I previously wrote (dot 3439) about how phone cases allow people to express their personalities. I think churches do it through their Stations of the Cross. I am always fascinated by the differences in style to communicate the same story. Some are modern, some traditional, and others are symbolic, such as using materials from a previous building to create the stations.
What are you doing with your space to communicate the character and culture of your family or organization? Try to capitalize on your ability to tailor almost everything to represent your style and be intentional about having everything in your space reflect who you are.
I like to use analogies and exercises when I’m teaching and the importance of them was brought home in my class this week. I gave the graduate students a form to complete a written evaluation of the course — and had to provide two people with pens to fill it out. It’s not that they were taking notes on their computer the whole term — they don’t take notes at all.
I assume this habit (or lack of one) is a carryover from all the other ways that people receive information these days. You don’t take notes from all your other inputs — reading online, watching media, videoconferencing, etc. — so why take them in class? (Or at least that’s what I tell myself.) But it has made me more conscious to make my lessons tactile, memorable, visual, or participatory in hopes that the students walk away remembering at least something from our time together.
The phenomenon isn’t unique to this course. Gone are the days of spiral notebooks for each class and words of wisdom being copiously transcribed with every word the teacher speaks. If it doesn’t stick when first presented, it’s gone.
Think about your messaging from this context. If people need to remember what you say from total recall, highlight only the key points and present them in such a way that they are easy to remember: a picture, acronym, etc. Anchoring your message to something else that matters to them will keep your message from floating away.
The Great Gatsby was considered a failure until 150,000 copies of it were printed by the Council on Books in Wartime to distribute free copies to soldiers in World War II. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald never realized commercial success from the work before he died.
The iPod was invented by Tony Fadell, the VP of strategy and new ventures at Phillips, but they did not pursue production of the MP3 player. Microsoft, Motorola, Palm, Nokia, and Blackberry — all leaders in the electronics industry — also passed on the opportunity to promote the device which eventually sold 400 million units and 35 billion song downloads.
“Take Five” is the best-selling jazz single of all time, made popular by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. But when Paul Desmond wrote it, he joked that he’d use his share of royalties to buy an electric shaver!
Don’t self-edit your own idea or let the initial reactions of others prohibit you from putting it out in the world. Changes that push boundaries may take time to be accepted but are often worth the wait. Keep creating and keep sharing what you believe in!
I watched as the FedEx truck snaked its way up my street — driving the length of one house and stopping, driving past a few more and stopping, and repeating the pattern most of the block.
At first, it seemed silly that the delivery person would bother to drive such small distances, but soon I realized that she had covered the half-mile, and had she walked it would have been arduous to carry packages that far — and time-consuming to walk back to her starting point.
Much of what we do in life is like that FedEx driver. We think that we’re just taking small steps and that they don’t/won’t amount to much, but in the end, it’s how all the goals are achieved. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by the length of your journey, deliver one package to one house and drive a bit more up the street. One task at a time.
Eighty years ago today, the Japanese bombed the U.S.S. Oklahoma in Pearl Harbor, killing 429 men on the ship. Their remains were buried in 46 common graves, marked as “Unknown” as tools at the time did not allow for identification.
But in 2015, the US Department of Defense established a unit to apply today’s technology to the remains of soldiers and Marines, and to date, they have been able to positively identify 361 bodies (84%). It’s a laborious — and fascinating — multi-faceted process, involving historical artifacts, mitochondria DNA, photographs, dental records, and archeology. The unit’s work brings closure to the next generation of their families and allows those who served to be recognized with military honors and a proper burial. The “Oklahoma Project” is reaching its end, but the agency will continue its work with those killed in other wars, with the goal of having no military “unknowns” in the future.
Previously, I’ve written about a prioritization matrix (dot 2021) that sorts projects by high to low impact on one axis and hard to easy implementation on the other axis. The Oklahoma Project certainly falls into the “hard to implement but high impact” quadrant. Sometimes, it’s worth the effort to do the difficult work that matters. On this Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, pause to appreciate those in the identification labs today and those who were in the Oklahoma on that fateful day for doing the challenging yet important service for our country.
There are countless tips available on how to make an effective pitch but author Scott Berkun sheds a new perspective on the process. In his book The Myths of Innovation, he urges people to first focus on the potential recipients of the pitch — people he calls catchers. “There’s little sense in developing your pitch if there’s no one to catch it,” he writes.
