The best communication focuses on your audience. This is especially true when giving presentations. Too often, speakers are temped to call attention to themselves, thinking—erroneously—that they are the star of the show. Other times (although far less often), the focus is on the slides. While both are important components of presentations, they nonetheless must take a back seat to the needs of your audience.

Bottom line: you must discover what your audience wants and needs, then deliver it to them on their terms.

Let’s look at this from a different perspective. Consider the last time you spoke to a preschooler. Chances are you crouched down on one knee to bring yourself eye to eye with the tyke. You might have gently touched the child’s arm to establish a connection. You used the child’s lexicon, choosing your words carefully. You spoke slowly and enunciated clearly. All this to ensure that the child—your audience—would readily understand. In other words, you communicated on their level, focusing the conversation on their needs.

Follow this example when presenting. Focus on the needs of your audience.

Making your audience paramount is the most difficult aspect of your presentation. Your audience is not completely under your control, whereas you, the speaker, and your materials are. A little planning together with some hard work, however, eases the path. Here are some ways to better understand your audience, discover their needs, and connect with them during your presentation.

Do your homework. Invest some time to learn about your audience. Find out where they work and what they do. At the very minimum, find out what they expect to get out of your presentation; in other words, what are they going to do with the information you impart to them. When you know that, you can directly address that during your presentation. Discover what they already know about the topic, and perhaps how you can tap into that knowledge.

Talk to organizers to see what they know about the audience. Better yet, go right to the source and interview prospective audience members. Try to talk to the implicit leaders, people who probably have a better read on the problems your audience faces.

One other major factor: size. How many people do you expect to attend? Will you have a small intimate gathering or a large amorphous group? This number can affect how you engage your audience during your presentation.

Meet your audience. Arrive early before anyone else. As people enter, introduce yourself to them—even introduce them to each other—and get them talking. Ask questions; listen to the answers, and move the conversation along those lines. Breaking down some barriers at this point is easy since there are always early arrivals; the setting, informal and quieter. You can be more personable and less formal. Get to know who they are, why they are attending, and what they expect.

I especially enjoy this part. At the beginning, the room is relatively empty so there is a loose atmosphere in the air. I find that during these more personal exchanges, you become human to your audience. You become, at some level, one of them. I also take this opportunity to meet some people with whom I can establish an immediate rapport, for these are the people that I will focus on at the beginning of my presentation. This gives me some grounding, a deeper connection that the audience appreciates, and it helps me move quickly into being completely audience-centered while I present.

Connect with your audience. Speak to people individually by looking them in the eye for a few seconds; start with those people you met earlier, then move on to others. Move into the audience if you can; this breaks down barriers. Gesture and use facial expressions to emphasize what you say. Be energetic and enthusiastic. Refer to individuals by name. Speak conversationally. Employ the verbal techniques of projection, pitch, pronunciation, pace, and pausing. Get into it—reveal your personality.

I know when I’ve reached this point because I feel a flow to my movements and words; I feel intertwined with my audience by establishing this deeper connection that it brings everyone together. It raises the communication to another level to the point where the entire audience is imbedded in that same flow. While this might sound silly, there have been presentations where, together, the audience and I have attained a certain nirvana, where everyone is engaged, and everything flows as one. As a presenter, I find this incredibly gratifying for both myself and, more importantly, for my audience. Knowing that my audience has been engaged and connected, that they have learned and been enlightened, that they can move on in their professional lives with more information, that they are changed in many positive ways and their work has been enhanced, well…

That is your goal.

—Rich Maggiani

Anyone who has watched a teenager take driver’s ed can empathize—even if that teen isn’t your own. The angst, the “omg, not my car!”. That’s one of the beauties of driver’s ed: the teen learns on someone else’s car. As is my teen. Yesterday, when he came home from school, I was pleased that was the case.

“How was school?” I asked.

“Good.” (Don’t you just love those informative one-word answers?)

“How was driver’s ed?” I persisted.

Pause. Then finally, “It was okay.”

The story. Now, as any parent worth their salt knows, when there is a pause, there is trouble.

“What happened?” I asked matter-of-factly, cutting right to the core.

My son just looked at me with wary eyes. I could see that he was measuring his words in his mind, struggling to decide just what to say.

“The car broke down.” He ventured in a slightly hesitating voice.

