Archive for the ‘Humanity’ Category

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The Ten Tenets of Effective Communication (Part 1 of 3)

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Both you and your audience benefit when your communication adheres to these tenets

Effective communication is about connecting with your audience. It’s about your audience getting your message as you intended. It begins with understanding who your audience is and how they can best ‘hear’ your message, then using this information to craft and deliver your message. This is simply another way of saying that your message, whether written, verbal, or visual, must be audience-centered—focused around the needs of your audience. Put yet another way, communication is less about you and all about them.

Effective communication is simple and clear, focuses around a single idea, and ultimately achieves the results you desire.

ColumnsTo be most effective, your communication must adhere to these ten tenets. Effective communication is:

  • Honest,
  • Clear,
  • Accurate,
  • Comprehensive,
  • Accessible,
  • Concise,
  • Correct,
  • Timely, and
  • Well designed.
  • It builds goodwill too.

Let’s start with a discussion of the first two and then continue with the remaining eight over my next two blog entries.

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Posted in Communication, Humanity, Writing | 3 Comments »

Writing 201: Analyzing the Writing Process

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

An ironic approach to purposeful writing.

Being a writer, I follow a fairly strict process when writing—the same process that I preach about when teaching clients how to write: Pre-writing: planning and drafting; Reviewing: rewriting and revising; and Finishing: editing, applying mechanics, and formatting.

I’ve taught this process to many people (including my children). After all, there is a very good reason: it works!

Tyler & Kaena Pt rainbowThe Pre-writing phase allows you to identify who you are writing for (your audience) and what you want to say to them; to identify the purpose of your writing, to determine the points you want to make and enumerate them; to begin drafting your ideas based on these points to get your thoughts on paper without restriction. This is where the bulk of your writing can take place.

The Reviewing phase enables you to clarify your draft: to embellish your words, to add more details, to tighten up your text, to clear up any ambiguities, to sequence thoughts better, to ensure your text speaks to your purpose, to delete anything that runs astray, to cut off tangents, to sharpen.

The Finishing phase is where you edit: to employ better words, to fix grammatical infractions, to correct mechanical errors, to change punctuation, to format for clarity and understanding.

Imagine my consternation, then—with a bit of a smile—when I received the following analysis of the process my son employs for writing papers (including email and IM) at university. In his own words…

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Posted in Communication, Humanity, Writing | 5 Comments »

How to Truly Listen

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

True listening engages not only your ears and mind, but also your eyes and heart

An update: Solari is currently working with two clients, helping them with audience analysis, interviewing, writing, and presentation skills. It struck me — again — how much listening plays a critical part in communication. So, even though we published this position paper of listening a while ago, it bears reiterating. Enjoy.

True listening encompasses all there is about effective listening, and augments professional discourse with a human touch. Effective listening hears the words; true listening hears the person. Effective listening employs your ears and mind; true listening engages your eyes and heart. Effective listening understands the message; true listening transcends the message and gains profound insight.

Still more floraTaken together, effective listening and true listening deeply enhance your relationships.

True listening means seeing beyond the words, engendering trust, and establishing an emotional personal connection.

See beyond the words. The nonverbal part of communication often expresses more than the actual words themselves. To truly listen, engage all your senses.

As you hear someone talk and begin to understand the concept, look for the emotion, passion, and feeling of the words to truly understand the depth of the message. Instead of just asking questions to better comprehend, recognize and articulate these emotions and feelings. Many times the person talking doesn’t even realize how emotionally involved they are.

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Posted in Communication, Humanity, Listening | No Comments »

How Useful Is Your Twitter Stream?

Friday, August 21st, 2009

The quality, authenticity, and benefits of Twitter communication are at stake.

The use of Twitter has simply exploded over the past year. As your list of followers grows, so do the amount of tweets, retweets, and direct messages you receive. Most of these tweets are well intended, but how useful are they?

An increasing percentage of the tweets you receive are spam. Twitter is especially vulnerable, given its inherent automation. Anyone can easily follow tens of thousands of people, and then gain a large percentage of followers in return. An easy, ready market for spam from lurid “marketers”.

