Dahle Communication

Are the Belgians Trolling American Beer Drinkers?

I know it's been sometime since I've posted here (is a 3 year hiatus a bad thing...) but I've been wanting to get back into writing more consistently, so why not talk about beer. And not just any beer, but America!

In case you haven't heard, this summer, Budweiser is changing it's name to America until the end of the election in November. No I'm not kidding. This is a real thing that is happening.

Why would one of the most ubiquitous names in American beers need to change its name? When it comes to marketing, if you have a strong brand identity, you don't usually change your name. However, Budweiser apparently felt differently. Apparently they made the switch "to inspire drinkers to celebrate America and Budweiser's shared values of freedom and authenticity." Seems like an interesting idea.

I have a better theory though. I'm pretty sure that Americans are being mocked a bit and we don't even know it. Perhaps its slipped your mind, but the most American beer out there (which if you asked most people, which beer would you identify America with, Budweiser would be in their top 3 picks with 80% placing it first) is actually owned by a Belgian company named AB InBev, head-quartered in Leuven, Belgium. 

Could this be just a slight mockery of America and the state of our elections this year? We do have a reality TV star who's never been elected to any political office and who's announcement was followed by the New York Post publishing a picture of him as a clown and his campaign is currently viewed by many as a circus. I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility.

Regardless if you agree with Trump or not, a good portion of the world is wondering what in the world America is doing right now. Perhaps, just perhaps, the Belgians, who own the most American beer of all time, wanted to tap into some patriotism of the election year to try and cut down on the rise of craft beers that have been eating into their profits for several years now.

If there is one thing I do know though it is this: I'm not motivated to drink more Budweiser then I already do. Which honestly is only when I'm at someones house and they offer it because its the only thing they have. I'm going to make a fairly educated guess that a lot of you won't be putting down your Sam Adams, Boulevard or Shiner's anytime soon due to the change. But, it did get them into the news - and me back to writing - so all in all, it has already had some good impact.

Dr Pepper Ten - is it manly or offending?

Maybe its because I'm the only guy in a house with 3 other women or I'm just secure enough of a man, but I just don't get the whole "manly" advertising of some companies. The latest attempt at advertising directly to men is Dr. Pepper Ten. When I first saw this commercial it just made me laugh. The overt machoism and sexism is way over the top. Which I guess is what Dr. Pepper is going for. But what are they really communicating with this ad?

First off, they are saying that most men are so insecure about being a man that they can't drink diet pop because its too feminine. Which is exactly what their research told them. Really guys. Look, I don't drink diet pop, not because I'm afraid to, but I just can't stand the taste of it. Not sure why guys would be afraid to drink diet pop if they were okay with the taste, but insecurities are a good way to market products - at least that is what Dr. Pepper thinks.

Secondly, Dr. Pepper is communicating that they really don't mind about being sexist, at least when it comes to this product. Interestingly, they said that they did a test market in several areas and about 40% of those trying Dr. Pepper Ten were women because they "got the joke." I wonder if they watch SNL's mocking of the Shake-a-weight when thinking about getting the joke. 

What I would be concerned about as a business is offending 50% of my potential client base. So, we'll have to see if people will look at this and just laugh about it or if people will get offended.

I would mostly like to see soft-drink companies make a diet soft drink that doesn't taste aweful. Maybe Dr. Pepper Ten did - so maybe I will try it...

 

 

Would 9/11 be different today? MIP asks a compelling question

(image from the cover of The Economist magazine)

Like most Americans, I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing and the rest of the day on 9-11-01. This year we observe the 10th anniversary of that tragic day when thousands of Americans lost their lives. I first wanted to recognize those who lost their lives that day and those since figting in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

Now, this is a communication blog, so what does this have to do with communication?

I was going to talk about how the conversations changed regarding terrorism, wars and United States intervening.

However, after reading this post by Brett Duncan at Marketing in Progress it really changed my thoughts.

Brett brings up the question of what would happen if the 9/11 attacks were attempted today. I think its an amazing question when you consider how much technology has changed. Cell phones, videos, texting and twitter are instantly posted on-line in live time.