Now I knew immediately that this was just the title of the story, that there was much more to hear. The question remained though: could I coax that story out of him? Worth a try. I had a feeling this was going to be good.

“The car broke down.” I reiterated.

He looked askance at me. “Yeah.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, not exactly.” He said, his voice trailing off a bit. “What is there to eat?”

Nice try, but diversion will not work.

“Let’s keep to one topic at a time,” I said. “Tell me about the car breaking down.”

“Well,” he intoned in that well-practiced, exasperated, annoyed voice that teenagers perfect early in their ten-year journey toward their twenties. “What do you want to know?”

I know that tone. It might have worked a few years ago in putting me off the chase for the truth, but I was long over that. So I forged on.

“What do you mean, ‘the car broke down?’”

He pursed his lips. “The car stopped running…” he began, paused a couple of seconds, then continued. “After it kinda got into a little accident.”

Whoa. I didn’t expect that. I was a little unnerved. He was in a car with inexperienced drivers, after all. Perhaps I should worry more.

“What do you mean, ‘kinda?’”

Again, the hesitation.

“Torin. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. And so is everyone else.” He stated flatly.

“Then what do you mean by ‘kinda got into an accident?’”

He took in a deep breath. Then it all came out rather quickly.

“The car went over a curb at a corner, kinda hit a lamp post a little bit, scraped a lot on the bottom, then bounced back into the road.” Pause. “Then the engine died.” Another pause. “Just like that.”

I was speechless. And stunned. I tried to envision what had happened, then thought of the students and the instructor, and the driver. Then it hit me.

I looked at him. In my most understanding voice, asked, “Who was driving?”

Right away, I knew I had hit on a sensitive spot. He gazed at me with baleful, slightly watered eyes.

“Me.”

I felt all the air go out of me. I just looked around helplessly. Finally, I sat down on the counter stool. I started to pull myself together.

“Then what happened?”

“You know,” he said, emboldened a bit now that the hard part was over. “Driver’s ed teachers don’t know diddly about cars. I mean, after I couldn’t restart the car, I popped the hood. He got out of the car, looked under the hood, and just stared at the engine like it was alien. He yanked a couple of wires, but clearly, he didn’t know a thing about it. Finally, he took out his cell phone, called his office, and next thing you know, a wrecker showed up. The mechanic got the car running in about two seconds. Ridiculous.”

“So, everyone is all right?”

“Yes.” That exasperated voice again.

“And the car is all right?”

“Hmmm. Not too sure about that.”

“And the driver’s ed teacher?”

The enlightenment. “You know, he’s a good driving teacher, but he knows nothin about cars. He can drive them, but doesn’t know how they work. The mechanic, now he knows how cars work, but I’m sure he can’t teach a bunch of high school kids how to drive one. Don’t you think that’s ironic?

“Yes, I see that.” I said. Because I really did see it. We’ve all said that phrase: “Yes, I see that.” Immediately after someone has explained something to us, and we understand. We see it, even though the explanation was verbal. Seems a little out of context, but, actually, it is not. We understand because we can visualize it, “see” it in our mind’s eye. Stories do that—they enable you to visualize. As such, they are a great way to communicate information. Makes me wonder about how poorly all those bullet-point slide presentations communicate when stories are far more effective.

—Rich Maggiani

This past June, I was attending my son’s lacrosse tournament. We wanted a down-to-earth place to eat breakfast. The locals recommended a nearby diner. Now you know what a diner looks like: silver façade, booths with plastic seats, counter and stools, coffee machines and blenders and that little window into the kitchen, slightly cramped. You can picture it, right? Sounded perfect, so we went.

We walked in and looked around. Lots of people, but no waitresses. After a few moments, the swinging doors from the kitchen popped open. Out walked an elegantly dressed man, tux and bow tie, replete with cummerbund and gleaming black shoes. He approached, bowed, and said in a proper tone, “Good morning gentlemen. Have you a reservation?” I raised my eyebrows. “Apparently not,” he intoned flatly. “Fortunately,” he said in a brighter tone, “we’ve just had a cancellation. Please, follow me.” Turning crisply, he walked toward an empty booth. After we sat, he pompously handed us each a stylish menu. Then addressed me formally: “Could I interest you in our reserve wine list? A crisp white would prove a fanciful accouterment for this lovely Sunday morn.”

