How do you measure how effective your communication is ?

Before I go any further this is just a quick note to you to let you know there will be a series of articles posted on this site over the next few months that will assist you to learn effective communication.

Here’s a question for you to consider…

Is there a magic sign that lets you know if you have effective communication  or not.
The obvious answer is the results that you get. However the results that you get aren’t neccesarily the results that you want.

When planning any form of communication you need to have a clearly stated outcome, goal or objective. The more detailed that goal is the more likely you are to get what you really want.This is because once you have your goal/s clearly described and recorded you have something to measure your results against. And once you have that specification to measure against you are then able to adjust your results by altering your message to the world.

One of the Pre-suppositions of NLP is that there is no such thing as failure…only feedback. What this means is that by specifying the result that you want, you are then clear on which aspects ( if any ) you haven’t got, yet.

Once you are clear on your expected results or outcomes….

The way that you communicate your message is the next stage.
Now just so you know, I’m not going to go into any great depth here as what you’re learning here is the basics from a five day advanced communications skill training we’ll be releasing shortly. This training will go into such detail that you will be able to get exactly what you want if you apply what you learn.

How you communicate is made up of many aspects. These include:

• Verbal
• Nonverbal – which includes things like the
• way that you dress and your hairstyle  as well as
• body postures and positions. These are all aspects of Visual communication. They can be further divided into
• conscious and
• unconscious communication. 
• Auditory- This includes your
• language patterns,
• your volume,
•  tonality,
• pitch of voice,
• tempo and
• speed of speech.  

At a very detailed level there is alsoolfactory which means smell and gustatory or tastes. These last two forms of communication are not so dominant in humans any more but are still important in the ways that animals communicate.

The way that you assemble all of these aspects will determine how effective your communication is. There is also the factorwhich few people talk about which is practising these skills regularly until such times that you become unconsciously skilled at using them. What this means is that in much the same way that you struggled to learn to walk you now do it without having to plan every step. You just get up and you do it.

This article is intended as a pre-frame for further articles I will publish for you. It’s intention is for you to become aware of
How clear you really are on your outcomes or goals
To also become curious about the ways that you are communicating Right now.
To open up your model of the world  another NLP term which simply means how you experience the world and your life
And Lastly to close with this thought.
If something is possible in my neurology ( my thinking or life ) then it is also possible in your neurology.

You simply have to learn then apply and practise the skills

Aspects of Effective Communication is a post from: Top Communication Skills

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Expert: Tracy Goodwin
Bio: Tracy Goodwin has a masters in corporate communication and 10 years experience in professional speaking.
Filmmaker: MAKE | MEDIA

Duration : 0:1:22

Effective Communication Style : Effective Communication: Imagery is a post from: Top Communication Skills

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Duration : 0:8:18

Effective Communication no. 1 – Unexpressed Emotions is a post from: Top Communication Skills

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There is an old cliché that says “leaders are made, not born”. Have you ever wondered what it takes to be an effective leader? Who is a great leader? These questions often plague people who have the aspirations for leadership.

One will realize that leaders have one thing in common. Their leadership quality is one that distinguishes them from the others. However, developing leadership qualities is the first step in becoming a leader.

Let’s go through the steps in developing your leadership traits.

1. Lead by example.

Being a leader through example means showing your peers what it takes to be a leader. Exerting effort, working hard, and showing your commitment will gain the respect of your peers.

2. Inspire others.
Good leaders show exceptional skills in reaching out to others. Your listening skills are as important as your communication skills. As a leader, you must have the ability to address the concerns of your followers. Establishing a harmonious relationship is a crucial factor especially in the workplace.

3. Read books on effective leadership.
To be an effective leader, you need to spend some time looking over educational books. Instructional and audio-visual materials centering on the subject of leadership are readily accessible in the market. These are important tools to pick up some helpful reminders on how to be an effective leader.

4. Imitate the leaders you idolize.

Try to think of influential leaders that you look up to, and find out the reason why you admire them. Explore and read about the lives of these people. Try to recognize the attributes and qualities they possess that contributed to their influence and effectiveness as a leader. Try to discover if you picked up something important about these people which you feel you can integrate into your own leadership system.

