Long before Nora Ephron wrote famous romantic comedy movies, she was a journalism student at Beverly Hills High School.

It made a huge difference in her career. Mine, as well.

The teacher, Mr. Simms, grabbed chalk and wrote six words on the blackboard:

Who? What? Where? Why? When? How?

He explained that the first line of every news story must contain these facts. Then he went on to tell them some facts for their news story. The school’s teachers would travel next Thursday to Sacramento for a colloquium in new teaching methods.

Ephron and her fellow students diligently wrote out these facts on their typewriters (this would have been the late 1950s). Everyone had some version of the same lede (or lead), the first line of a newspaper article.

Mr. Simms collected them all, read each aloud…

And THREW THEM in the TRASH.

“The lead to this story,” he said, ”is: There will be no school Thursday!”

If you ​watch Ephron tell it​, it’s clear this was a powerful moment for her.

She realized that journalism is about finding the point, understanding why something matters.

That’s also what we need to do to engage a technical audience. The point isn’t the facts about your product. It’s what they can do with it that matters.

When you ​see your product like a journalist​, you can highlight the things that actually make a difference to developers, engineers, and architects.

You’ll have a perspective that shows your job is more about education than promotion. It’s less about your product and more about the problem that it solves.