How important is it to capture, shape and own the vocabulary in a crisis or major public event? 

How about $700 billion worth.

The collapse of the investment banking and credit markets in the last few days holds an interesting lesson about the need to appeal to the right audiences with words that resonate. As this crisis unfolded almost by the hour, all you heard were the words "Wall Street" and "bailout" and "tax money." Run those backward like an old Beatles record and string those together, as most Americans did the first moment they heard them, and you get "Tax money is bailing out Wall Street." 

What the Administration failed to do at all, and most media neglected to calm down a minute and do either, was to characterize this properly as a "rescue plan for the American economy." Those shot-full-of-holes mortgage-backed securities may have been floating over the abyss, but to keep the discussion focused on Wall Street rather than the practical and all-too-real impact on average Americans only invited the worst interpretations of what was really at stake. Polls were showing public rejection of the plan was running at 80% or worse -- some of that was truly principled and practical opposition; too much of it was basic misunderstanding based upon what they heard.

In any crisis, you need to get the words right. Calling this plan a "Wall Street bailout" only served to incite and attract all kinds of pent-up resentment and venom about those "fat-cat Wall Street executives getting their big severance payment." What was needed was a trusted, calm voice that put this crisis in terms people could understand in their daily lives (hmm, Warren Buffett, got a minute?).

If someone had simply explained the impact on use of credit cards, how the banks might start calling in mortgages whose loan value exceeded market value, and showed the stark reality if what it means for the credit marks to clam up, it would have changed the debate.  

Words matter. 

I was attending a quarterly planning meeting of senior executives a few weeks ago -- 30 people seated in a long, narrow room with a projector in front. I was sitting near the back with the COO as each person took about a half hour to go through their PowerPoint presentation on critical issues they faced in their units. One after another, the presenters slogged through slide after slide (incidentally, I prefer the word "visual" since nothing slides anymore, but "visual" has not quite eased into the vernacular, especially when some people still call a set of "slides" a "deck" - sigh...). I don't think a single person ever said a word that wasn't somewhere jammed into a slide. Several people even jokingly called their dense visuals "eye charts." I observed person after person losing interest, looking at their watch or PDA, one nodding off to sleep. The high point was when the CFO stood up, lit up the room with his hopelessly crammed slide of financial data and actually admitted "I know you can read this, but..."

By now the COO was tapping his pen against the table in disgust. I leaned over and said "What did this meeting cost?" He did not answer at first with the obvious - the cost of renting the conference center meeting room or the projector - but I saw him casting his eyes over the group counting heads and salaries. "$25,000" he wrote on his pad and turned it toward me.

"More" I scribbled back -- the cost of having the entire management team peering at unreadable slides instead of running a business, the cost in morale and energy in coming together as a team and walking away confused and exhausted.

Frankly, I'm appalled at times with what I see (or CAN'T see) in business presentations. I love to work with clients on improving their "visuals" (thank you, I feel better) not because it satisfies any creative impulse, but because making your point visually -- powerfully, clearly and memorably -- matters to the success of your business.