Dahle Communication

Timothy Geithner Needs a Speech Coach

When I was on the high school debate team, my partner and I were by far the most succesful team from our school during our junior and senior years. We may not have been the smartest people on our team, but we were the best debaters. The reason for this is simple: we could communicate our ideas and arguments more persuasively than our peers on the team. The lesson we learned was a simple one: while you want to be smart and knowledgeable, you also have to be able to communicate those ideas persuasively if you want to be effective. Unfortunately, Timothy Geithner didn't learn that lesson until recently.

The Seattle Times had an interesting piece about President Obama's economic team and how most of his top advisers were selected on their expertise and NOT their abillity to communicate. The first time Geithner stepped in front of a TV audience to explain the generalities of the plan to save the economy, the Dow dropped 382 points. Last week when those generalities were made specific, Geithner didn't go in front of the TV cameras...the Dow went up 500 points. Needless to say, if Geithner needed to defend himself in an Athenian court in front of 500 people, he would have gone the fate of Socrates.

The point is simply this: it doesn't matter how good your idea is if you can't effectively communicate that message to your targeted audience. You could have a plan to save the planet, but unless you present it in a way that is engaging and interesting, the message will be lost. Look at what An Inconvenient Truth did for Al Gore and his message on global warming. No one really listened to Al him except for people who wanted to believe him already or were previously involved in the green movement. However, once the movie came out, because it was done so well, people sat up and listened.

President Obama needs someone who can communicate his economic message to the public. Until he does this, he is going to have to continue to be the person talking about it, which I don't' think he minds, but it would be nice if they could find a spokesman who understood the economic policies that they are implementing and can communicate them effectively.

So ask yourself this question when you are planning on speaking: are people going to understand what you are saying or are they going to walk away more confused then ever. If they are going to walk away more confused, its time to work on your presentation.

Travis

Are things like Twitter, Texting, Facebook and Blogging hurting communication?

That is the question that I have been asking myself lately.  For people under a certain age, we are growing up with technology.  I'm 32 and didn't have access to the Internet until I went to college.  I didn't have a phone that texted until I was 30 (and didn't even text much until I was 31) and didn't start blogging or using twitter until I was 32.  People younger than me are growing up with it in middle school!  I am not someone who is opposed to technology and thinks it is all evil and kids are dumber because of it.  I mean, I love technology (the iPod has been one of the greatest inventions ever!) and I am by no means saying we are worse off than before.  What I am concerned about is the human-to-human interaction that we seem to be losing because of the increased use of technology.  I almost feel like we are moving towards a Johnny Mnemonic type of life (or for your RPG people, Shadowrun) where we start becoming part computer/part human.

Blogging is a great example.  While blogging itself is quite harmless, the comments on blogs or videos posted on youtube, etc. can become a diatribe of name-calling idiocy.  Everyone knows what I am talking about here.  You can go to any political article or blog and you will find under the comments section (if it is open and not monitored) comments to people that would never be said in a face-to-face conversation.  The reason for this is simply the fact that we have lost the human interaction of communication.  When people put things on-line they don't put as much thought into the process and put up something that is either degrading to the author of the blog or another commenter.  

This problem goes beyond comments on blogs though.  When people send e-mails and texts, they don't put as much thought into the process (in fact, gmail now has an option that you can cancel your sent message after a few seconds if you 'accidentally' hit the send button) and end up sending something that they regret later.  There is also the issue of context.  When you talk to someone face to face, you can read their body language and voice to see if they are serious or joking.  In an e-mail or text, that is very hard to do.  A lot of research has shown that the majority of our communication is actually non-verbal (body language, gestures, voice characteristics, etc) and we don't get that over e-mail and text.

While there are other problems, there is an easy solution: make communication more human.  Think about what you are going to say when you type up an e-mail or a text.  Think about what comments you are putting down on someones blog.  Try to meet with people and talk with them and listen to them (listening is another problem all together).  Try to make communication more human.

Travis

Twitter getting so big its being mocked...or at least a good comic source

Being a kid at heart, I try to keep up to date with a few comic strips that I enjoy.  While they are no Calvin & Hobbes or The Far Side they do keep me laughing and remembering to not get too serious.  In the past two weeks two of those cartoons, Doonesbury and Fox Trot, have sort of mocked or paid tribute to Twitter.