Would it have helpd alert people? Would it have done anything?

I'm not sure. I just think it is an amazing question to ask. Brett agrees with me, stating:

I marvel at just how much more we would know because of these commonplace technologies that weren’t even available 10 years ago. I wonder how that day would have changed had they been available. I dare even wonder if that day would have even happened the way that it did.

Technology has changed so much in the way we communicate over the past ten years. While I've talked about the good and the bad that comes with it, I think most of us don't sit back and reflect on those changes and what it means for us as a species, as a nation and as invidivuals.

Its got me thinking about history and technology and how it has affected us, how it will in the future and the what ifs of the past. It's something that I probably will continue to look at because I think it is an excellent topic of discussion.

A touching and inspiring speech

This is one of the most touching and inspiring speeches that I hear every year. Jimmy Valvano was a college basketball coach and in 1993 created The V Foundation, which funds cancer research. A few weeks after giving this speech he died from his battle with cancer.

Each year, ESPNRadio does a huge fund drive where 100% of the donations raised goes to cancer research. You can bid on a variety of prizes and events or just donate money. Just this morning, you could bid to play a round of golf with Herm Edwards or pick your choice of what College Football game you wanted to go to with the College Gameday group and hang out with them all day.

Beyond the amazing fund drive that happens each year, the speech by Jimmy V is by far the most powerful. Everytime I hear it I get a bit emotional having someone close to me die from cancer. As a speech, he makes you laugh, he makes you cry, but mostly, he makes you want to do something. That is the power of speech - it can get an emotional response and get a call to action. Take some time today to listen to this speech and if you can, please donate what you can to the V Foundation.

Thank you.

 

Thoughts on "The Communication Daily" and Paper.li

A couple of weeks ago I was included in the Kjell Kallman Daily and thought the idea behind it was fantastic. Here was a way for me to put together a daily on-line newspaper that I could somewhat control the content, but didn't have to spend hours on as well. Since then, I set up the "Communication Daily."

Paper.li is fairly new and more people are starting to use it, but I find it very useful for a few reasons. First, it allows me to find articles that people have posted throughout the day that I might have missed. I am not in front of my computer that much anymore and when I am, I have work to do. This means that I will usually miss some great posts by people during the day unless I'm lucky enough to catch it for the 5 or 10 minutes that I'm on. So on a personal/selfish level its nice because I can follow people on twitter and check out their posts without having to be tied to my computer all day.

Secondly I love the layout. It looks more professional than a lot of on-line newspapers (at least the small-town ones that I've been used to). It automatically separates the paper into different sections based on the content, while keeping an essential core the same (media, pictures, etc.). In this sense, it is easy to follow and catch up on everything.

Third, it allows me to recognize a few people each day on twitter that deserve it! There is so much good stuff out there that people should check out, its nice to recognize them from time to time and hopefully spread what they have been writing about to others.

Overall I'm glad I started using Paper.li and will continue to use it. They are working on adding more control features for users, which they needed to, and I'm excited to see what changes will come in the future.

Note: The list on twitter I use is the list of those I follow and have listed under the tag Communication. If you are involved in communication in some aspect and I don't follow you yet on twitter or don't have you in that list, drop me a line and I'd be happy to get you added so you can be a part of it.

- Travis

Effective use of Twitter by businesses

I've spoken a couple of times about the importance of using Twitter correctly over the past couple of years and while some people have not learned that lesson, others are starting to.

Yesterday I swung by a Casey's General Store gas station to get a bottle of coke and there in the cooler were glass bottles of coke with actual sugar in them (instead of the usual corn syrup that is used today in place of actual sugar). So when I tweeted that I found my new favorite gas station, mentioned the coke and included a picture of the Coke bottle I didn't expect anything to happen except for some of my friends to maybe make a comment.

What I was surprised by was what happened next. First, Casey's replied to me and said "Thanks Travis!" I thought that was cool. Just a simple, thank you. It didn't surprise me that much, but it was still neat to see someone was at least using twitter to be an interactive voice for a gas station.

What happened then just made me chuckle and I thought was great on their part. The Gas Stop decided to join in on the discussion by responding to me with "Retro Coke is available at The Gas Stop at 57th and Western—on sale for 59¢ each!"

