by Leigh Geraghty
Email is arguably the biggest success story of the Internet, and it’s no wonder! Consider its many benefits: email is fast, easy to use, convenient and inexpensive. However, all this convenience can backfire on us if we end up spending too much time writing, reading and managing emails.
Here are some writing tips that will save time for both you and your readers:
by Jody Bruner
Lots of good writers have difficulty with homophones—words that sound alike, but have different meanings and spelling. Hear and here is one example—there are lots more.
Spelling and grammar checkers have come a long way but are still fallible, especially when it comes to homophones. The Spell Checker poem, which has been circulating since 1991, illustrates how a spell checker can be fooled. Go ahead and give it a try, your spell checker will only pick up two or three errors. Here are the first three stanzas: Read more →
by Lesley Nevills
When I first started practicing yoga, I had a lot of preconceived notions about what I could do physically. One teacher introduced me to a concept called beginner’s mind where you let go of assumptions and open yourself up to learning new ways of doing things. For example, the first time I tried to do a handstand, I worried that I didn’t have enough upper body strength to hold the pose. When I approached the handstand with a beginner’s mind, I let go of my fear and followed my teacher’s instructions step by step. Before I knew it, I was doing a handstand.
We can learn a lot by adopting a similar approach to our writing. By questioning assumptions about what you can say and what your readers need, your writing is more likely to be clear, concise and persuasive.
Do you have an important piece of writing to complete? Maybe you are in the process of compiling a college essay, or perhaps you need to finish off an important homework activity? Nowadays, there are some online resources out there that can help with the writing and editing processes for various different tasks. Tempted to learn more? Head to collegepaperworld.com.
For now, though, here are some tips to help you apply the beginner’s mind to your writing: Read more →
by Sarah Maloney
Howsitgoin? Wanna grabba cuppa coffee? Have you heard colleagues speak this way? Have you spoken this way? Probably, we all have. Let’s step back for a moment and ask ourselves: what is our first impression of the speaker? Let’s put these casual contractions under a corporate magnifying glass.
As communication skills consultants, we work consistently with our learners to help them improve their professional images through their business communications. Recently, we’ve noticed that many of our learners are sabotaging their professional images when delivering presentations by using “informal contractions”.
We aren’t talking about contractions like “don’t” for do not or “we’ll” for we will. When you use a few of these contractions in your speech or your writing, you sound quite personable. However, some contractions can make you sound sloppy and unprofessional—like these examples:
by guest blogger Siobhan Brown, Program Director at TidalShift Inc.
According to renowned change guru, John Kotter (2012), 70% of change initiatives in organizations and businesses fail. One of the major obstacles that hinder the overall success of change management programs is ineffective communications. This is partially due to lack of communication. When you are leading a change, you live, breathe and may even dream about the change. You are so engrossed by the change that you may feel it is not necessary to keep repeating it. However, the reality is, you cannot “over communicate” the change. When people don’t know what’s happening, what’s expected, or even why the change is occurring in the first place, they will likely make up the reasons—and their stories are usually far worse than the truth.
by Amanda Bergen
In this digital age, video is king. It promises a more engaged audience and faster, more effective delivery of your message. But are you and your team making the best use of video capabilities when you turn on your webcams? Surveys and statistics show that most employees are allergic to their webcams, but if they use video conferencing effectively when communicating virtually, they can increase engagement, build trust, and speed up decision making. It’s not enough to know how to turn the webcam on—you also need to develop a new skill set to present yourself, and your ideas, in the best possible way. After all, if it came naturally we would all be vying for the anchor desk on Good Morning America.
By Lesley Nevills
Yoga can help you polish your presentation skills. If you practice yoga, you probably know that the lessons you learn on the mat can enrich your everyday life. They can help you learn and improve other skills, such as giving presentations. Here is some yoga wisdom to help you still your mind and body so you can present with confidence, ease and intention.
Read more →
by Alan De Back
With the start of the new year, many people decide that the time is right for a job change. Because the market is so crowded with job seekers, you need to distinguish yourself from the competition during the interview process. In addition to preparing for possible questions, you might also want to be prepared for any other things that you might be asked throughout this interview. For certain job roles, the employer may require that potential candidates take a test to see if they have been taking any alcohol or drugs previously. This ensures that the candidate is sensible and reliable. To see an example of the sort of test that you might be asked to use, you could look here to see the hair follicle test which is becoming more popular. This test won’t be required from all employers, but some may want to check that they are only employing safer people. This is something to think about too. Additionally, you’ll need to work out how will you use all the skills in your communication toolbox. These skills in the interview should be carried across and built upon as you go through your job and attempt to succeed. Climbing the corporate ladder can be difficult but implementing skills and techniques from day one, beginning with the interview, may enhance your chances of promotion and success. Here are four job interview tips that will give you an edge.
Our friends over at Litcom are doing some interesting work, helping their clients get the most out of their data. If you feel your organization could take advantage of a tool that helps you present decision makers with simple visualizations showing the relationships among data from different systems, please share this blog with your colleagues in Marketing or Information Technology (IT).
by guest blogger Steve Litwin from Litcom
It’s no secret that data is one of today’s most valuable business assets, and organizations collect a seemingly infinite amount of it. The challenge, however, is that much of that information remains isolated in individual systems: your sales and marketing data resides in your CRM (customer relationship management system), your ERP (enterprise resource planning system) tracks your supply chain and inventory, your financial system tracks the flow of money and creates statements. With this kind of partitioning, it’s tough to put data to work and find meaningful trends across systems to help management make the best decisions. Thankfully, we have a customer data platform that may be able to give us the analytics we need for our business.
by Leigh Geraghty
When asked about their business writing challenges, many of our workshop participants say they have trouble with the tone of their message. Tone is how you describe the emotional quality of writing. It reflects the writer’s attitude towards the reader, and affects how the reader will respond. Writers tend to put a lot of effort into sounding competent and professional, but aren’t always sure how to create a positive tone.
When it comes to tone, you have three choices: positive, negative or neutral.