Additionally, listening to ESPN Radio on my drive to work I got to hear the hosts of Mike & Mike in the Morning talk about Twitter.  I guess I should say they tried to talk about it since they had no idea what it was.  People were sending in messages correcting them and helping them out a little bit.  The hosts only reference was to Facebook and someone even sent in a message saying "Facebook is so 2008."  

In the Doonesbury comic strip, the news journalist Roland Heley keeps updating his twitter status while he is suppose to be reporting a story.  The entire week is spent following his thoughts and comments on twitter instead of him reporting the news.  It was a complete mockery of what Twitter is and it exemplified how bad twitter can be and how out of control some people have gotten with updating everything that they are doing and every thought that they have (the Monday strip of Doonesbury has Roland tweeting 'about to scratch myself').  Shaquille O'Neal actually updated his status during halftime of one of his games, which seems a bit excessive.

While Doonesbury showed the excess of it, I liked how Fox Trot showed two things: how overuse can hinder you and how it can help you.  The kids benefited because they could hide before the parent got to their room and the parent was hurt by it because she couldn't find the kids.  

So needless to say, Twitter has not only arrived, but it has gotten so big that it is now being mocked/paid tribute to in the world of comic strips.

As far as communication and presentation goes regarding twitter, I just wanted to say this: make sure you use Twitter to your advantage instead of a hindrance.  Don't get sidetracked like Roland Heley and tweet every single thought because you can, but use it like the kids in Fox Trot -- to your advantage.  Use it to get a step up on the competition, keep informed on issues or other blogs and get your name out there.  Or if anything else, know enough about it so you can understand the Sunday Cartoon strips.

Communication Breakdown -- The Denver Broncos and Jay Cutler

Being a Denver Broncos fan has had its ups and downs over the years.  I've been able to see some great seasons culminating with Super Bowl wins and had to witness some not so great seasons.  However, what I have not had to witness is drama, miscommunication, in-house fighting and everything that goes with it...until now.  If you are a sports fan, you know what I am talking about, but if you don't care about sports I will sum it up for you in a quick outline.

1.  The head coach, who had drafted the now starting QB (Jay Cutler), was fired.

2.  Cutler wasn't too happy with the situation and was hopeful that the offensive coordinator would stay.

3.  The owner hired a former offensive coordinator to be the head coach (Josh McDaniels).

4.  McDaniels then replaced the offensive coordinator.

5.  McDaniels was in talks to trade away the Cutler for his former QB (who was a lifetime backup until last year when the starter got hurt).

6.  Needless to say this upset Jay Cutler and communication between Cutler and McDaniels started to break down.

7.  Cutler and McDaniels were able to finally get together to discuss the situation, however it do not go well and Cutler is now asking to be traded away.

That in a nutshell is what has happened over the past month or so.  If you want to get a more in-depth breakdown of all the drama, you can check out The Denver Post and read all about it.

What I wanted to talk about was not the drama itself, but how it could have been avoided.  In any situation, poor communication between two or more people is what usually causes a lot of problems.  Take any business or personal relationship that you have been in over the years.  If there has ever been a problem, one way to ensure that it will become an even bigger problem is to not communicate with each other -- or worse, to have poor communication between the parties that have a disagreement.

This is exactly what has happened in Denver and it might lead to some serious problems for the Broncos finding a talent as good as Cutler and for Cutler trying to go to a team that has the potential of the Broncos.  Had McDaniels and Cutler been able to communicate with each other clearly and effectively, the media drama that has taken over the Broncos could have been prevented.  

The lesson here is clear -- make sure that you are effectively communicating with the people you work with and with the people in your life.  If you have an issue or a problem, make sure you address it with that person and communicate it clearly.  I only wish someone would have told Josh McDaniels and Jay Cutler that...and who knows, maybe someone will and the drama will end with Cutler back leading the Broncos next year.  As a Broncos fan, that is my hope.

Travis

White Noise - are you adding to it?

