Non-verbal communication

Ed Miliband’s bargain basement speech

03.10.2011

Barack Obama’s greatest speeches are full of images and stories. Ed Miliband’s effort on Tuesday was piled with abstractions and cliches, taking us into the bargain basement of oratory. “We need a new bargain…the big challenge of building a new bargain…the Tories aren’t building a new bargain” – how on earth do you build a [...]

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How to be an outstanding communicator

16.05.2011

The message from recruitment agencies, employer surveys and the like is familiar, loud and clear: you must be an outstanding communicator if you want to get to the top of your profession. Technical audit skills and practical experience are, of course, essential, but they will only take you so far up the greasy pole; to [...]

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This metaphor ain’t dead, it’s just restin’

16.11.2010

Judging from a list of the ‘most annoying clichés’ in the English language compiled by the Plain English Campaign – one of the greatest examples of modern oratory might never have seen the light of day, if they’d had anything to do with it. For the most part their ‘most annoying clichés’ list is unexceptionable. [...]

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The premiere of our latest animation

08.06.2010

Crack open the champagne and pass the canapés – we’ve just finished our first ever custom animation! And after you’ve watched it, I’d like to share a few thoughts about it with you. Last July when we uploaded our ‘Busting the Mehrabian Myth’ to YouTube we had no idea just how much of a splash [...]

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Why Political Debate is so Dull

29.04.2010

It’s election time, and once again we find ourselves feeling like exhausted Artic explorers on the edge of calamity as we plough through a blizzard of political arguments. Economic arguments, strategic arguments, arguments of every conceivable kind are fired at us relentlessly from the TV, the radio, the newspapers, the internet and the people around [...]

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Obama’s Rhetoric – The Art That Conceals Art

30.03.2010

Something shocking happened to Barack Obama on Thursday the 5th of June, 2008. He was addressing a meeting of the local community in Bristol, Virginia, when in the midst of his usual rhetorical flow, the wheels of his speech suddenly flew off and he ground to an inarticulate halt. Here’s a transcript of Obama’s slip [...]

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Mehrabian Nights – an informative tale about (mis)communication

31.12.2009

A happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to all our readers, Twitter followers and clients. We’re ending 2009 with some good news: we’ve just found out that the TrainingZone community have voted my Mehrabian article the best feature of 2009 – and it has been read 20,564 times, so far. This is the article that [...]

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Synaesthesia is the Communicator’s Greatest Ally

11.11.2009

Sometimes it’s possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Take, for instance, the discredited theory of learning styles. It may have no basis in science, but its influence on communicators and teachers has surely been a positive one, hasn’t it? After all, doesn’t the theory ultimately boil down to the very useful [...]

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The Dangers of Co-opting Scientific Explanation

28.10.2009

As non-scientists plying our trade, I believe we should be wary of justifying our practice on the basis of scientific research. Don’t get me wrong, science intrigues me as much as it does the next layperson. But the problem for laypeople like us is that all our scientific knowledge necessarily comes predigested – usually second, [...]

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UK Speechwriters’ Guild inaugural conference video

15.10.2009

Here’s a video of the UK Speechwriters’ Guild inaugural conference. It was filmed last month in Bournemouth by talented film maker and producer Tim Clague – who’s done a superb job in capturing the flavour, and excitement, of the event. Martha and I were invited to show our ‘Busting the Mehrabian Myth’ video and give [...]

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