Assigning Blame

Read this Scott Adams blog entry about being clear. (Scott Adams is the guy who writes the Dilbert comic strip.) Yes, we are all misunderstood sometimes, but how often can you be misunderstood because your audience did something wrong? If you are misunderstood, think about how you can clarify your meaning.

Calling on the wisdom of others

One great way to emphasize a point or add credibility to an assertion is to use a quote from someone else. Have a look at Quotations Page for a fairly comprehensive list of quotes on many subjects. They also have a blog for samplings of wisdom from popular culture, including television shows, the arts, and literature.

Communication Don'ts

Yeah, I know "don'ts" doesn't really scan well. In fact, one rarely sees that word except in the context of "dos and don'ts" which is how I intended it here.

In any event, all this week, Dilbert has been a sort of "How Not To Communicate" lesson. I thought the September 20th strip on listening to other people was particularly good. Dogbert really gets at an attitude that prevents people from listening well. Have a look at the previous day's strip as well.

Communicating across cultures

It seems somehow appropriate to talk about communication across cultural differences on September 11th. Maybe if we could communicate better...there would be fewer misunderstandings? Maybe, maybe not. Seems like it might be worth a try. Here's an article from the online edition of The Hindu that starts by discussing how doctors need cross cultural training, then branches out to discuss other professions and industries.

Well, I have to start somewhere

I have been thinking for a while that I wanted a place to park some of the great content that is available on communication skills. Here's a site that has a very simple way of explaining some of the easily misused words. One pair of words that I particularly hate to see misused is ensure and insure. Confusing Words does a good job of showing the difference.