The Elements of Communication: Bore-on

General
Bore-on is the element of dullness you find in communication pieces that you can’t seem to focus on for more than ten seconds. It’s typified by long sentences that drone on and on, often taking a stream-of-consciousness style, which, by definition, is “characterized by a manner of writing in which a character’s thoughts or perceptions are presented as occurring in random form, without regard for logical sequences, syntactic structure, distinctions between various levels of reality, or the like.”

Some of the best examples of the use of Bore-on include Farewell to Arms, Infinite Jest and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Characteristics
The most common characteristic of Bore-on is that your audience will start yawning or often fall asleep shortly after high levels of exposure to this element. Here are the surefire ways to include Bore-on in your communication pieces:

• Use long, elaborate sentences with lots of commas and confusing verbiage.
• Create a bland catch phrase like, “Be the future!” Repeat this every three minutes.
• When discussing your company’s HR policies with a new employee, start by explaining what the policies were ten years ago so you can show the progression throughout the years.
• Give the example you’ve already told all of your employees 10 times. Then tell it again.
• Write our your entire speech on your PowerPoint presentation, and read it verbatim.
• Speak in a continuous monotone.
• When leading meetings, prepare too much material to ensure you’ll still be talking ten minutes after the meeting’s scheduled end time.
• Stick to the following color palette: black, white, tan, gray and mauve.
• Take all of your references from Thoreau’s Walden.

Recommended Methodology Against Future Occurrences
Research shows that although a common communication element, removing future occurrences of Bore-on is quite simple. Here’s how to remove this communication element from your daily life:

• Use the words, “food,” “sex,” “danger” and “free” as often as possible.
• Speak directly to the reader by using “you” statements in your writing.
• Write short sentences and vary your sentence structure.
• Start sentences with action verbs.
• Engage your audience by asking questions, or break up the lecture with discussion.
• Challenge yourself to use bold textures, fonts and colors that pop.
• Apply different types of media in your presentations—videos, photos and music.
• Build in a twist. Create a story arc for your audience to follow.
• Make references to Lady Gaga, LOST and Iron Man, Part 2.

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