Today I had a chance to do a lot of searching on the web and catch up to the blogs that I like to follow, got an Alltop page (now you can make your own personal Alltop page), caught up on some news, tweeted a few times, responded to some e-mails, listened to some NPR on the way to work...and still tried to get some work done.  What I realized is that there is a TON of information out there for us to process.  So the question I have for people who are speaking and presenting is simply this:  Are you adding to the white noise that so many of us deal with on a day-to-day basis or are you giving speeches and presentations that are leaving a mark with the audience?

Let's say you WANT to leave a mark with the audience...how do you do that is the next question.  If you want to truly be successful there is a lot of things that you need to do, but here are a couple of suggestions to help you get started.

1.  Set yourself apart with good design for your speeches.

You can do this in several ways.  First off, pick up Garr Reynolds book Presentation Zen or any of the books that are listed on this blog.  All of them contain some great tips on presentation ideas and how you can incorporate great design ideas into your presentations instead of the typical bullet-point presentations that are out there.  Secondly, read some blogs on good design.  There are a lot out there and my blogroll contains quite a few of them, but I would suggest Ethos3 as a good starting point.

2.  Be different

Does this mean wearing a clown suit?  No.  What it does mean is find something that you can do to set yourself apart from the pack.  One suggestion that I have is to use something other than PowerPoint if you are going to give a presentation.  A great new software called Prezi is in the beta phase right now and has great potential to overturn how people present.  If you can get started early using the software before everyone else, you can set yourself apart and be one of the fore-runners in this new technology.

3.  Engage People

This is done on a couple of levels.  First off, when you are presenting you need to engage your audience by talking to them instead of at them.  You can do this by working on your eye contact with the audience and making sure to pay attention to them and not your images behind you.  Additionally, engage them with on-line mediums such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.  Brett Duncan wrote a good blog about this titled "Exploiting vs. Exploring."  Don't exploit the use of these services just to build a name for yourself, but engage people with them.

Those are three simple things you can do to start setting yourself apart from all of the white noise out there: Have good design, be different and engage people.  While there is quite a bit more to it than that, this is at least a start.  

Listening well is just as important as speaking well

Most people are shockingly poor listeners -- a lot of times we fake paying attention and even if we are paying attention, most research suggests that we only grasp 50% of what we hear and after two days we forget half of that information.  Think about that for a second.  If you give an important speech that has a great deal of information in it, after two days, most people will only remember 25% of what you said.

While ensuring that the audience listens to you is important, I wanted to look at a different aspect of communication:  Are YOU listening to your audience?  Its an interesting question that you should be asking yourself.  What does it mean to listen to your audience?  Well, there are several different aspects that you should focus on while giving your speech to ensure that you are listening.

1.  If you are using feedback posts like Twitter (as mentioned in this blog post) or something similar, make sure to read each of them carefully and address something if it is being brought up by a few people.

2.  If there is a Q & A session during part of your speech, make sure you carefully listen to each person to ensure that you understand where they are coming from and what exactly their question is.

3.  If someone brings up a concern that they have during a break, make sure that you listen to their concern and don't just brush it aside.  Joseph Thornley of Thornley Fallis talks about this in his recent blog post.  He stated that he didn't really listen to one of the audience members concerns and sort of brushed it aside.  Needless to say, his review was not very good from that person.  

While those are some specific areas that you can improve your listening, there are a lot of different ways you can improve your listening for everyday things and not just when you are speaking.  First of all you need to take listening seriously.  Listening is an active process and you have to be engaged in it if you want to be successful.  Secondly, try to avoid distractions such as focusing too much on the persons delivery or a quirk in their presentation or focusing on some outside event that is making noise.  Eliminating distractions can greatly improve your listening skills.  

Unfortunately, there is so much more to listening, but I don't want to have this post go on for too long.  What we as speakers and communicators need to remember is that a great deal of communication is listening.  Remember that, and you will become successful in whatever business you are in.

Travis

Prezi - A Revolution in Presentations or Just Another Program?

I love StumbleUpon.  If I am bored and want to find something interesting, StumbleUpon is a great way to kill some time and find some new sites that I know I would have missed.  Using StumbleUpon yesterday I stumbled upon a new presentation software that is in its Beta phase called Prezi.

