I too, would like to have a damn-burger…this Labor Day Weekend.

Have a good one, everybody!

Say you’re in executive communications at AIG. Is this the type of interview you would have approved for your new CEO?

Wow. Really?

Not good for AIG. Not good for the team.

Returning to the science behind successfully communicating ideas, actions, and desired outcomes with effective graphical design:

"A good graphic invites the eye to dart around and to selectively create a visual logic so the act of engaging and looking at the image creates the meaning."

Information designer Tom Wujec talks (six minutes of video) through three areas of the brain that help us understand words, images, feelings, connections. In this short talk from TEDU, he asks: How can we best engage our brains to help us better understand big ideas?

Picking up on the moon landing post below, Kennedy’s moon speech is a quintessential example of powerful, impactful executive communications.

It was inspirational for all Americans in a time of Cold War anxiety. It set a new course in US-global international relations as it asserted our intention to win the space race. Most importanly, it motivated the management and technical teams at NASA that were about to undertake the most audacious goal in human history.

Do you think you are a poor public speaker? A bad writer? I can’t count how many smart, articulate people I have met who think this about themselves.

Bottom line: communication is communication. The core skills involved – defining your message, fitting it to your audience, delivering it and adapting it based on feedback – do not change whether you are in a casual one-on-one conversation or delivering a formal onstage presentation. Important aspects of behavior and performance will change, but the underlying principles are the same.

The lesson: if you are an effective communicator in any forum, you can be effective in any other. It will require work, focus, and (hardest of all for most people) critical self-awareness, but it can be done.

It isn’t hard finding someone who knows how to speak. It is hard – excruciatingly hard – to find someone who knows how to listen.

There is a “talking” skill set; think of it as the ability to make what you say sound interesting. Good marketing people have it. That’s why they’re in marketing. The problem is, it’s not usually connected to the “listening” skill set.

I watched a panel discussion yesterday. Three of the speakers dominated the discussion, sometimes even shouting over each other.

The fourth said nothing until the session was two-thirds over. She then spoke up in a level but authoritative voice. She cogently summed up each of the other speaker’s positions, showed where her own perspective differed, and explained why. She said more in two minutes and did more to move the discussion forward then they had in an hour.

A lesson to all of us who like to hear ourselves talk.