Mary Jane Nirdlinger is a Deputy Town Manager for the Town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She is also a Board Member of the Center for Plain Language and an advocate for plain language in local government.