My friend Leigh was visiting her friends and their two-year-old son, Carter. Leigh had been watching her friends, Carter’s parents, explaining to Carter all afternoon why he could not play with the hummingbird feeder. It was glass. It was full of “sticky water.” He had heard these reasons half a dozen times, he repeated the word “glass glass glass” to himself like a song. He did not seem to think sticky was a bad thing, smart boy.

Of course, when Carter’s parents were both out of sight, and just Leigh was there to watch him, he headed straight for the shiny glass feeder filled with bright red “juice.” That’s when it occurred to Leigh to say, “Carter, that’s the hummingbird’s sippy cup.” He looked at her. He looked at the feeder. Then he looked at his sippy cup. Carter then took himself over to the sandbox to play, leaving the fragile, sticky feeder alone at last.

If you’re trying to cut through the clutter of communication we all negotiate on a daily basis, go with something simple, concrete and relatable.

What would happen if you replaced conceptual jargon (in Carter’s case, “glass;” for your audience it might be “blog” or “optimize”) and wrote about real things in their world?