Clear Communication Archives - Page 6 of 9

Discount vouchers that eat up time & increase frustration

This is a tale about my hunt for information, and how it raised my levels of frustration Last week I decided that a kids' movie would make the perfect school holiday activityI'd seen in the Saturday paper that our local cinema was offering a family holiday discount Great idea! I went back to the paper and discovered that I needed to get the discount voucher online EasyBut on the company's website, I couldn't find the discount voucher anywhere! I hunted around the site - I looked under...

Help customers avoid mistakes and build brand loyalty

Last week I made a mistake in an online ordering system that resulted in my grandmother receiving her 97th birthday present 4 days late Trouble all roundIt was a fairly typical mix-up: The package wasn't delivered; I thought that the company had made an error, so I complained; I was told that, actually, the error was mine as I'd ordered something that wasn't deliverable I'm left with a few questions: Why did the company's system allow me to make the mistake How easily could it have been...

Asking the right questions

I've just been given a form for a chess tournament that my son would like to attend It's a classic example of a form that fails to ask the right questions to collect the information that the organisers needThe flyer asks parents complete the application form and send it in via mail, fax, or email In the text of the flyer, parents are told to provide their child's name, rating, date of birth, school, year level, and parent's contact details All logical information that the organisers are likely...

B is for Blank – the answer to a question that I didn’t know existed

Yesterday I learned that, when you press 'b' on the keyboard while using PowerPoint in slide view mode, the screen goes blankThis little bit of information is a revelation to me I've used PowerPoint in thousands of presentations and workshops, and I've always assumed that shifting the screen to blank is a function of the projector, not a function of the keyboardYesterday, as I was preparing to give a short workshop on workplace writing, I asked my client about whether the projector could...

Blind to mistakes

I got another reminder this week of how blind I am to my own mistakes Not that I'm unusual here - we're all good at missing the blatantly obviousMy mistake this week was the simple copying of a number from one spreadsheet to another I couldn't understand why I had money left after a transaction, and I spent time hunting for income that I'd forgotten It didn't even cross my mind to look for a silly typo! Thankfully, someone else noticed itSome mistakes leave me feeling pretty silly, and this was...

Powerful examples and stories

Have you ever noticed the way that examples and stories can add power to a message Examples and stories make abstract concepts concreteThey grab attention, encourage readers/listeners to get caught up in the content, and make messages seem real and relevant They're also highly memorableIn their short paper 'Making your presentation stick', Chip and Dan Health describe stories and examples as the building blocks of a presentation They argue that stories and examples make the big picture...

Connecting dots & drawing conclusions

One of the classic mistakes we make as communicators is failing to connect the dots and/or draw conclusions for our audiences It's easy to assume that, because we understand the message and our underlying intent, everyone else will understand it tooThe obvious examples occur when fundraising letters forget to specifically ask for a donation, or when a recruitment letter forgets to specifically explain how the recruitment process works Less clear are examples when audiences are left wondering...

Communicating with intent

I've just returned from a three-day masterclass in Dialogue, Deliberation and Public Engagement, facilitated by Lyn Carson and Jan Elliott It was a 'big' experience, and it's going to take me some time to think through what I've learnedHere are some of the communication questions that emerged from the three days - questions which can be quite challenging for people who work in this field:How do we speak so that others want to listen And listen so that others want to speakHow can we...

Screen reading vs. print reading

I've been doing some research recently about reading from screens - and particularly about whether reading from screens is more difficult than reading from paperPlenty of people argue that screen reading is more difficult than paper reading, but I haven't found much evidence to support their claimsThe discussions that I'm coming across suggest that screen reading encourages:More skipping and skimming A reduced concentration spanA reduced ability to think deeply about informationA 'staccato'...