What does Twitter spam look like? Twitter spam can take many forms. Legitimate companies spam when they endlessly promote their products through dummy Twitter accounts. These accounts often bear no resemblance to the products they pitch. Con artists attempt to shift your money and to gain your identity through a series of shady financial transactions. You are probably wary of these: “Help me access my dead uncle’s $20 million from a backward third-world country and receive a 15% fee.” Still, a small percent click through.

Many times, spam tweets are sent by members with few followers yet following as many as possible. This should be your first tip-off when someone starts to follow you. These people send tweets with blind tiny URLs linked to those click-here-if-you-are-18-years-or-older sites — except that requirement is frequently omitted. These can easily be identified by the busty, cleavage-popping, young lady’s photo on the account.

Then there are the “See how I got 3,000 followers in one afternoon” spammers. Another come-on: “I can show you how to make $1,000,000 by tomorrow afternoon by following this simple method. No, really I can!” Hair removal treatment for women garners a good share of spam tweets. You get the idea.

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Posted in Communication, Humanity, Marketing, Microblogging, Promotion, Social media, Twitter | 6 Comments »

The Power of Viral Social Media

Friday, August 14th, 2009

United Airlines broke the guitar of Dave Carroll of the band Sons of Maxwell, and he wasn’t happy. For a couple of reasons. First, while changing planes in Chicago, he and his band mates watched United’s baggage handlers throwing his guitar. And second, this was a $3,500 Taylor guitar, quite an expensive musical instrument.

And, as suspected, when Dave arrived in Nebraska, he found the guitar’s neck broken. So Dave complained and asked for compensation. Enter the airline albatross of denial, as any of you know if you’ve ever had to file a claim for damaged or lost baggage. You probably can conclude the results: claim denied. And that was the beginning of United’s nightmare…  justifiably.

A number of events occurred after that, the most caustic and influential being a song written by Dave in United’s “honor” and performed by the band.

This video already has had almost 5 million (!) viewings. Subsequently, articles about Dave’s plight appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Independent (British). That’s viral social media at work. The power is tremendous!

So what has come of all this. Well, United donated $3,000 to the Thelonius Institute, a charity that supports jazz. Then, Bob Taylor, the guitar’s maker, gave Dave two free Taylor guitars.The video and resulting publicity has put the Sons of Maxwell on the musical map. So Dave came away fairly well.

How did United fare? Apparently, not so well. Within days of this video being published together with a flurry of related articles, United”s stock dropped 10%, costing shareholders about $180 million.

Social Media: a force for the rest of us.

–Rich Maggiani

Posted in Communication, Humanity, Listening, Marketing, Social media | No Comments »

How to Be an Effective Listener

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Effective listening means you get the message clear and complete, without bias

Effective listening is one of the most challenging activities you can engage in, and yet one of the most rewarding and beneficial – both to the person talking and especially to you, the listener. You have effectively listened when you can clearly articulate what the other person has said and understand it from their point of view. How do you get there? By concentrating, putting their message first (and yours second), and considering their background, perspective, and situation.

fix-rocky-stream-on-tantalus2Concentrate. What you might suspect is true. Concentrating while listening is far more difficult than during any other form of communication. Why? Simply put, we think much faster than we talk.

People say, on average, about 125 words a minute. But words can speed through our mind at the rate of 1,200 a minute and often much faster. Thus, speech happens at about 10% of your mind’s capacity. When listening, it’s virtually impossible to slow your thoughts to that pace – you continue to think at high speed. What you do with that other 90% of processing power is the essence of effective listening.

Concentration increases when you engage in a few mental activities focused on what you hear. First, think ahead: where is this going; what conclusions could you draw? Second, evaluate the talker’s points: are they complete, clear, sensible, overly emotional? And third, review all that has been said and think about it in its entirety.

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Posted in Communication, Humanity, Listening | No Comments »

Four Steps for Engaging in Social Media

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

The question is not whether you should engage in social media, but rather how to do it intelligently, effectively, and profitably by implementing our four-step plan

Engaging social media to promote your company is similar to taking a long trip in your car. You must take these four steps:

03-road-back-into-horizon-ks-ospf1. The vehicle you are taking: one you know how to drive.

