Speaking to your specific audience

I've been reading Helen Thomas's Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President. Ms. Thomas was a White House press correspondent for many years, and this book is anecdotes from that time. There is a great story from the time when Ronald Reagan was President. Reagan was given the nickname The Great Communicator because he spoke so effectively to all sorts of people. According to Ms. Thomas, here he is speaking in front of the National Conference of Building and Construction Trades:

"Here is a story about some of the basic rules of communication. It was told to me for the first time by Danny Villanueva, who used to placekick for the Los Angeles Rams and then became a sports announcer. Danny told me that one night he was having dinner witha young ballplayer with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the young wife was bustling about getting the dinner ready while he and the ballplayer were talking sports. And the baby started to cry, and over her shoulder the wife said to her husband, 'Change the baby.' This young ballplayer was embarrassed in front of Danny and said, 'What do you mean, change the baby? I'm a ballplayer. That's not my line of work.' And she turned around, put her hands on her hips, and she communicated: 'Look, buster, you lay the diaper out like a diamond, you put second base on home plate, put the baby's bottom on the pitcher's mound, hook up first and third, slide home underneath, and if it starts to rain, the game ain't called - you start all over again.'"

Now that's a speaker who understands the audience.

To learn something, teach someone else

What a surprise (not). If you want to learn something new so it sticks with you, one possible technique is to explain it to others. That's tip #4 on this list of ways to learn new material. And guess what? Your teacher has an excuse for giving you tests - tip #9 shows that students who were tested on material retained it better than those who were not.

Sending a symbolic message

When you walk into a room, you present a message about yourself before you utter a single word. This message is carried in your walk, the way you dress, and the way you make eye contact with other people, as well as many other ways. There are many different forms of non-verbal communication, a few of which are detailed on this page. Here's a site that references a different sort of message, though: the mainstream fashion press has made plenty of speculation about what Mrs. Obama will wear to inaugural balls on January 21st. What if she wore (gasp!) a recycled dress? Mrs. Carter did, and it caused quite a flurry of attention and criticism. But is also is a form of non-verbal communication. In this depressed economy with many people calling for reuse of scarce resources, I can imagine the message that would be sent by such a choice.