5. Maintain a positive attitude.

To be a leader, you should not easily lose hope. You need to move on despite the odds not being completely in your favor. To be a good leader, you should not easily succumb to the pressures of failures and emergencies. You should always think ahead and remain optimistic. You need to be strong and persevere. In doing this, you can influence other people.

Leadership is not always an option; more often than not, it arises out of necessity. Given the chance, you can become a good leader with sufficient training and given the appropriate conditions. You can have the qualities of an effective leader; all it takes is self-control and commitment.

12 WINNING LEADERSHIP QUALITIES: Unleash The Leader Instinct Within You!

http://leadership.pan100.net/?e=kevin121554@yahoo.com

Kevin Hensey
http://www.articlesbase.com/leadership-articles/five-basic-steps-to-become-an-effective-leader-701677.html

Five Basic Steps to Become an Effective Leader is a post from: Top Communication Skills

Expert: Tracy Goodwin
Bio: Tracy Goodwin has a masters in corporate communication and 10 years experience in professional speaking.
Filmmaker: MAKE | MEDIA

Duration : 0:1:43

Effective Communication Style : Effective Communication: Economy of Words is a post from: Top Communication Skills

Technorati Tags: communication, communication styles, cultural sensitivity, effective communication, public speaking, speeches

Your business success depends on your ability to communicate effectively to an interested audience. Driving appropriate traffic to your site is important, but the tactics that generate visitors are not the same tactics that get visitors to stay on your site.

Websites that consistently under perform and that don’t meet business expectations generally suffer because they are not designed to hold viewers attention long enough to communicate a clear concise marketing message.

Web-communication is a series of elaborate multi-sensory sign languages; signs being the words, images, audio and videos that constitute the range of presentation vehicles that like all forms of communication have their own grammar, context, and relevance as interpreted from personal experience by each member of your customer-audience.

When Words Lose Their Meaning

Marketing is one of those words that has lost its currency because it has been tossed about with little respect for its meaning. To many, it’s merely just another word for advertising, which of course it is not. To the more sophisticated it takes in all the disciplines of branding, positioning, identity, advertising, and more. Above all marketing implies a strategic approach to implementing these tactics.

For companies interested in using the Web to further their business objectives, Web-marketing is the execution of a communication strategy through the creative implementation of multi-sensory signature presentations.

Semiotics: The Study of Signs

“Sign, Sign, everywhere a sign,
Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind,
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign.”
- Five Man Electrical Band

Like the lyrics of the song, ‘Signs,’ by the Five Man Electrical Band’ suggests, we are surrounded by signs, the interpretation of which creates our reality. The study of signs and how meaning is derived from them is called ‘semiotics.’

We are bombarded by signs, not just images, but the words, voicing, gestures, posture, attire, and movements of the messengers, as well as the music and sound effects that accompany the presentation; not to mention the chosen media itself.

Each of these elements is a language all its own. And like all forms of language if you don’t learn the rules, the grammar and syntax, you can’t communicate coherently.

Fear of Meaning

Most business communication is shrouded in a haze of protective ambiguity caused by the fear of making a decisive statement of who you are, and what you stand for. This kind of defensive thinking may protect your company from some criticism, but it also distances you from your real audience, people and businesses that could be responsive to what you have to offer.

Advertisements, videos, images and copy designed to not offend, will fail to communicate meaning and if what you have to say is not meaningful, how can you expect your audience to respond? Bland royalty-free images, stock video clips, and talking-head presentations of statistics and specifications will guarantee all the money you spent on generating traffic will go down the drain as visitors leave faster than they arrive.

Instead of just looking at how many hits your website is getting each week, take a look at how long they are staying on your site. If people are leaving within a few seconds of arriving, then they have determined you have nothing to offer them, which may or may not be true. You need your website visitors to stay long enough to get the essence of your marketing message and if they aren’t, then maybe it’s time to rethink the message and how it’s being delivered.

A Little Yiddish May Help

Yiddish is a language of idiom, of colloquial metaphor, a series of expressions that by strict interpretation of the words mean little, but through the common experience and relevance of the listener mean more than mere words can imply.

