COMMUNICATION:

Looking for the latest communication tips? Communication is more than just the delivery of facts and data. True communication is just as much about listening as it is imparting. And there are a lot of ways to do it wrong. Here you can find all the latest news that we have handpicked on this most important topic. Communication: Everyone does it, even when they’re trying not to, and doing it well requires constant improvement. Here you can brush up your skills on ways to avoid failure, use better words, make more relevant points, understand context, make it stick and build understanding. Plus, getting great at presenting … or at least how not to dread it so much.

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Communication

Use Fewer Words

As someone who suffers from the affliction, I can tell you that attention spans are getting shorter. In fact, studies show that people’s attention and understanding decline after reading about 30 words. That means that this paragraph is now over your attention limit – thanks for getting this far. Read ...
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Use Your Words

We’re in a hard-to-explain field. One of the recurring lines that you’ll hear at gatherings of community engagement people is the sheer joy of hanging around people who don’t need an explanation of what we do for a living. But how we define ourselves and the vocabulary of democracy, civic ...
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This Is Us

As conveners and managers of people who have challenges and need to solve problems, we’re usually asked to help groups figure out what their members collectively think – what the priorities actually are. That sounds simple enough but it almost never is … thus we facilitate those conversations.

People and ...
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How We’re Being Schooled

Politics has always been and may always be a blood sport with one goal: win, to gain and keep power. And I’m not suggesting that’s necessarily bad, you’ve got to get the job to do the job, but it’s different than governing which, in a democracy, usually means working for ...
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Microphonebia?

I rarely run across anyone who likes to use a microphone. When they’re handed one, people say, “Oh, I don’t need that, they can hear me, I’ll talk louder.” But increasinglythey – the audience – can’t. And when people can’t hear you or have to strain to do so, it ...
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Use the Right Words

There are 171,476 words in the Oxford English dictionary. The average person uses between 20,000 to 48,000 of them, so we need to pick the right ones. Complex science, engineering and public policy need to be explained in ways that normal people can understand. Mark Twain said, “The difference between
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Do You Really Mean What I Heard You Say?

So much information is exchanged online in some way; it’s how most people are connecting and how government agencies are increasingly communicating with their customers. We’ve never been able to reach so many people so quickly and so efficiently, but like everything else, there are always consequences and challenges. Most ...
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Speaking of Truthiness

The changes in news, who and how it’s presented and how “news” is defined is top of mind if we’re interested in fighting disinformation and fakes. Most people now get their information from cable news and the internet. The Rand Corporation considered journalism facts vs. opinion and concludes that “cable ...
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It’s All About The Words You Use

Mechanical engineers speak a language that urban planners don’t understand, and biologists use language that’s probably meaningless to atmospheric scientists. Experts and most people in specialized fields develop their own unique verbal and written shorthand and use acronyms that are meaningless to the rest of us mere mortals. It’s very ...
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