I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

A recurring theme over the last year was how lousy a communicator I am. It was a little surprising to me, since in my head everything sounds good, and I thought I wrote fine.

But no. I don’t do well at face-to-face communication, especially in a larger group, and even more so with people unfamiliar.

I’m blaming it on the I and the T in my Myers Briggs profile. Wee are who wee are!

Identifying the problem is often easier than fixing it, and I guess it takes more than being conscious of the pitfalls to communicate efficiently – to me, that is having the person receive the information the way I intended. I could rant about how people should just take what I say at face value and discount all the body language and the tone, but even I read that in other people so I guess that put an end to that rant.

Anyway being conscious of what I do is one thing, being conscious as I speak is a whole other. It’s harder than I think – communicating well, and so I’m always mesmerised by people who do. I read Guy Kawasaki’s blog because he’s just that: he puts his point across, his point is simple, yet valuable, but he still manages to keep it light. Neat! That and he’s got a healthy regard for technology.

And from his blog, I found this: Bert Decker’s Top 10 (Best and Worst) Communicators of 2006. It’s worth a read, as is the rest of the blog. It’s neat when his categories are labelled – Avoid Powerpoint Abuse and Insights in Behaviour. And they’re just that.

Bert Decker put Guy Kawasaki on his list of 10 Best communicators because apparently, Guy’s presentation style is SHARP. He uses Stories, Humor, Analogies, References and Pictures/Visuals.

Hey, Steve Jobs is so SHARP he sold me an iPod! After months and months going on and on about how iPods sucked because they’re not solid state and how the batteries are going to be the bane of every owner’s existence, as soon as I watched him unveil the 4gb Nano – I had to have one, as did millions others.

So there. Be sharp. It often pays.

A recurring theme over the last year was how lousy a communicator I am. It was a little surprising to me, since in my head everything sounds good, and I thought I wrote fine.

But no. I don’t do well at face-to-face communication, especially in a larger group, and even more so with people unfamiliar.

I’m blaming it on the I and the T in my Myers Briggs profile. Wee are who wee are!

Identifying the problem is often easier than fixing it, and I guess it takes more than being conscious of the pitfalls to communicate efficiently – to me, that is having the person receive the information the way I intended. I could rant about how people should just take what I say at face value and discount all the body language and the tone, but even I read that in other people so I guess that put an end to that rant.

Anyway being conscious of what I do is one thing, being conscious as I speak is a whole other. It’s harder than I think – communicating well, and so I’m always mesmerised by people who do. I read Guy Kawasaki’s blog because he’s just that: he puts his point across, his point is simple, yet valuable, but he still manages to keep it light. Neat! That and he’s got a healthy regard for technology.

And from his blog, I found this: Bert Decker’s Top 10 (Best and Worst) Communicators of 2006. It’s worth a read, as is the rest of the blog. It’s neat when his categories are labelled – Avoid Powerpoint Abuse and Insights in Behaviour. And they’re just that.

Bert Decker put Guy Kawasaki on his list of 10 Best communicators because apparently, Guy’s presentation style is SHARP. He uses Stories, Humor, Analogies, References and Pictures/Visuals.

Hey, Steve Jobs is so SHARP he sold me an iPod! After months and months going on and on about how iPods sucked because they’re not solid state and how the batteries are going to be the bane of every owner’s existence, as soon as I watched him unveil the 4gb Nano – I had to have one, as did millions others.

So there. Be sharp. It often pays.