In Yiddish there are many ways to tell somebody to ‘drop dead,’ not a very nice thing to say to someone, but a sentiment that is often expressed anyway.

So how then do you tell someone how you feel without resorting to the crude direct approach? In Yiddish you would use one of the many expressions available such as, “zolst vaksn vi a tzibele mitn kop in dr’erd!” which literally means “may you grow like an onion with your head in the ground,” a far more colorful, poetic turn of phrase with humorous undertones that softens the intensity of the raw meaning.

Our everyday language is full of idiom and metaphor and for the most part we don’t even notice. If we want to outwit our competition, we instruct our staff to “take no prisoners” and if we are successful we ‘blew them away;’ business often resorts to war metaphors to emphasize the enormity of the stakes involved in business initiatives, or should I say ‘campaigns.’

And it is not just written and verbal communication that is perpetually encased in a cocoon of evocative metaphor. Visual communication, including images and video, has its own idiomatic metaphorical sign language that helps communicate a message in meaningful short-hand. The producers of 30-second TV commercials are expert in this style of communication, how else can a complete marketing story be told in 30 seconds?

Relevance of Character and Situation

When we create Web-video commercials we need to tell a story that the audience can relate to. This story should be a metaphor that draws upon the audience’s own experiences, and if done properly it should allow the viewer to let down their natural sales defense mechanism and let the humanity of the characters and situation penetrate on a meaningful human level. This style of presentation makes the point and delivers the message in a much more effective manner than a hit-you-over-the-head, hard sell style commercial, or a meaningless exhortation of business platitudes.

Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, a sociology professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, in the ‘Psychology Today’ article, ‘Friends In Cerebral Places’ by Kaja Perina states: “The human brain is hardwired to respond to stimuli as it did in its ancestral environment, where television and movies didn’t exist. Kanazawa says that we have evolved to believe that ‘all realistic images of people you encounter repeatedly are friends and family.’

In the environment of evolutionary adaptedness there was no one-way acquaintance, as there is today with celebrities.”

The implication of Kanazawa’s research for the Web-marketer is significant. If you as marketers can create websites and webmedia presentations populated with ongoing characters to which your Web-audience can relate, then you have solved the biggest obstacle in the Web-sales process: lack of trust.

People buy things from people they trust, people they know and like, and people to whom they can relate. You can establish this relationship with a continuous campaign of audio and video presentations delivered by characters representing your company’s personality, delivering a message that improves your audience’s lives or business interests.

The Familiarity of Presentation Genres

An effective Web-commercial must touch your audience in some way. One method that we use to make this connection is through the exploitation of genres.

Genres are storytelling formats with built-in conventions, rules and guidelines. These conventions provide a communication-shorthand allowing Web-storytellers to deliver rich content in an economical use of time and space.

Since the audience already understands what the conventions of the recognizable genre are, resources need not be wasted establishing a frame-of-reference that is built into the genre itself.

It is here that the Web-commercial producer must expand the concept of genres beyond that which is normally understood. Everyone understands the western, detective, romance, and sitcom styles of storytelling genres, but genres exist beyond the confines of literature, movies, and television series. Genres also exist in the truncated world of television commercial storytelling. Take for instance the current ubiquitous series of Macintosh television commercials that have been copied numerous times by many people on the Web and even on television itself.

The use of genres as a method of presenting Web-commercials provides a set of expectations for the viewer or what has been referred to as ‘cultural capital.’ While the recognition of the familiar provides a connection, its creative manipulation provides enjoyment and more importantly aids memory and enhances recall. You can see an example of this genre manipulation at http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads.

The Bottom Line

If real estate is about, ‘location, location, location’ then websites are about, ‘communication, communication, communication.’ The skillful Web-marketer will understand this and use their website the way it was always supposed to be used, as a means of communication; but that communication no longer has to be delivered in mere text form, but rather it can now be delivered using all the multi-sensory media tools available. The caveat, of course, is knowing how to use these tools properly.

