Propaganda, obfuscation, spin and bull$%#t are now facts of public life to a degree that we haven’t seen before in the U.S. and helping people recognize and consider truth vs. lies will now be part of the job description for those of us engaged in the work that we do. Here’s some simple help. Read… read more →
I was fortunate enough to make a living with mine in my first career and I find it comes in pretty handy in the work that I do now … so I tend to take it with me wherever I go. A lot of people don’t like theirs or are self-conscious about it, but learning… read more →
It’s common human arrogance to assume that anything we say, write or deliver in some way will be interpreted by the receiver exactly as we intend it – and we’re probably wrong. The nuances – tone, temperament, setting, vagaries – of communication have everything to do with what people actually hear, opposed to what you… read more →
Here’s the list of 20 important words that slithered into our vocabulary in the last decade. I’m not going to mansplain any of them; you’re on your own. Read More …
Now that we’re all on the usual path of New Year self-improvement, I suggest we consider the following. These verbal tics are easy to pick up; it’s time for all of us to lose ‘em. Read More …
Smart people don’t often take kindly to criticism about how they communicate what they know so well. The challenge is that subject matter experts (SMEs) are usually more accustomed to communicating with other SMEs than they are in communicating with people who aren’t SMEs. When you know a subject well, it’s hard to remember what… read more →
We’re living in a remarkable new age of professional propaganda where lies have become as common as truth. We’re in the truth telling business, however, and the challenge that we face is that it’s usually easier for charlatans to make fake information more melodramatic, attention-getting and interesting than it is for us to make the… read more →
You may have noticed that the public sector workforce is changing – a lot. Of course, there’s always an ongoing turnover in people, but federal agencies in particular are seeing a major loss of institutional knowledge and new people are filling management positions with little experience in actually dealing with and managing people. People skills… read more →
Most of our clients are in the bad news business – you may be one of them. Delivering less than desirable news to citizens is an unfortunate part of government. People often don’t like the changes that government imposes on them for the sake of the greater good. So delivering this kind of less than… read more →
Our inability to communicate with each other is spooky. (Gratuitous Halloween reference.) By every reasonable, credible, objective source that I can find, it can be safely said that nearly 97% of experts know that the climate is changing rapidly and human activity is a major contributor. But climate denial is a multi-billion dollar industry employing… read more →