So, they are not just saying hey come and buy from us - they saw that I loved the fact that Coke with real sugar is what I liked, they informed me that they also have it - and it's on sale for 59 cents!

Great job by both sides. While the Gas Stop threw in some advertising, they were making it personal by saying - 'hey, we've also got retro coke and its on sale." Needless to say, I'm going to swing by there today and check it out.

On Effective Communication - Inc. Magazine's interview with Peter Guber

I've always preached the idea that communication is first and foremost something that everyone needs to do well if they want to succeed. It doesn't matter what business you are involved in or what you are planning on doing for a living, if you can communicate well, you will be successful.

Inc. Magazine has an interview with Peter Guber who has a new book out titled "Tell to Win". Here is a snippet from that interview:

OK, so how can someone in sales or marketing turn a garden-variety pitch into a purposeful story?
It's so simple, it's embarrassing, and yet a lot of people overlook the basics. First, when you walk into a room to sell a product or pitch an investor or whatever, you absolutely have to know what your intention is. What do you want from your listeners? You have to understand your objective and be transparent about it in order to establish trust. Second, you have to figure out a way to capture your listeners' attention. It can be a physical movement or asking someone about the pictures on his desk in a way that builds mutuality. Finally, the goal of your story must be to show what is in it for the listeners. The audience must win.

While there is more to it than that if you want to be good (figuring out what your listeners what takes some time, having a good presentation to capture the audience's attention, etc) he boils it down to the simple fact that communication is important, but most people don't realize that it doesn't take a great amount of time to get better at it. Also, the fact that if you want to succeed - you have to be good at communicating!

I'm glad more and more people are starting to realize how important communication and storytelling is in the business world. I've heard good things about this book and I plan on picking it up as soon as I can.

Too Busy? Try to set aside some time.

Over the past couple of months, I have been crazy busy! Working on research projects, helping create speeches/presentations and working with the Washington High School debate teams has pretty much filled up my days. Because of this, my blog here has taken the brunt of the hit because I have not updated it since Feb. 9th!

What I've come to realize is that I have to set aside some time each week to put my thoughts on communication down on this website. I find it very valuable and I hope you find the information that I share valuable as well. So, from now on I am setting aside at least an hour each week to make sure I post here.

This is something that you can use to become a better speaker. A lot of us realize the importance of being a better speaker, but we don't take the time to actually work on it! Take some time each week to practice your speeches or speaking style. You can break it up however you want. For example, one week work on your gestures, the next, enunciation, and so on and so forth.

Setting aside time is important. It ensures that we stay focused and don't loose out on something important.

-Travis

What we can learn from the State of the Union

Last week President Obama gave his second State of the Union. Instead of talking about the politics in his speech, I wanted to touch on the idea of expectations.

Expectations can be both a good thing and a bad thing. If people have an expectation that you are a good speaker, they are more likely to listen to what you have to say and will want to see you speak. This usually comes with you being an effective speaker, so that means that you are a good speaker and people want to listen. However, the problem is that if you don't meet those expectations, people are going to walk away feeling disapointed.

This is how I felt during the SOTU. I have high expectations of President Obama's oration ability. He has consistently shown his powerful and engaging speaking style during his 2008 campaign and in his speeches since then. However, he did not come close to that in this speech. 

So what can we learn from this? Make sure that you know what your audiences expectations are of you and work on meeting that expectation. If you don't, be prepared for people to be somewhat disappointed. When that happens, it could decrease the effectiveness of your speech.

There are several lessons we can learn beyond this, which I will be looking at in February's newsletter.

 

In honor of another great public speaker

Today is the 50th anniversary of JFK's Inaugural address. So this week we get to celebrate two great public speakers.

 

In Memory of a Great Public Speaker

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr - the complete 'I Have a Dream' speech.

 

My favorite posts from 2010

Two years ago I wanted to have a website up where I could talk about my ideas regarding communication. I've had a lot of ideas over those past two years and it is time for another year in review.

If you want a quick run-down of my thoughts on communication, you can take the abridged version and check out last years top posts list and then check out this years.

