A Marketplace of Ideas

If you live or work in an urban area with tall buildings and cold winter months, you probably couldn’t miss the relatively recent phenomenon of signs on the sidewalk that say, Caution Falling Ice. Sound advice at the face of it, but upon further review, not a very effective piece of communications.

Inherent in good persuasive communications are three elements summarized as follows:

What. So what. Now what.

Like many signs (Stop and Exit for example) Caution Falling Ice is clear about the “what” of the message—there just might be ice falling from the buildings. The “so what” of the message is understood intuitively—you certainly don’t want to get hit. But unlike Stop and Exit, Caution Falling Ice does not provide a good “now what.” What are we suppose to do? Look up for falling ice? First of all, we probably wouldn’t see it till too late. Secondly, without watching where we were going, we would run into a pole or some other poor sap looking up. Cross the street, you suggest? The same signs are over there. Walk in the middle of the street? Obviously that won’t work. Taken seriously, these signs create unintended and disastrous consequences.

I’m sure the building owner must see this as liability protection, though if the only alternative is to find the Northwest Passage to your destination, it hardly seems like fair warning.

Perhaps there are better ways to solve the liability problem. Designate a safe path…build an overhang to catch falling ice…install heaters to prevent ice from falling…or something better. But short of that, don’t tell me to be cautious of falling ice. I’d rather take the chance of not knowing what hit me.