3 Preconditions for Effective Communications

Ever reached out, across the virtual divide, and found your communications efforts less than stellar?  (Yep.)   Somehow, the conversation seems to have barely begun, before the scene deteriorates and communications fall apart.   Puzzled as to why things unfolded that way?   Maybe, the conditions weren’t in-place to begin with, for effective communications to […]

Camp: The Professional Development Format of The Future

When I was kid, many summers would find me at camp.   Invariably camp was fun, challenging (new things, new people, different rules…), and always a learning experience.   What if today’s “professional development” experience was like camp? MuseumCamp 2014 Nina Simon is Executive Director of the Santa Cruz (California) Museum of Art & History.   […]

Communicating With Your Audience in Their Culture

To communicate effectively we need to already have some areas of commonness between us.  Culture is one of those areas.   When facilitating virtual teams or in local cross-cultural contexts, I sometimes underestimate the differences between cultures.  It’s easy to auto-pilot into my culture’s way of doing things.  And, that’s not always a good thing. […]

The risk of letting others do your work: Loss of connection

When I let others do my cooking, I hand over control.  And, in handing over that control, I sacrifice connection.  When I choose to go fast food over home cooking, I’ve removed myself from the connection between food ‘au naturel’ and finished product.  There is risk-reward in letting others do your work.    No human, […]

Effective Communications: Adding Verbal and Non-Verbal Capacity in Virtual Contexts

Working virtually can put the squeeze on our full range of verbal and nonverbal communication skills. This is a given with it comes to nonverbal. When we’re in the same physical space together, the success of our communication effort  is mightily influenced by our nonverbal, visual, actions.  Where is body language, and tone of voice, […]