There were a lot of issues that I looked at over the past year, but these were my favorite:

Get off line to get some perspective - and work done. - Do we all spend far too much time on-line these days? It seems that sometimes we are so focused on keeping up to date with Twitter and Facebook that it kills some of our focus. I was off-line during the day for several days in a row and I got a lot accomplished in that time.

 

Is President Obama Speaking Too Much? - While I do think President Obama is a great public speaker, he seems to be on TV all of the time. At a certain point, saturation can get overwhelming - causing your effectiveness to decrease. In fact, the Decker blog once again put Obama on the top 10 worst speakers in 2010.

 

100 Posts! What's our focus been? - This was a fun post looking at what I had been talking about with my 100 posts since I had started my blog. Using Wordle to see what I was talking about was a great way to make sure I was focusing on the right things.

 

Are Super Bowl Ads Worth the Cost? Maybe, but what can we learn from them? - Super Bowl ads almost always have some very memorable ads each year. Is it worth the money spent? It depends on how effective it is.

Avoid making the big mistakes - what the Minnesota Vikings can teach us about public speaking - Being from South Dakota, I am surrounded by Vikings fans and saw the devastation of the fans when they lost the NFC championship game to the Saints. However, the mistakes that the Vikings made can also teach us a thing or two about presentations

 

Sherlock Holmes, Guy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr. and Style. - I loved the new Sherlock Holmes movie directed by Guy Ritchie and starting Robert Downey Jr. The style that was used is a great example of how changing up a style is a good way to give some new life to an old presentation.

 

Educators need some new branding. - This one is a bit personal for me since I am in education and my daughter wants to be a teacher. However, I think it brings up some interesting points on what educators need to do if they are going to be respected.

I Hate Public Speaking song. - I found this song and a lot of people really seemed to like it, so I wanted to make sure to include it here as well.

Know who you are following on Twitter - don't just use Keywords. Being on Twitter, I am used to people just following you at random times. However, I got really annoyed one weekend when I was being followed by a lot of wedding people because I had posted a couple of comments about the wedding I was at - the following post was my response to those people.

Native American Day versus Columbus Day. - This is an issue that I feel strongly about. In South Dakota, we celebrate Native American Day - the other 49 states - Columbus Day. Once I learned the entire history of Columbus and his treatment of Native Americans when he reached the new world, my thoughts on this matter got even stronger. What are your thoughts?

Should Obama become the Hulk? - This relates mostly to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and how Obama was responding to it. Our body language and voice inflections tell us a lot about how we are thinking and feeling. A lot of people felt that Obama needed to be a lot angrier at BP and felt that his attitude was far too light.

 

Foursquare Badges Tell Stories - Which One is Another Story. - I use FourSquare and I remember the old foursquare game. The badges can tell some stories that might not be what you want to be told.

 

 

Hook: The Presentation Conference

I am quite excited about an event that is coming up on March 25th and March 26th that I have been invited to be a part of - Hook: The Presentation Conference.

Scott Schwertly at Ethos 3 is putting together what looks like an amazing conference. If you go to their website you'll see how lofty their goals are (and I say lofty, but they are definately achieveable). This is what you should expect:

Arrive. Have your mind blown. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Weep. Depart.

Sounds like a good time to me.

Keynote speakers include:

Gary Vaynerchuk

Scott Stratten

Michael Hyatt

Additionally, there are going to be several presentation experts speaking as well - which include:

Nat Robinson

Geetesh Bajaj

C.C. Chapman

Scott Schwertly

Olivia Mitchell

Garth Johnson

Jon Thomas

Dave Delaney

and as I mention before, yours truly.

I'm quite excited to be speaking with such a great group of leaders in the presentation world. If you are looking for a conference that will help you in whatever field you are in - this is one you should look at. I'm not just saying that because I'm going to be a part of it either. Besides, you get to hang out in Nashville, TN - believe me, it is much more than just country music!

I hope to see you there - if you have signed up, drop me a line and let me know what you'd like to see. I would like some information on what people are looking for before I finish up my presentation - that way you can get more out of it.

