Danielle M. Villegas is a technical communicator who currently employed at Cox Automotive, Inc., and freelances as her own technical communications consultancy, Dair Communications. She has worked at the International Refugee Committee, MetLife, Novo Nordisk, BASF North America, Merck, and Deloitte, with a background in content strategy, web content management, social media, project management, e-learning, and client services. Danielle is best known in the technical communications world for her blog, TechCommGeekMom.com, which has continued to flourish since it was launched during her graduate studies at NJIT in 2012. She has presented webinars and seminars for Adobe, the Society for Technical Communication (STC), the IEEE ProComm, TCUK (ISTC) and at Drexel University’s eLearning Conference. She has written articles for the STC Intercom, STC Notebook, the Content Rules blog, and The Content Wrangler as well. She is very active in the STC, as a former chapter president for the STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter, and is currently serving on three STC Board committees. You can learn more about Danielle on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemvillegas, on Twitter @techcommgeekmom, or through her blog.
All content is the owner's opinions, and does not reflect those of her employers past or present.
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TechCommGeekMom 
Don’t engage. Inform.
Don’t ask people to spend time with your content. See how you can save them time.
It sounds good, but….Does that mean we should stop writing essays or long-form articles because “people” don’t want to read them? (Ever notice how writers use the term “people” as if it meant “everyone” when all it really means is “some people that I’m thinking of”?) If we follow Gerry’s advice, we — all people — will be the poorer.
Sometimes it takes more than 500 words to develop a thought and make a case. “People” need to understand that.
I understand your point, Larry. Based on your comment, yes, the author could have framed it a little more succinctly. In the end, taking his point and your point into consideration, to me it boils down to the tech comm mantra: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Some groups will need more in-depth content, and others need right-time-right-info content. If you think about it, the context of the content is the point here. Content writers need to think about the context in this instant gratification driven world that’s powered by mobile.