Hard work

Famous speakersLeave a comment

I’m currently watching yesterday’s episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  His guest was Bill Clinton, who recently delivered an extraordinary speech at the Democratic National Convention.  Clinton is one of the most highly regarded contemporary public speakers and delivers hundreds of speeches every year. When Jon Steward asked Clinton if he could tell that…

(Hand)Written words

Connecting2 Comments

There is something magical about receiving a hand-written note.  Assuming that the content of the note is desirable, they give a sort of warm fuzzy feeling that can only be approximated by flowers or a box of chocolates. As communication now is all about instantaneous delivery, hand-written greetings – especially when delivered by mail – are…

Everything that’s old…

CreatingLeave a comment

Up-cycling, reusing, re-purposing, refinishing, and other activities that take old things and polishes them up into something newly relevant are very, very hot at the moment.   This surge of interest in making use of well-worn objects can be chalked up to a number of factors: frugality movements, tough economies and lower disposable incomes, environmentalism, and…

Muscle madness

Funny StuffLeave a comment

Old Spice: the bodywash that makes my husband stink like a dog in a swamp but that has one of the best advertising departments ever. Here’s one of their latest interactive internet ads.  I’m not even going to try to cleverly tie this to a communication quip.  All I can say is that it made me…

The chatty chameleon

Reading peopleLeave a comment

It helps to be a bit of a social and verbal chameleon.  Matching your language, demeanor, and expression to the expectations of your audience is generally a good thing. Adapting yourself to your audience is not about abandoning your personal style or changing your message to suit someone else’s expectations.  It’s about increasing your personal…

But how does it sound?

Funny StuffLeave a comment

Voice quality is a very, very important thing.  A beautifully timbered voice can make the foolish sound clever.  A juvenile, chirpy tone can make the experienced professional seem like an vacuous twit. And a well-placed voice over can turn a touching scene into this: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfAww-6X2Ig&w=420&h=315] This is an old video, but I laugh myself…

Fear-based communication

TacticsLeave a comment

How many messages do you encounter in a day?  Discounting the ones that come from your own head (and lord knows those can be interesting), how many bits of info do you process on a daily, hourly, or even minute-by-minute basis? Let’s dig a little deeper: how often do you consider the tone of those…