Unfortunately, it is not open to everyone...yet.  When you click on the link to sign-up, they are adding people that either have money or have great ideas...so if you have either, you might get in on the beta phase.  However, even if you can't get signed on yet, you can check out their site to see how Prezi works and some example presentations that have been made so far.

My first thoughts on this new software is simple this:  fantastic!  A new type of software that I can use in presentations that doesn't rely upon the same old presentation formats that have been used for the past two decades.  When you are forced to use PowerPoint, or a similar software, it takes some work to make it look like it is NOT PowerPoint!  Prezi, from what I have seen so far, looks like it is very user-friendly and will allow someone who does not have a great deal of time, or a great deal of imagination, to be able to create some great presentations.

One concern that I do have is that people who find this new software will go overboard with it.  Just like with PowerPoint and other presentation software.  Just because you can add sounds and effects to every bullet point doesn't mean that you should.  Prezi allows users to zoom in and out to different parts of their presentation, have things twist and turn, etc.  While this can be really good, don't over due it.  Again, I say this without having a chance to see the full version of it yet.

I'm excited to see when they release the full version of it for mass consumption.  Until then, I plan to keep checking out their website and their blog to keep up-to-date with the updates and to see how their company is doing.

Travis

Twitter - Using it effectively versus ignoring it

Twitter is fast becoming a huge trend - when you get talked about in a mocking manner by the Daily Show, you know you've made it!  As speakers though, twitter brings up a lot of questions.  First off, if people are checking their blackberries or iphones and twittering during your speech, they are not going to be listening as intently if they were paying attention to you.  

So, you have two choices as a speaker in regards to twitter:

1.  Be like Jon Stewart in the video below where he is the "Old Man Stewart shakes his fist at Twitter." 

or

2.  Embrace Twitter as a means to improve communication with your audience.

The first option will only make you upset with people and make you feel powerless as your audience members drift off and check their twitter status.  However, embracing Twitter will allow you to improve your presentations -- if you do it in an effective manner.

Olivia Mitchell posted a guest blog on Chris Spagnuolo's Edgehopper blog on 7 ways to use twitter during your presentations.  I really liked some of the suggestions and think it is a great way for you to engage your audience.  Some of the suggestions include polling your audience, asking questions during the presentation, getting input on your ideas and having evaluations done.  One of the biggest benefits of using twitter for all of these is that the audiences responses have to be 140 characters or less!  Believe me, that is not a lot of words, so people have to condense their ideas to their core.

One catch to some of her suggestions:  you need to get onto twitter and get used to it!  For some of us, this is a big step.  I have only recently gotten onto twitter and I didn't quite get it at first, but do see the potential.  So, in order to effectively use Twitter during your speeches and use it to your advantage, you have to be used to it.  You don't want to step in front of an audience and try to use twitter for the first time...you will not look good!

So, you have a choice: use Twitter to your advantage or to your disadvantage.  To me the choice is an easy one.  

- Travis

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Telling a Story - Broadcasting Legend Paul Harvey Passes

One of the most well known radio broadcasters has passed away.  Paul Harvey was known almost as much for his news broadcasts as he was for his segments titled "The Rest of the Story."

Paul Harvey was a story-teller.  He built up a fan base before twitter, blogging, websites and everything else we have in this technological age.  In fact, he rarely gave any interviews or released any archival recordings of his shows -- what he did do was communicate.

Listening to NPR yesterday, they had a few clippings from his shows and they ended their show All Things Considered with this sound bite from Paul Harvey:

It is for us that one must grieve tonight for a generation which has so refined its intellect that it can split atoms and communicate with the moon and yet remains at the mercy of its own undisciplined emotions.  If the world is one day destroyed, it'll come just like this, you know.  It'll not be the H-bomb that did it, it'll be the greed or the fear or the hate that set it off.

Paul Harvey, good night.

He was speaking that evening after John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  He didn't go on about his policies or the tragedy of it.  What he did do was use his words to convey a meaning that went beyond just simple communication.  I grew up listening to Paul Harvey.  I remember listening to the news as I did my chores on the farm and hearing a lot of the stories he would tell.  While I disagreed a lot of times with some of his political thoughts, I enjoyed listening to him.

The world lost a great communicator this weekend and to honor him I just wanted to say....thank you Paul Harvey, good day.

-Travis