 

Native American Day versus Columbus Day

I wanted to post this last Monday (since it was Columbus Day in most of the U.S.), but I didn't have time. However, I wanted to still talk about it this week.

In South Dakota, we do not celebrate Columbus Day - we celebrate Native American Day. The reason for this seems simple: 10% of our population is Native American and the legislature wanted to acknowledge them instead of Columbus. However, the meaning of it goes even deeper.

When we celebrate Columbus Day, what are we celebrating? For most of us, we are taught in our schools that Columbus "discovered" America and it lead to the great migration out of Europe starting with the Jamestown group followed shortly by the Mayflower. This sounds reasonable right? Maybe not.

Communication is all about the language that we use. I've always felt that the term 'Indian' was incorrect when talking about the native people of the Americas. They are not Indian, people from the country of India are Indian. However, because of Columbus and the people that followed, our history books have labeled the indigious people of the Americas as 'Indian.' In fact, here in South Dakota, it is politically correct to say 'Indian Country' when talking about the reservations.

But this issue goes beyond communication. When we study Columbus, history books ignore a great deal of what he did. I won't get into it and you can make your own determinations, but let's just say that it was not what one would consider a christian thing to do. Because of this history, there is a group that is now working to change our minds when it comes to columbus day. They are called "Reconsider Columbus Day."

While we might think of Columbus day as just another day on our calendar that we don't really pay attention to and most people still have to work on, what are we communicating when we do still have it as a national holiday? Are we communicating the achievements of Columbus? That he set up the expansion of settlements that allowed the nation of the United States to exist? Or are we celebrating something else?

I don't usually get too political here - politics is a dangrous pool that can drown you faster than the Mississippi - but living in South Dakota, this is an issue that I've seen first hand. Check out the video below and go to the Reconsider Columbus Day's website - even check out an article from Al Neuharth (who is from South Dakota) of the USA Today - and let me know what you think. Should we change Columbus Day to Native American Day? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts - I know mine are affected by where I live and my work with Native Americans in the classroom, so I'd like to see what you think.

 

15 Minutes - Including Q & A - A Book Review

Many of us have seen lousy presentations after lousy presentations. I am sure most of you have asked a simple question: "Why are these presentations so bad?" Well, there are a lot of reasons to be sure. I am sure that I could fill an entire blog post just listing the problems with PowerPoints - which I would have to do in bullet format of course.

There are a lot of people trying to change this however: Duarte Design, Garr Reynolds, Sticky Slides, your truly, Joey Asher and many others.

Joey Asher though has an interesting idea that he is trying to get people to believe in. His concept: no presentation should last longer than 15 minutes - and that includes the Q & A time as well. Revolutionary? probably. Will people do it? Maybe.

The book itself is quite short and to the point - which is exactly what Joey wants all of us to do with our presentations. However, the effectiveness of it is its simplicity. He breaks down exactly how to put together a 7 minute presentation and how to prepare for the Q & A at the end.

I'm almost wondering if Joey did Extemporaneous speaking as a high school student because his method is exactly what I have taught my students for the past 10 years:

1. Start with a hook

2. Give a preview of your main points (keep it to three)

3. Body of the speech

4. Review

5. Call to action

It's a great way to make sure your point gets across to your audience. Joey breaks it down a little bit more than I just did, but I don't want to give away all of his good tips and suggestions.

He goes through each area and helps you figure out how to take a presentation that used to be a long-winded, soul-crushing event to a short, persuasive and effective presentation.

If you are having trouble shortening your presentations then I would highly recommend picking up this book. It not only will teach you a lot of key ideas, but it is something that you can also keep with you for a reference guide in case you need some help.

The only question really is - will people have the gumption to follow his suggestions? It's a long shot, but one I'm hopeful for.

Know who you are following on Twitter - don't just use Keywords

A little over a week ago I was at a beautiful outdoor wedding. The entire wedding party was dressed nice and very classy. Sadly, one of the guests was not. I won't describe the outfit, but let's just say it wouldn't be appropriate for anything but going to a club (and even then, I'm not sure).