Confused? Well, if this had been reality, we would have been too. When you walk into a diner, you expect things a certain way. But not this way. To put it another way, this diner’s look did not match its content.

A more pertinent perspective. A long, long time ago (in a galaxy far away), I was approached by a software company to work on their documentation. The docs were basic reference and how-to manuals, describing their menu and explaining their function. They were written by an engineer—who also had a penchant toward inserting references to popular cultural philosophies and weaving their ideologies into the text. Interesting since this ersatz writer-engineer took pains to make the context of these fairy tales relevant; most ended up mild rants.

Management at the company felt that customers were not using the guides because they were out of date, needing and update to match the current software version. Okay, I said, let me look at them.

Let’s say that the guides were, hmmm, typographically and design challenged. I was presented with a relatively tall stack, about two dozen guides. Three-hole punched. Courier 12 point headings and text. All single spaced. All grey.

“What about a redesign too?” I gently suggested. “Perhaps part of the problem,” I continued, “is your customers can’t find anything in the guides, so they don’t use them.”

They thought about that a moment, then, to their credit, they accepted. What would it cost? How long would it take? Because they were releasing another version of the software soon, they wanted the guides to match. The entire redesign and writing took a year, but we completed them all. And they turned out great.

Perception is paramount. As with the look and feel of a diner, the design of your documents—be they technical, promotional, training, web, reports, proposals, essentially all communication materials—directly affects how they are perceived and received. And used.

Okay, so these are egregious examples. Here’s the point: To be effective, your documents—instructional, promotional, and technical, as well as your web pages, request-for-proposal responses, reports, customer correspondence, essentially all written communication—must meet the demands of document design.

Document design brings together text, graphics, layout, and typography to inform, instruct, and persuade. In our work for the software company, we also incorporated elements that identified the company and helped with product recognition. In other words: branding. We endeavored to be subtle, not overwhelming, but apparent.

Engage your audience. Superior document design compels your audience to engage in your communication.

The effective design of written communication, whether practical or promotional, takes a discriminating eye and intelligent, deliberate design. Document design’s goal is to successfully present information without getting in the way. In other words, design itself, by its very nature, must be all but invisible.

Effective document design requires more than type selection and spacing and color and imagery. It requires a thorough understanding of your audience and their needs: how they will perceive the communication, process its content, assimilate it, and ultimately use it. The fundamental purpose of document design is not to simply “look pretty”, win awards, call attention to itself, nor showcase the designer’s skills, but rather to meet your needs. It must enable people to learn, use technology, make decisions, and ultimately, get their jobs done.

Put another way: a reader’s needs must ultimately drive document design. And when they do, the resulting design moves you closer toward humanity in communication.

—Rich Maggiani

“Press on”, said President Calvin Coolidge. “Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Recently, my son Torin and I were returning to Vermont after a week’s stay at Walt Disney World. We arose at 3:00 am on a Saturday to catch Disney’s Transport bus, to arrive two hours ahead of our scheduled 6:25 am flight (Disney’s rules) out of Orlando airport. We arrived at 3:45, in line at Continental’s counter at 3:50 — and waited until 4:30 for it to open!

We got out of line to sleep a bit in an alcove, only to find, 20 minutes later, that the line was now over two bends in the mouse maze. So, back in line again to stand, and wait. When we were third, a Continental agent approached  the first person in the queue. We overheard: “Where are you going?”

“Burlington, Vermont.”

“Connecting…?”

“Hmmm. Let me look.” After a bit of rustling came “Newark”.

“Flight 193?”

Another quick look. “Yes.”

“That flight’s been cancelled,” stated the agent matter-of-factly, as if she was telling the time, then moved on to us.

I turned to Torin. “That’s our flight!” Torin’s eyes bugged out. “What!” He was incredulous. “What the…”

“OMG,” I muttered, looking at him, ours eyes locked, my mind racing, considering the ramifications, drifting, then coming back quickly when I heard the agent impatiently say to us, “I’ll come back,” and continued her walk down the line.

Over the next 45 minutes, our cadre of stranded Flight 193 passengers grew, while others continued to bypass us and check in.