Jerry Bader
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/web-communication-sign-sign-everywhere-a-sign-110952.html

Web Communication: “Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign” is a post from: Top Communication Skills

Expert: Tracy Goodwin
Bio: Tracy Goodwin has a masters in corporate communication and 10 years experience in professional speaking.
Filmmaker: MAKE | MEDIA

Duration : 0:1:25

Effective Communication Style : Effective Communication: Cultural Sensitivity is a post from: Top Communication Skills

Technorati Tags: communication, communication styles, cultural sensitivity, effective communication, public speaking, speeches

Expert: Tracy Goodwin
Bio: Tracy Goodwin has a masters in corporate communication and 10 years experience in professional speaking.
Filmmaker: MAKE | MEDIA

Duration : 0:1:19

Effective Communication Style : Elements of Effective Communication Style is a post from: Top Communication Skills

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Everyday, the world of communication comes out with innovative ideas that can be implemented for making lives easier. With this magnificent growth, the demand of cost-effective and reliable communication process is also increasing. In the corporate world, communication is the only method to grab good business, trust, and customers worldwide. Currently, deficiency in the channels of communication can cause severe loss to any business or personal relations and this can effect growth too. Not only major business houses but also the small and novice establishments are concentrating and paying more to provide more strength to the communication channels. The world has come closer with the advancement in the field of communication. Gone are the days when signing any deal or contract took several days. Now, with just a click of the mouse, we can reach as many number of people at a time, without much effort.

Nowadays, with the growth in technology and infrastructure, getting better business deals and prospects from the other countries have also become very easy and effortless. From the comfort of your living room, you can stay in touch with your family and professional acquaintances. IP telephony, video conferencing, internet, e-mails and many such innovations have changed the way the world is staying in touch. These technological changes that have come about with time are not only reliable but they are also the most cost-effective way for communicating to almost any corner of this world. Among all these finer technologies, IP telephony is the most easy-to-use technology that is much suitable for almost all business entities.

Telephone machines, call activating and terminating devices, multimedia computers on either side with multimedia accessories such as microphone, speaker, or headphones with built-in microphones, or dedicated terminals over the Internet are some of the tools that facilitate the process of making calls routed through the internet. And thus, the users get more cost-effective telephonic processes. The infrastructures that are used in these processes may vary according to the orientation of users towards voice or data. Better bandwidth utilisation is only possible through the convergence of Internet technologies and telecommunication. Thus, this process gives the ultimate VoIP solutions at very minimal cost.

The VoIP is completely controlled by software and that is really the most important part of this technology. These software are generally bundled with many other services and applications. Most of the people often think that the voice quality using VoIP solutions is worse than that available within the conventional Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) setting. However, these thoughts are completely hollow, voice over IP telephony being one of the most reliable and clear methods available to ensure effective communication. Voice loss, jitter, and packet delay were some of the hurdles that came in the way of this process of routing calls. However, thanks to the rapidly improving technology, the obstacles such as voice loss, jitter, and packet delays have become matters of past. In some countries, the quality of VoIP Telephony has become subject to government decrees.

This telephony service is completely reliant on call making and call ending devices. The users of such telephony services may make various sorts of calls like PC to PC, PC to telephone, telephone to PC, telephone to telephone. If you are using PC on one side of the calling process then to get the full joy of your call, you must be equipped with audio devices such as microphone and speakers. A proper gateway must be used to convert a transmission format between telephone and the Internet while you are using a telephone to make an IP call.

Noteworthy efforts have been made to popularise Internet telephony in this world for unambiguous application-level support and apparent usage of wireless networks. In many countries, the Voice over IP telephony services are hosted by various local service and solution providers. With multi-purpose communication features, the future of IP telephony systems has become promising. The regular improvements are taking place in the integration of VoIP telephony is really going to make these services very hard to beat.

Kristen
http://www.articlesbase.com/voip-articles/ip-telephony-better-communication-is-what-it-serves-337437.html

Ip Telephony: Better Communication is What it Serves is a post from: Top Communication Skills

Expert: Tracy Goodwin
Bio: Tracy Goodwin has a masters in corporate communication and 10 years experience in professional speaking.
Filmmaker: MAKE | MEDIA

Duration : 0:1:16

Effective Communication Style : Effective Communication: Be Positive is a post from: Top Communication Skills

Technorati Tags: communication, communication styles, cultural sensitivity, effective communication, public speaking, speeches