After the service, I made some comment about the dress in response to a friend of mine who talked about what she wanted to wear to the wedding she was going to. Keep this in mind: this was the first time I have probably talked about weddings the entire time I've been on Twitter. I'm not in the wedding business, I don't have any kids who will be getting married for quite a long time and I just don't care that much about weddings (don't get me wrong, I like weddings and enjoy them, its just not something I think about on a weekly basis).

Because of my one comment on wedding, over the next week I had about 10 people follow me who dealt with weddings! Every time I just got irritated because I know that they were following me because they probably have a program that find people who mention 'wedding' and then automatically follow them. Needless to say, I didn't follow back.

This is one of those areas that it really does directly relate to public speaking: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!! You have to know your audience if your speech is going to be effective. If your audience has the background knowledge already, you can skip some basic things - if not, you need to include it. Are they young, old, what business are they in, etc. All of those questions are key to tweaking your speech so you can be more effective.

Twitter is the same way: make sure you understand who you are following if you want to engage in the community. Are you a communicator? Are you in Sioux Falls? Do you know me personally? Do you read my blog regularly? If you answered yes to any of those, then it might be a good idea to follow me. If you are following someone just because I used one keyword, chances are, I won't follow back and its hard to have a discussion with people, when they don't engage back in conversation.

Foursquare Badges Tell Stories - Which One Is Another Story

If you don't know what Foursquare is you are not alone. There are a little more than 3 million users currently on Foursquare. Now that is quite a jump from the 725,000 users in March, but it is still quite short of the 500 million users on Facebook.

What is Foursquare? Well, I am not talking about the game played on playgrounds with four squares and a ball, but a mobile application that "aims to encourage people to explore their neighborhoods and then reward people for doing so." If you visit a location often enough you can become the 'mayor' of the location. Some businesses are taking advantage of Foursquare and giving away things or offering a discount to those people who check-in to their location. For example, Granite City in Sioux Falls offers a free 20 oz beer to the mayor of Granite City.

Along with being a 'mayor' you can get 'badges' for going to certain locations, checking in a certain number of times or at certain times. While the badges can be fun, you have to be careful what you are saying to the rest of the world, because they can become a story unto themselves.

For example, there is the Bender badge - where if you check-in at locations four nights in a row. Or the Crunked badge - where you check in at 4 stops in one night. Now are all of those bars? Not sure, but what story is starting to develop if someone sees those badges? And really, do you want to broadcast that information to everyone out there?

While there are some articles that talk about privacy, you also want to be careful about sending mixed messages. While it might be fun to check-in everywhere and go over everything, make sure that you are not sending a mixed message to everyone (like getting a 'player please' badge when you are out on the town WITHOUT your significant other - didn't happen to me, I'm just saying). If you want to see a compiled list of badges, this website is doing a pretty good job of keeping it all up.

What you can take away from this as far as communication goes is a simple one: Communication is all about getting the right message out. If you don't have a clear message when you are speaking, people can get the wrong idea. When that happens, they will either be uninformed, misinformed or utterly confused. When that happens, your speech will suffer.

So make sure when you are writing and giving your speeches that you use language and images that are not going to have double meanings in them. Being clear, concise and unambiguous is very important in making sure that your speeches are successful.

So if you are on foursquare, make sure to think about what you want posted for everyone to see. And if you are interested, you can find me there trying to keep my Mayorship of Queen City Bakery!

Book Review: Everyone Communicates - Few Connect by John C. Maxwell

Throughout this book, the focus is on connecting with others at three different levels: one-on-one, in a group, and with an audience.

John C. Maxwell stays true to this statements in his new book "Everyone Communicates, Few Connect" that I have had the privilege to read over the past couple of weeks. Sadly, I wanted to write about this a few weeks ago when I first got a copy, but I tend to read books a little too thoroughly. I highlight parts, make notations on the sides, and use tabs to mark key spots - and I tend to read about 6 books at a time - which is basically the excuse I'm using for taking so long.

Anyway, back to the book. I enjoyed Maxwell's book quite a bit. When I look at books I look for several things. First, there is a clear focus to his book - improving how you connect with people on three levels: one-on-one, in a group and with an audience. What I liked a lot about the book is that at the end of each chapter he re focused his topic back on those three areas. He basically reviews the previous chapter and how to relate that to connecting with people.

