The Twin Killers of Business Communication

Managers, business owners, and professionals of all stripes take note – there are killers lurking in your communications. They undermine your words, cast doubt on your trustworthiness, and make people question your judgement. They can create breakdowns in communication between team members, between departments, and most certainly between your business and your customers. The killers’…

Quality of voice

There’s been a lot of flap in gender politics over the quality of voices.  Many have vehemently said that we shouldn’t judge someone based on how they sound. I agree with this.  We shouldn’t.  But expecting people to not make these judgements is about as unrealistic as the old cliche about not judging a book by…

What’s the deal with vocal fry?

I finally got off my backside and did something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time – start a video component to this blog. Here it is for your viewing pleasure: the first ever (and rather rough) Up Front Communication vlog post!         I will be posting more videos here in…

Say it out loud

Yes, you sound different when you speak than when you write. The carefully massaged sentence, paragraph, or turn of phrase is unlikely to come out of your mouth in the same way that it reads on paper. Writing, reading, and unscripted speaking are all different mental processes. You can create a consistency between your spoken…

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…