By tailoring your pitch to the person who will receive it, you are able to make it more likely that the message will be “caught by the catcher”. What do they value? What needs of theirs can you fulfill? How does your pitch relate to something they are working on? Do they respond more to data or stories?
Whether you are attempting to greenlight a million-dollar project or just trying to convince your partner to try a new restaurant for dinner, let their perspective guide how you pitch your idea. It doesn’t matter how powerfully you throw if the catcher doesn’t grab the ball.
Source: The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun, 2010
If you need a feel-good story about the holiday season read about Scott Arnold, a mailman in Virginia who personalizes stockings for each of the 250 dogs on his route. His Santa Paws delivery includes a newsletter, pictures and, of course, dog treats to celebrate the season with his four-legged customers –something he has been doing for over 20 years.
As you scurry around shopping on another December weekend, add someone new to your list. Maybe it’s a canine friend — or your neighbors, the receptionist at your doctor’s, the friend who lost someone this year, the newspaper carrier, the parking garage attendant who greets you every morning, or anyone who could use a little holiday cheer. The joy truly comes from the giving.
I received my first holiday card in the mail yesterday — from a former student who is obviously more on the ball than I am with greetings. I’ve been receiving cards from her every year since I was her activities advisor in the 1990s and it is delightful to watch her children grow. We don’t have any other contact during the year, but her card lets me know that we still have fond memories of when we were in West Virginia together.
I know your to-do list is especially full at this time of year, yet I hope you still make time to send some love through the mail. Social media is nice, but for long-lost friends, people who have impacted you, or those you don’t see often a card has more meaning than a generic post that they may or may not see. The gift of connection is one of the best gifts you can give this season.
Bonus idea: her card, like many others, is a photo greeting instead of a traditional card that you sign and send. As a result, you’re able to extend its life beyond a momentary read by taking a picture of the card and using it as the profile photo in your contact for that person. My friend Cindy makes it a fun New Year’s project to update her phone.
In my business communication class, I mentioned that it’s best to send resumes as a PDF to avoid issues with spacing or fonts. This off-handed comment led to a whole discussion on how to do that and how to add a signature to your cover letter — which led to a broader discussion about how too often people assume you know things about technology when you don’t. Examples given were when a new employee who had not previously worked in an office was told just to “jump on Teams” having no idea what that meant or when a student missed assignments because they were unfamiliar with the learning management system.
We increasingly rely on communication infrastructure to conduct our daily business but as technology advances, education hasn’t kept up. When we collaborate with others, we encounter new systems and tools that we’re expected to master with little to no instructions. Organizations purchase new programs that only a few are trained on — or even all the employees at the time — but forget that new hires have that same learning curve. Companies release new software updates leaving the user to figure out features or changes on their own. People are tempted by countless new apps that promise to make them more productive, but only if they invest untold time in experimenting with how they work.
As a communicator, you need to pay attention to both the content and the vehicle that you are using for your message. There are functions like driving, turning on the lights, or making a phone call that are essentially ubiquitous but don’t put the use of technology in that same category and assume that others know how to do what’s obvious to you. Routinely teach others software nuances and minimize the “Who Knew?!” phenomenon in your organization.
There is a sweet spot between complexity and simplicity — balancing work that is robust enough to have profundity yet straightforward enough to be understood.
For example, advanced mathematics may yield greater precision but it leaves out a large segment of the audience who can comprehend its meaning. Personality assessments range from pseudo-entertainment to complex psychological instruments, and the facilitator must balance ease-of-use with more insightful results. Marketers must decide whether to provide a synthesis of millions of terabytes of big data or report inferred insights about consumer behavior based on focus groups. Scientists can expound on their research methods and quickly go beyond people’s grasp or face criticism for a simplified summary of their results.
Experts appreciate the value of advanced analytics — and they often are passionate about sharing the specifics and clarifying the nuances that define complex subjects. But sometimes, just the basics are all your audience can comprehend and your goal should be to communicate just the essence well.
If your information requires an explanation, only use it for a format that allows you to provide clarification as well as content (eg: in person, via an extended article instead of a social media post, etc.) Too much detail often causes people to tune out instead of tuning in for more.