Connecting is never about me. It's about the person with whom I'm communicating.

The second aspect of his book that I like is the fact that it re-enforces a lot of what I have written about or talked about over the past few years. While I like to think that I know what I'm talking about, it is nice to have someone with Maxwell's background confirming those ideas. Especially his description of what he had gotten out of his speech class - basically not much. I've tried to explain that to people - students are coming out of high school and college ill-equipped for giving speeches and communicating with people. While this book isn't the entire answer, it can definitely help you become a better communicator.

The best advice I can give is for you to learn how to be yourself. The best professional speakers know themselves and their strengths - often learned through trial and error - and they use them to their greatest advantage.

That is what I appreciate the most about his book - it isn't a guide on what to do and how to do it. It's a suggestion box of ideas and strategies that you can use to be a better communicator. That is mostly what I love about this book. If you want to become a better communicator get this book. It isn't the final answer on communicating - but it is a great start. I am definitely going to use some of the tips that I learned in this book.

Get off line to get some perspective - and work done

 Over the past few days I have been without the internet at work. Needless to say it means that I have not been able to check my e-mail as often as I would like (sadly I don't have a blackberry) and I have been off of most social networking sites except for at random intervals or in the evenings when I get a chance.

I thought I might go crazy at first, but I have also found myself highly productive. There have been numerous things on my to-do list that just kept getting pushed aside until these past few days. I've been able to knock out a lot of those items on the list and get some work done on topics I wasn't sure I would be able to get to until sometime this summer.

While I have missed some of the banter that I am sure is occurring on Twitter, I don't feel as left out as I thought I would. In fact, not being able to get on-line at will has been a bit of a refresher for me and has been quite nice.

Sometimes we need a change in our routine to get a little perspective back into our lives. A lot of times, we try to stick to what we always do, fearing what would happen if we changed. Unfortunately, this is usually to the detriment of ourselves. How can we get better if we just keep doing things the same way we always did them? The answer is: we can't.

The message for communication is clear - don't just rely on what you currently are doing or have done in the past. Make sure to take a step back and analyze a few things. Are your intros really that good? Can the language used be sharpened more? Do my visuals in the PowerPoint actually make sense? A lot of times we think we know the answers to these and other questions, but a lot of times we don't have the perspective needed to see the problems.

So, my advice to all of you is to take a day or two, and if you can, shut off your computer for a good portion of the day. I know this may not be practical for some of you, but a good banishment from the web can be a good thing (even though I complained about it on Twitter). As for your speeches, take a step back and try to get a fresh look at your speeches and presentations. Are they really doing what you want them to do - or is it just what you've always done. A fresh pair of eyes can do nothing but help.

Green Drinks - A Great Way to Converse About Sustainability

 In Sioux Falls, Astronaut Studios has been putting together an event each month called 'Green Drinks.' Their website explains that:

Sioux Falls Green Drinks is an informal monthly mixer for people who are interested in conversation and learning about sustainable business, design, policy and living. It’s organized locally by the 
Sioux Falls Green Project and Astronaut. Fun is in our nature

The Green Drinks events have been a lot of fun and have really stimulated a lot of discussion around sustainability. Previous events have included speakers from various backgrounds including Poet (a major Ethanol producer in the US), the Plain Green Conference, Copenhagen Climate Change Conference attendees and a Mayor's forum.

 Along with the speakers, the rest of the time is spent just meeting people who believe in sustainability. During this time, people can discuss projects that they are working on regarding green projects or ideas that they have and want some discussion on. The nice part about the events is that they are usually at a bar or restaurant, which gives the meetings a very laid back feel to them. This allows the people who show up to feel comfortable and not feel like it is some big event that they have to be tense or dress up for (even though a lot of them come straight from working, so they are in their business clothes).

They have also did a great job with their branding. They have had some great artists create posters for each meeting and each of them have been great, which a couple of them I have included on this post.

If you are in the Sioux Falls area, you should try to check it out. The communication on sustainability and green innovation, jobs, energy, etc. has been a great way to get a discussion started on those topics.