Bill's Notebook

According to Forrester Research (thanks for the link from Read Write Web).  If you are responsible for government agency communications, you will want to look at Figure 1.  How is your agency’s social media strategy serving the various groups on that ladder?

I was talking to a friend about my January 14th posting where I wrote about being “unfollowed” on Twitter after an exchange over the validity of informal learning.  He laughed about it and told me that I shouldn’t be so sensitive.  “It happens all the time.” he said.

“Well, then social networking has achieved a communication first,” I replied.  “Remember the constant quote from our professors in the communication program?  That you cannot not communicate.”

“Yes.”

“Well, it appears that social networking technologies can create new and more immediate ways of communicating.  And it also appears that social networking technologies can now make it possible to fully not communicate.”

That is a powerful unintended effect with major societal ramifications.

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.