At 5:15, finally, the counter, to get re-booked. The agent, continually clicking on her keyboard, hunting for seats, only to discover flights to Burlington were booked for the rest of the day — and the next — and Monday, and Tuesday. The next available flight with seats: Wednesday, four days away!

“What about surrounding airports?” I asked. “Albany, Lebanon, New Haven, Manchester New Hampshire?”

More clicking. “No. Nothing.”

“New York, Boston?” She shook her head. “Buffalo? Philadelphia? Pittsburgh?” I was getting desperate.

“No. All booked.” A pause. “Oh, wait. Here’s something for Manchester, tomorrow. It’s late in the day though. Would you like me to book it?”

I looked at Torin. His eyes widened. “I wanted to go home today,” he said. I gave him a twisted grimace, then turned back to the agent. “We’ll take it.”

But in that split second, it was gone.

So we booked the Wednesday flight. Then I called my wife, Abbie. At 5:45 am.

“What’s wrong?” she asked when answering. I told her the sordid details. “What about a car? A bus? The train?”

“I was just about to check on a car. I’ll have to see about Internet access for the bus or car.”

So Torin and I went to Budget Rent-a-Car. “We need a car, one way, to Burlington Vermont.” I told the agent.

“Boy, I’ve never heard that one before,” he said. I bet. After some searching, he said, “Well, I can only get you to Boston. $437.58, which includes a $325 drop-off charge.” Wow! I told him I’d think about it, and we left.

Abbie called back. ”I’ve done some checking. A bus leaves today at 12:50 pm, gets into New York tomorrow around noon. An hour layover, twelve hours to Boston, another layover, then to Vermont. Gets in Monday afternoon.” My mind was racing. “That’s over 50 hours! On a bus!”

“There’s also the train,” she said. “Leaves tonight, gets into New York tomorrow. No sleepers left though. The next train to Vermont leaves Monday morning; arrives Monday evening. Only goes to Montpelier though.”

“I’ll have to call you back,” I said. Torin found a wi-fi hot spot. We logged into Expedia, where I originally booked the ticket. Four flights with seats tomorrow: two on United and two US Airways. So we returned to Continental to try to get booked on one of these flights. This time three agents worked on our dilemma.

“The Burlington legs of those flights, we show them fully booked. Expedia is overselling in the hopes of no-shows. Anyway, we can’t book those flights. You have a United booking since you flew down on United. Perhaps they can help.”

On the way across the terminal to United’s counter, I called Expedia and regaled our story. After verifying that Continental’s flight was indeed cancelled (they wouldn’t believe me), the Expedia agent called United (at my insistence) to try to book a United return. She failed. This took almost 20 minutes on hold, all of which we spent waiting in a United line.

Finally, we reached the counter. After some incredulity from the United agent (“Why didn’t Continental take care of you?” “Why did they cancel the flight; the airport’s open!?”), she told us she couldn’t book us direct to Burlington. “Tell me the best surrounding airport.” We did. Ten minutes later, she booked us on a flight, late, that very same day, into Manchester, a three-hour drive from home. It was 8:05 am, over four hours after we arrived.

Sometimes communication takes persistence. Never give up!

–Rich Maggiani

Last night, just before dark, they arrived at my house in Essex, Vermont. Raymond and Leah. They delivered two cords of fire wood from their business property in Glover, a distance over back roads of about 70 miles. Now Glover truly qualifies as being in the middle of nowhere, however, I live on a dirt road that isn’t all that easy to find either.

When Leah and I made the arrangements for the firewood, I asked if she needed directions. After all, they had never been here before. But she demurred. “We have GPS,” she said. “Raymond relies on it, so I’m sure we won’t have any difficulties.”

And so, through the help of their GPS device, they arrived. Leah got out of the truck first, introduced herself, and shook my hand. She had a kind face, a quiet confidence about her, and was clearly in charge of the financial aspects of the business—she had a standard invoice form in her hand with the details of our transaction hand printed clearly. Raymond, a tall, slightly gangling man, ebullient by nature with a winning smile, came around the side of the truck and held out his hand. “This is Raymond,” Leah said. We shook hands. Firmly.

“So Raymond,” I asked, “Did you have any trouble finding my house?”