2. Where you are going: your destination or goal.

3. How you are going to get to your destination; what are the means or objectives, for attaining your goals: the roads to take.

4. Checkpoints along the way: to assess your trip and possibly to make adjustments.

One thing is certain: a long trip does not happen overnight. It simply takes time.

All of these factors about taking a long trip are true about engaging social media, except there are multiple vehicles, goals, objectives, and checkpoints. Let’s look at them individually.

1. Vehicles. When taking a long trip, it’s best to choose a reliable vehicle. In social media, there are many reliable vehicles. Chief among these are blogs (posted from your web site), microblogs (through Twitter), social networks (Facebook being the most popular), and professional networks (LinkedIn by far the largest). There are others, of course, but these vehicles represent a firm foundation for your social media efforts.

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Posted in Blogging, Communication, Humanity, Listening, Marketing, Microblogging, Promotion, Social media, Twitter, Writing | No Comments »

Personality Traits of an Exceptional Listener

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Your character has much to do with your ability to listen and people’s willingness to talk to you

Would you like to know more about what is going on in your company; about your staff; about your prospects and clients? Then all you have to do is listen.

statue-of-liberty-cropped-1Ah, but listening is not easy. If it were, more people would do it with verve. But it is just that difficulty that sets those who truly listen apart, and elevates them in the mind of others. People will seek you out because they know you will take the time to truly listen to them. Given that place of honor in their circle of colleagues means that you discover more information faster, are more of a confidant, and gain a deeper association with those around you.

Listening is good for business. How? People feel free to tell you what is really going on in the company, and do not feel they have to gloss over it. And it’s just this kind of in-depth truth that helps you solve problems when they are still small.

There are a number of characteristics to becoming an exceptional listener that are easily within your reach: humility, patience, respect, sincerity, and empathy. You have varying levels of these traits in your character; it just takes a bit of focus to bring them out.

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Posted in Communication, Humanity, Listening, Marketing, Microblogging, Promotion, Social media | 2 Comments »

Promoting Your Company Through Social Media

Monday, June 8th, 2009

There are many reasons to use social media to promote your company, from which you gain just as many benefits. Here are my top five:3-taos-mountains3

  • Build awareness of your brand.
  • Enhance your reputation.
  • Convert prospects into customers and clients.
  • Create loyalty in your customers.
  • Increase the morale of your employees.

So that’s what you get, the benefits. How do you get it?

  • Through a Facebook fan page for a celebrity, band, or business.
  • Through a Twitter account for your business.
  • Through LinkedIn pages for key employees (executives, managers, employees, whoever best represents your company).
  • Through a blog with one or more authors (or multiple blogs) on your web site.

Those are the tools. But they are only tools; you must know how to use them to enjoy the five benefits.

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Posted in Blogging, Communication, Humanity, Marketing, Microblogging, Nature, Promotion, Social media, Twitter, Writing | 1 Comment »

Embrace Social Media: Blogging and Tweeting

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Cultivate your community of customers, prospects, and advocates through blogging

Trust has shifted. Target markets shun official messages and the corporate leaders who make them, replacing these messages with conversations among peers. Marketing materials, advertisements, and press releases increasingly find fallow audiences. Target markets, instead, covet dialogues and multi-dimensional conversations among their chosen communities.

broken-green-shutters-ospfRevising your communication strategy becomes vital — one that contributes to the conversation; one that collaborates and connects with a community you create and cultivate. One of the best methods for engaging your community is through blogging and microblogging.

Blogging (the macro kind). If you don’t already, write a blog. Post an entry at least once a week, aiming for the same day and time so that your readers get used to the expectation. Why? Two-thirds of people on the Internet have positive thoughts about companies with blogs. They trust what they read in blogs, even about your product and service because, surprisingly, they perceive blog writers as peers (not as the top-down corporate speak they’ve already turned off).

What to blog about. Start writing about what you sell, your product and service. Integrate customer resource management into your blog posts. For instance, blog about a particular aspect of what you offer and review the results you reap.

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Posted in Blogging, Communication, Humanity, Marketing, Microblogging, Promotion, Social media, Twitter, Writing | 8 Comments »

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