Speaking For All Mankind

I like this book!  Scott Berkum has written a book that I wish I had when I was teaching the communication practices because this is the kind of real world advice students need to be successful public speakers.  Scott’s confessions about his speaking career bridges the gap between the basics of speech communication and the secrets of highly-successful speakers (although Scott is a highly-successful speaker).  No, what is good about Scott’s advice is that he shares his lessons from the mistakes he made starting out.

My favorite chapters?  “The science of not boring people;”  “How to make a point;” and “What to do if your talk sucks.”  An especially motivational chapter is “You can’t do worse than this” in which Scott shares stories of famous speakers and their worst speaking moment.  There is nothing really new here but the advice of rehearse your speech, come early and check out your speaking arrangements, and don’t read your slides needs repeating (over and over in some cases).

I think where this book will be most helpful is in training federal government speakers.  I’ve seen some good briefings but your average speech by public officials can be a painful event.  Granted, most topics are of a highly technical nature and dense with policy points and regulatory language but the presenter can at least work to engage the audience.  With Scott’s advice, the presenter can successfully engage the audience.

Great example of how to train employees in effective social media practices – Telstra’s 3Rs of Social Media Engagement.

I received it last week after a little confusion at the UPS store over when the package actually arrived.  I have to agree with other reviewers who complain about the slow refresh of the reading screen and the controls on the color screen can be confusing.  The WiFi works great and I had no trouble registering it on my home network.  The books look great and it’s quite easy to read on the Metro.

An unexpected bonus is when you pair the Nook with O’Reilly’s Safari Online.  If you have a personal account with Safari, you can access every book published by O’Reilly and download it as a PDF (with even some as an ePub).  I’ve downloaded a large primer on VB 3.5 in the ePub format that rendered well on the Nook.  I’ve also downloaded two different books as PDFs and it rendered well including images.  The other PDF rendered the text correctly but no images.  Considering how big tech books can be, it’s great to be able to carry around a tech library on a micro-SD instead of an overstuffed backpack.

Yes, I know most would rather read Sports Illustrated than the Federal Register.  But imagine a government report that can provide instant updated information and allow you create ad-hoc reporting on the data in the report.

I get a Nook tomorrow and I am anxious to try out the Android operating system.  I know it is a stripped-down version of Android but I bet in a couple of years from now that e-readers will be like this future look at Sports Illustrated.

Thanks to Pharyngula for the link to this great article from Issac Asimov where he discusses why all knowledge is a working hypothesis.

Herding Cats has written another great post that is critical of Project Management 2.0.  What I find especially persuasive is the need for objectively assessing accomplishments that PM 2.0 seems to be missing.  In fact, almost the same set of arguments can be applied to informal learning.

Jack Vinson describes the real goal of knowledge management.  A much needed reminder after a day of discussing the use of online social networking tools.  It’s great to focus on the public but employees can also benefit from internal social networks.

As a part-time professor, I have assigned, observed, and graded many group projects.  With more communication tools at their disposal, students seem to collaborate less.

An incident at work has made me think about the “curse of knowledge.”  As one becomes proficient in their chosen field, they accumulate knowledge and experiences that grows their body of knowledge.  The longer a person is in a field, they are able to use chunking to become experts.  The person climbs the mountain of knowledge and once they reach a certain point, they can no longer see where they started.  They forget what it was like to be a beginner in the field.

This is the curse of knowledge and this is a major barrier to informal learning.  It takes a special skill for an expert to re-enter the beginner’s mind and to communicate the concepts to a non-expert.  Some informal learning experts believe that it is enough for learners to mingle among themselves and they will pick up the knowledge (supposedly by osmosis).  But, if that were true, I could become a brain surgeon by hanging around my local hospital.

One can learn a great deal from experts but there has to be some structure and the expert not only has to be an expert in the subject matter but accomplished at communicating that knowledge.  Your average office expert isn’t rewarded for his or her teaching abilities but for their acquisition of skills and knowledge.  I know some managers would like to think they are encouraging learning among their employees but, when the pressure is on, informal teaching and informal learning are luxuries that many organizations can’t afford.