“Oh no,” he said with that Vermont drawl. “My GPS gets me anywhere.” He pulled the device out of his pocket and began showing me how he used it for directions from Glover to my house. The device was well labeled, with a clean interface and clear maps that directed him, without misadventure. Raymond was very proud of this GPS, and his ability to use it.

I thought, “Raymond. Thank a technical communicator.”

For it was a professional technical communicator who designed the interface, the buttons, the labels; who wrote the on-screen wording, the tutorial; who made the device easy to use and valuable to Raymond, and to Leah, while they deliver firewood all over the state of Vermont. And if was a technical communicator who designed and wrote the words on the standard invoice form used for the firewood purchase.

So, during your day, how often do you rely on the services of professional technical communicators? Many, many times. Think for a moment about your day. From the rudimentary (the dials and labeling on your toaster), to the simple (laundering instructions on your business clothes), to the sublime (the dashboard of your car), to the routine (the signage and information boards on your drive and in the subway and airport), to the commonplace (every web site, photo site, and video site you browse), to the complex (the tutorials, instructions, guides, and online help for the hardware and related software you use daily), to the complicated (the buttons and instructions on a digital SLR camera), to the useful (a GPS device). The list is virtually endless.

Take a look around you right now. You encounter many instances of technical communication, constantly, throughout your day. After all, if it isn’t fiction, then it’s nonfiction; in other words, it’s technical communication.

When you find any of these situations difficult or can’t figure out how to use something, realize that it isn’t you. More than likely, the people in charge of these kinds of things didn’t exhibit the foresight to engage professionals. And the results, to be polite, are less than stellar.

On the other hand, when you are able to successfully and easily navigate all of these items and situations, without misadventure, thank professional technical communicators. You can’t live without them.

–Rich Maggiani

Some events make it simple to realize that you have achieved a positive gain on time and money. In these cases, the gain has been immediate, clearly recognized, and sometimes even documented for you. Go to a supermarket, buy something on sale, and there is your money savings recorded for you on your receipt. Easy. Take a shortcut on a journey; a simple glance at your watch tells you how much time you have saved. Easy. Post that unused item in the want ads; someone gives you cash for it. Easy.

Comprehending your time and money gain on communication, however, is not so obvious. This is true for a number of reasons. The actual loss of time and money might never have been documented or considered, so there is no basis for evaluation. The time from initiation to implementation for a communication project can be months, sometimes years, and unless time and money are carefully tracked, there can be an enormous disconnection between the before and after.

I like to think about measuring your time and money gain in communication as a journey. Whenever you take a trip—whether it’s a simple jaunt to the supermarket or an extended vacation—you always know where you are starting from and where you are going. It’s the same way with communication: you must know where you are starting from and where you are going.

Before beginning any communication initiative, first take the time to pound a stick into the ground. Where are you now? Identify and quantify that as clearly as possible. Then, identify where you want to go, your destination, your objectives. Use the markers from your starting point. These objectives should also contain your time and money savings, and your making money quantities. In other words, your return on investment.

Now, go on your journey; launch your communication initiative: your marketing campaign, your employee survey, your newly updated web site, your supporting campaign for a new product or service launch. Whatever it is. Then, periodically, throughout the campaign, assess where you are. You can also use these assessments to consider changes in direction that might help you better get you where you want to go. When you finally reach your destination , you’ll know it.

And you’ll know how much time you have saved, how much money you have saved, and, ultimately, how much money you have made. That’s the value of simple, clear communication: it makes you money.

–Rich Maggiani

A few weeks ago, I backpacked with my friend Bill. What’s great about going into the wilderness for a few days with Bill (in this case, four days) is that we communicate so well, respect each others needs, and consider them throughout the trip. This kind of deep communication becomes especially pointed living in the woods when your kitchen and bedroom are in the pack on your back.

This trip, our goal was to summit four of the forty-six 4,000-foot peaks in New York’s Adirondack park. (Actually, there are only 43 such peaks. Apparently, past climbers couldn’t measure very well, but history dictates compliance with their inaccurate measurements.) Four days, 32 miles, 12,000 feet of elevation gain, fifty-pound packs, all planned with a guide book last published seven years ago—an eon for the Adirondacks where landscape-altering storms are the norm.

While we had a general idea of the summiting trails, we also knew that routes and conditions would be different—in two cases, markedly different as it turned out—from descriptions written at least seven years ago, and probably eight. We knew this going in, and we knew that we would be trying to get the latest conditions, from whoever we crossed paths with, always an eye-opening and trusting endeavor.

