The man looking disdainfully at you in the portrait below is someone you know whether you’re aware of it or not – Samuel Morse.

And this is a self portrait, too! Samuel always smiles, see!

Morse was, of course, the inventor of Morse code and one of the inventors of the telegraph (which would be hotly disputed in later years to the point that Morse would start sending incredulous messages just like we do over text today!).

At first, nobody cared about Samuel’s newfangled telegraph electronic messaging machine and it was largely ignored. That was until he somehow convinced the US Congress to install a line for use between the Supreme Court chambers in the US Capitol and Baltimore, MD.

To test the first ever message on this device, Morse asked a young woman named Annie Ellsworth to send the famous first message over a telegraph. It read “What hath God wrought?, taken from Numbers 23:23 and ushering in a question we sometimes hilariously ask ourselves about electronic communication today.

Most importantly, the message developed by Morse followed the tenets of an effective way to ask questions or look for feedback and advice on audio projects or your career, such as:

1. Make it short
2. Make it specific
3. Make some patience

Let’s look at these in more detail…

It’s best to keep your messages short
People typically write a multi-page letter when reaching out to folks in the industry for feedback or career questions. These letters often include your personal backstory, your favorite game, and the names of all your pets and 2nd cousins who also love said person you’re messaging.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a fan or in love with creative content – that’s why we’re all here. But folks making a living tend to be, unfortunately, extremely busy. It’s not that most creators hate these kinds of messages – it’s that they unintentionally go on the backburner. It can also become guilt-inducing to receive, because the recipient really wants to affirm you and help, but often don’t have time to (and they feel like they should!)

A better tact is to keep your message short. 1-2 paragraphs is perfect because it’s enough to read through and respond to quickly. By getting good at this, you’ll also experience a wonderful phenomenon of being able to follow up from your first message with additional questions later on!

Make it specific by asking one question about one thing
While we have the habit of wanting to emotionally reach out to folks and express our undying love for their game or music, we’ve established that those types of messages are often overwhelming. The next pitfall is our tendency to be too broad with our asks.

While it seems super innocent and fine to respond to questions like “Would you give me feedback on my reel?” or your bullet pointed list of 4-5 additional thoughts – time once again becomes an issue, as well as mental energy.

Discerning and giving detailed feedback on even a 90-second reel can become a time consuming endeavour. Because the ask isn’t specific, folks feel like they’ll need to provide complete coverage and thoughts. Additionally, some of that feedback will need to be formatted in order to make sure that nobody’s toes are being stepped on too hard. Also, the more detailed the feedback – it can take quite a while to write up coherently.

A more practical method is to be extremely specific and clear about one thing you want feedback on. Whether that is “I feel like the sword stab at :30 doesn’t have enough ‘oomph’ and I’m not sure how to get it more beefy – do you have any suggestions?” to “I’m about to submit my resume to a job, do you think I should list out all of the software I know?” – if it’s detailed and clear, the feedback can be as well.

Again, the magic of this approach is that you’ll be able to follow up with similar questions later (so long as they’re not all peppered one right after the other)

People are still unlikely to get back to you, have patience
We can do our best to format messages in a succint and actionable manner, but we don’t control the other end of the communication line. Unfortunately, people are still busy and hair is often on fire all the time at game studios. If it takes hours, or days, or longer to get back to you – it’s not intentional. If someone never replies to you, that also usually not intentional.

The key is to have patience and grace when you reach out to folks. Those that you’re reaching out to have lives that don’t involve their jobs too. More often than not, folks are just focused on what they’re doing and not what you’re doing. So don’t give up, try again in a week or two. If you still hear nothing back, you can try following up once a month.

Most importantly, just remember that nobody owes us a response. Replying to our asks is a kindness, not a requirement of other people. It’s also not a judgment on you. If someone’s not replying to your messages, that doesn’t mean your awful or a horrible person or a failure – there are a lot of reasons your message can go missed, from busyness to not being sure what to say or not even logging in to check messages.

“But meeehhh, what am I supposed to say in a message then?! Writing a super short message is hard! I love these games, isn’t it important and powerful to get some common ground and share common interests??”
It’s absolutely important to bond with people when building relationships – but bonds don’t form by expressing your undying love for a game or product, usually.

Recognize this – universally, our most valuable asset is time. When you’re younger especially, you have time to think, explore, and play so the reality of limited time can be less upfront. But, plenty of working professionals have extremely limited time, though we dearly want to help, too.

When you recognize and honor the time commitment you’re asking of another person, that’s a huge show of respect to them. When you take the time to get specific, often, people will want to put in even more time than you asked for. Test it out and you’ll probably be surprised!

Okay, so what are those tenets again?

1. Make it short
2. Make it specific
3. Make some patience

While electronic communication has enabled us to speak our minds liberally…
Remember how clear and concise Morse was with his first message ever. Even a single sentence can convey a question that invariably turns extremely deep and detailed.