Effective Uses of Profanity

I think most of us would agree that profanity in business communication usually is not a good thing. Not everyone would agree. Robert Sutton is an engineering professor at Stanford, and he has a new book out called The No Asshole Rule. His blog has a great management metric for assessing yourself and your colleagues that demonstrates several things. First, sometimes a certain word (in this case, asshole) can have an impact where no lesser word (such as jerk) would do. Second, non-verbal communication can be very powerful in ways that words cannot. The system he describes allows communication without interrupting the speaker.

Speaking without Words

We recently got a puppy, and I find myself thinking a lot about non-verbal communication. Oh, we talk to the dog, all the time. But he doesn't talk back to us in words. He does communicate plenty, however. His communications are wags, piddles, bites and jumps, and other dog things. I know he knows some words, but he also seems to know something about body language. Try Googling nonverbal communication statistics (and yes, I do know the fine folks at Google would probably prefer that I not use that verb) and you will see the claim that some high percentage of communication even between beings who can speak to each other is nonverbal communication. So, how then do you ensure your nonverbal communication is effective? I am not sure what the answer to that question might be. Does that mean we know how to communication nonverbally instinctively? How would you learn to lie without words? Or is that what acting is?

Using props in a talk

If you want to create a memorable presentation, you might consider using a prop. Of course, you would want to choose a key point to emphasize, since it's likely that your audience will remember that part of your talk best. This site has some simple suggestions. Choose carefully, and don't overdo it. Remember you want to enhance your talk, not create a standup routine.

How to Put Your Audience to Sleep

Well, no, you probably don't want to put your audience to sleep, unless you are maybe selling sleep aids or hypnosis services. But this excellent article describes why you should not rely on presentation software to speak for you. Remeber that any visual aid, such as presentation slides or a flip chart, is your aid, not your presentation. If the presentation is the slides, what are you doing there?

You can learn speaking skills

Are great speakers born or made?

Does that seem like a silly question? Well, how about this one: are great bicyclists born or made? How about great plumbers? Any skill involves some learning, and speaking is no exception. Sometimes people don't think they can learn to speak well, but it can be done. This article is about myths related to public speaking.

Selecting the right word

Well, there may not be a word for everything, but there are a lot of words. This site has an email distribution list that will send you a new word five days a week. Some weeks the words are all related; one recent theme was pirate words. Some weeks the words are more loosely connected or not connected at all. But they are always interesting.I think my favorite week was the one about palindromes and semordnilaps.