Ultimately, we knew this: our ability to ask clear questions, listen attentively, engage in the dialog, focus on outcomes, and accurately assess information would be crucial to the success of our trip. In other words: simple, clear communication. (You knew that was coming, right? If not, look at Solari’s home page.)

So we did this. Whenever we met someone on the trail who was amenable and willing to talk, we engaged them. In return, we gathered a lot of pertinent information (some conflicting that we reconciled by assessing the source). We discovered three significant facts: one trailhead wasn’t where we thought it was; a rumored trailhead relocation was indeed fact and that its trail had been substantially cleared over the previous years; and that one trail was overgrown although still passable.

In the end, we discovered that the information we gathered was accurate on the ground. We did summit all four mountains. And, as a bonus, garnered a couple of sources for summiting future mountains.

Think of how, in a metaphorical sense, these same events happen to you. Think how simple, clear communication could have helped clear your path and enable you to summit your mountain.

–Rich Maggiani

Certification creates two enormous benefits for our profession and for practitioners. First, certification establishes a sold foundation for the legitimacy and economic contribution of technical communication. Second, certified practitioners clearly demonstrate their expertise as technical communicators, greatly enhancing their value in the marketplace.

Practitioners become certified in six core competency areas:

• User analysis
• Document design
• Project management
• Authoring (content creation)
• Delivery
• Quality assurance

As a result, employers and clients alike will now have a concrete idea of the expertise, contribution, and value that technical communicators bring to the marketplace. STC is developing a page on its Web site dedicated to promoting certification and explaining the value of certified technical communicators.

On 30 April 2010, the STC Board of Directors accepted a business case from its Certification Task Force. This historic event occurred after 35 years of ongoing and difficult discussion. The Society has embraced the idea of certification for technical communicators, and in the coming months will be developing a certification program.

Certification is based on assessing portfolios and work artifacts, not examinations. (In other words, there are no tests.) This method takes advantage of the existing methodology and infrastructure of both the publications competitions and the Associate Fellow and Fellow process. To implement the program, STC is defining assessment criteria for each of these six competency areas, then recruiting a network of examiners to review applications. In the future, as the Body of Knowledge is fleshed out, STC will assess adding an exam-based assessment as another certification method.

Once conferred, certification is valid for three years. To ensure that competencies are kept relevant, certified professionals must become recertified for another three years. As with many other professions, recertification involves completing and participating in educational and professional activities. STC currently has a number of these opportunities available, and will be creating more in the upcoming year.

Member and non-member certification and recertification fees are still being developed, however, these fees will be comparable to certifications programs of similar associations.

The certification task force will report on its process, progress, and future. You can also expect to hear much more about certification in the coming weeks!

–Rich Maggiani

Effective communication is crucial for success in business — that is, attaining results by meeting objectives with and through other people.

Communication is vital to any human encounter.

When you communicate well, you clarify concepts and ideas. You are able to understand and work with the recipients of your message. You will also be able to inform, instruct, and persuade them to do what you want them to do, to achieve your desired results. In fact, the most effective communicators not only influence and persuade their audience to act in a specific way, but also these communicators convince their audience to do so.

Business communication can be full of specialized language, or jargon, that generally can only be understood by experts. Others inside a company and outside of a company do not inherently understand this jargon, even when they hear it all the time or even attempt to use it. Have you ever repeated jargon in a manner so that others might perceive that you understand it when, in reality, you don’t, at least not fully? If so, you are in good company. Most people only understand part of the jargon they use, especially acronyms. Therefore, it is incumbent on you to state things as simply as possible and to provide explanations and descriptions whenever possible so that everyone, the experts, the so-called experts, and those on the fringes, truly can comprehend your message.

Peter Drucker (in “How to Be an Employee” published in Fortune magazine in 1952) writes, “Your effectiveness depends on your ability to reach others through the spoken or the written word.” Study after study shows that managers and C-level executives spend between 78 and 87 percent of their time communicating. Since you spend some much time in this activity, doesn’t it make sense to be expert at it?

