When tone is more important than content

I interrupt our series on communicating with intimacy to bring you a long overdue bit of Friday Silliness. In today’s lesson, Toby Turner – also known as the YouTube personality Tobuscus – demonstrates how tone can completely contradict content.  Alliteration aside, it is a useful lesson. Tobuscus: Dramatic Song   Does your chorus sound like Coldplay?

Awkward moments

One of the workshops I provide is about answering questions under fire.  Today’s video is an example of what can happen when you are under fire and lose control of where the questions may go. Enjoy! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGWBjcQDiHo&w=560&h=315]

An offering of silliness

In order to make up for neglecting to post a ridiculous video for you last Friday (the new parent broken sleep exhaustion is catching up with me), I present you three very silly clips: #1:  Stating things simply is often the best way to present our message.  It doesn’t get much simpler than this: [youtube…

Muscle madness

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…

But how does it sound?

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…

I can has poker face?

Control over your facial expressiveness is a boon.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the ability to let your face show people what you want when you want is worth many, many hours of embarrassing practice in front of your bathroom mirror. The importance of this skill is demonstrated beautifully by Denver…

Channeling Tom Cruise

Today’s dose of Friday Fun comes courtesy of Miles Fisher and his promo for Superhero Movie. I use emulation activities with my clients as a way of recognizing other people’s signature speaking quirks and then using that knowledge to recognize and develop their own signature style.  A big part of these exercises involve figuring out the emotional…