Summary: Not every piece of digital content is made to inspire or entertain. Sometimes, it’s just raw data giving a system message—like a JSON response with an error. It’s functional, not fictional. Yet, misunderstanding such responses can cost businesses real time, money, or even opportunity. This post unpacks the mechanics and significance of a deceptively simple message: This is not a webpage text that contains a story. The provided text appears to be a JSON response with an error message related to an insufficient account balance. There is no main story to extract or rewrite in this case.
What Looks Like an Error… Is Actually a Message
First, let’s be clear—a JSON response isn’t meant for storytelling in the human sense. It’s a communication format. Machines use it to talk clearly with other machines. So when your client or your frontend developer receives a JSON response like this:
{
"error": "Insufficient account balance"
}
…that’s not an invitation to spin a narrative. It’s a system alert. It means someone tried to perform an action—call an API, make a purchase, load a resource—that required more funds than were available in the linked account. The request was rejected, not for creative effect, but due to black-and-white policy enforcement. No story, just a roadblock.
Why Precision Matters More Than Drama
The message says what it says, and nothing more. Rewriting it to squeeze out a story—or worse, wrapping non-story content in a storytelling wrapper—is not only a waste of time, it risks distorting the logic that developers rely on. Misreading a financial error as a narrative misrepresents the problem and trips wires on decisions that follow.
In an information economy, drama has become currency. But reliable systems don’t need emotion. They need clarity and constraints. This is one of those rare times where a single hard “no”—like Voss recommends—has real value. “No” forces the user to stop. To reassess. To question:
What were we trying to do? What was the resource requirement? Why weren’t the funds there?
That’s where the human thinking begins. But don’t confuse that thinking process as something that must be reflected in the message itself. The JSON is not failing to “tell a story.” It’s correctly telling you there’s no story to tell. That’s the whole point.
Respect the Role of the Medium
Trying to mine a JSON error for content is like flipping through a medical chart and asking, “Where’s the plot twist?” You’re in the wrong room. Just as doctors read charts differently from novelists, technical professionals must treat data like data. JSON’s job is not engagement. It’s execution. It’s part of how systems stay transparent, consistent, and traceable.
Blair Warren teaches us persuasion comes from confirming suspicion. Guess what most developers already suspect? That marketing types don’t respect system communications. You gain more influence with them by saying, “You’re right—this isn’t content, it’s protocol. Let’s not dress it up.” That’s respect. That earns trust.
So Where Is the Value?
If there’s no story to extract, then where’s the business value? Easy: it’s in the meaning behind the error. Errors like “insufficient balance” are often overlooked canaries in the coalmine. They signal:
- Unexpected user behavior (perhaps fraudulent or mistakenly repetitive)
- Gaps in onboarding or financial management workflows
- Missed communication in payment expectations
Seen from that angle, the JSON message isn’t content—it’s telemetry. Telemetry about user intent and system friction. It points to a flow that broke. Now that’s a business problem worth solving. But the message itself? Leave it clean. Leave it dry. Let it do its job.
Don’t Overfill the Silence
This brings us to something Voss would hammer in any negotiation: silence is useful. When you get a JSON error, pause. Don’t talk yet. Don’t interpret yet. Don’t explain it away to your team with metaphors or analogies. Let the quiet set in and ask:
What expectation wasn’t met?
What action isn’t the system willing to do—and why?
What does this tell us about the user’s objective or misunderstanding?
You’re having a conversation with the system. If you listen closely, it’s telling you exactly where to look next. But it won’t speak in story arcs. It will speak in reserved, structured, valuable no’s.
The Takeaway for Business and Marketing Leaders
Treat every system message—every JSON response—not as dead content but as signal. Don’t waste cycles inventing narrative where there is none. Instead, move up a level of abstraction.
Ask your team: is the structure of our pricing, funding, or user flow setting people up to fail? Are people hitting these errors because we trained them poorly? Are we building frustration instead of confidence?
Marketing doesn’t always need to generate creative assets. Often, it’s your job to extract insight from non-creative sources and convert it into better positioning, smarter pricing, or clearer onboarding.
Final Thought
This post isn’t about JSON, any more than a weather report is about raindrops. It’s about knowing what tools serve what roles—and resisting the urge to force them into something they’re not. Respect the boundary between system and story. Speak in code when the moment demands code. Save your narrative for the human layer, where it belongs.
#JSONErrors #SystemDesign #BusinessThinking #UserFriction #MarketingClarity #EnterpriseUX #TechnicalCommunication #ProfessionalMarketing #IEEOMethod
Featured Image courtesy of Unsplash and Minseok Kwak (GIttmwa7K74)