Since we communicate every day all the time, we might think that communication is simple. It is not. While much communication is based on common sense, that alone does not ensure clear and effective communication. In fact, all communication is flawed at some level. Expert communicators employ a number of techniques including word choice (semantics), appropriate language (linguistics), speaking and writing effectively (rhetoric), people skills (sociology and psychology), presentation skills (graphic design), and a general command to relay messages.

To be effective, business communication must achieve the desired results; in other words, you decide what you want to accomplish as a result of your communication (your objective), and you convince your audience to act in a manner that enables you to attain that objective. Any business communication that does not result in you accomplishing your objective, fails.

–Rich Maggiani

I took a critical look at my Twitter stream the other day, and I was a bit dismayed at what I saw. By following too many people too quickly, I was being inundated with many irrelevant and useless tweets overwhelming the tweets that I truly wanted to read. In a larger sense, through hasty followings, I had deviated from my intended path for using Twitter in the first place.

Have you looked critically at your Twitter stream? Is it laden with the same sort of trite tweets that I receive? Apparently, we are not alone. After a bit of research, I discovered a recent study demonstrated that the vast majority of tweets—upwards of 87.7 percent—border on useless, falling between spam and “pointless babble”. That leaves only one out of every eight tweets actually containing valuable information. Who has the time to sort through that? I certainly don’t, and I suspect you don’t either. So what to do?

I blogged about this problem a while ago (www.solari.net/toward-humanity/2009/08/21/how-useful-is-your-twitter-stream/) and proposed a few solutions. I needed to go further, though, to rectify this problem. As a result, I discovered a number of Twitter tools that can help better manage a Twitter stream and your use of Twitter and social networks in general. I present the tools I most liked and found useful.

One small piece of semantics: when I refer to your friends; they are the people you are following on Twitter.

Why are you using Twitter in the first place? Tools are great, so long as they have a purpose. Knowing that a hammer can pound nails and a screwdriver can drive screws is self-evident. But what are you trying to build with these tools? Knowing that a Twitter tool can do certain things is great, but it’s better to apply that tool to a purpose. So define your Twitter strategy: why are you using Twitter? Elucidate that, and you are well on your way to choosing and applying the particular tools that best suit your needs.

Who are you following? Since your Twitter stream is comprised of the tweets of those you follow (your friends), it makes sense to choose these people judiciously. As for me, I’ve stopped following people who follow me simply because they look interesting. It’s time to be more practical in choosing those I follow, the type of people who are more in tune with the communication topics that I want to know about.

Finding people. Here are a number of tools that let you find and follow people with similar interests and styles.

You can find potential friends who are most relevant to your strategy in a few ways. Twellow (www.twellow.com) allows you to find people by industry, categories, or your own search text, globally or in specific geographic areas. Register on the site, and you can edit your Twitter bio, create an extended bio, and create links to other social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn so that like-minded people can find you.

Find people by their influence in particular categories at twInfluence (twinfluence.com). This tool measures influencers by followers, reach, velocity, social capital, and centralization. (Go to the site to see what that all means.) It even ranks the top 50 influencers in each category.

Try whoshouldifollow.com. Type your Twitter username and it returns users based on your account. You can then explore deeper as you see fit. whoshouldifollow works well with a “clean” following list.

Find people who share your interests at SocialWhoIs (www.socialwhois.com). As the site says, its recommendations are ”based on interests and ‘personal relevancy’ instead of popularity”. Search by tag (keyword). When a list is returned, the tool lists all the tags associated with each person as well as a brief bio. You can register and create a bio for yourself. This helps others find you too.

After you’ve found and followed those ideal people, go to TwitterFriends (twitter-friends.com) to get more information about your conversations with them. Or simply use the tool to analyze your conversations with your current followers. The tool maps your followings and followers geographically. (Wow! I have friends on every continent.) You can also enter a username—yours or anyone else’s—to analyze their tweeting behavior.

And finally, there is Twitority (twitority.com) which allows you to search Twitter by keyword and authority. Twitority assumes that those with large numbers of followers are authorities in a particular keyword area. These same people might, however, just be popular or know how to garner many followers. Either way, Twitority is attempting to replace Twitter’s search engine and just might help you find actual authorities to follow.

This is just the beginning of tools that can help you better manage your Twitter account. Remember though, that your Twitter experience is greatly enhanced by the people you decide to follow. Choose well.

–Rich Maggiani