Tag: communication

Why I failed at a Sales Conversation that looked like it went well

7 March 2017

Back when I was a technical sales person trying to help customers find the right hosting solutions for their products, I had a sales memorable interaction. A customer "Alice" get in touch, looking for an onsite meeting to discuss what they needed. Me and a less technical colleague, "Brendan", went to visit. At the meeting, […]

This one time I screwed up leadership and communication

8 December 2016

When I was 18, I lead a team of young people into a 12 hour sailing race. I was relying on the support of a bunch of their parents, but because we'd all done it before the previous year without a hitch, I assumed I didn't need to communicate directly with these key team members. […]

Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication

6 August 2014

This is a post from my My 20-day Zappos + Buffer Values Challenge "Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication" This is a tough one to blog about, because anecdotes, by definition – no matter what the nature of the relationship, is always going to be very personal – between me and them. It's kind of […]

Listen First, Then Listen More

31 July 2014

This is a post from my My 20-day Zappos + Buffer Values Challenge "Listen First, Then Listen More" Everyday we hear things, TV, people talking to us, but how much do we listen? Sometimes, it's quite easy to talk – if someone tells you about their recent holiday, sometimes it's tempting to talk to them about your recent […]

Phone hacking was a big deal. Is Internet interception ok?

5 August 2013

A private investigator hacked a schoolgirl and a few celebs' voicemails, and it caused a public inquiry, it brought a media mogul (previously considered "untouchable") to be summoned to parliament and forced a historic Sunday newspaper to shutdown. All because of a few private investigators listening to a few voicemails. We've learned since then, that […]

The problem with the Tempora and GCHQ story – How do we communicate it?

3 August 2013

We know we're being watched by GCHQ. We've found out, via a whistleblower, that in the past few years, mass surveillance, for the purposes of later analysis, has been turned into reality, in the US and in the UK. The thing is, the general public is largely unphased. It's barely scraped public opinion. The average […]

How can the free software movement improve its communication?

23 March 2013

One thing that is challenging the free software movement is communication. Communication skills are quite a "known skill" – persuading people is not really cutting edge – people have been persuading other people about $stuff since forever. The question is, therefore, how we can be better at communicating free software, given we know how things, […]

The free software movement's dilemma

19 March 2013

The free software movement's aims are noble and I'm happy to say I support them. However, there are largely two ways of furthering the movement: Communication of the message Contributing to a software project Largely, the ideological "free software advocates" are focused on the first point, with people who are doing the second point falling […]

Can you inspire people to find their own inspiration?

11 February 2013

One thing I've noticed recently is that there's a power in story. People love telling stories and explaining what they learnt from their own experiences. Lot's of motivational speakers and bloggers draw heavily from their own experiences, and lots of successful people have stories of "this one time when something happened and I overcame the […]

Trying to communicate: the best part of your story.

16 January 2013

Frequently, people avoid travelling away from tourist focused locations because they're worried about whether they will be understood, I'd suggest that means they miss out of the best part of the experience. msadvn recently said on reddit: The stories of trying to communicate (and hopefully succeeding) might be some of the best parts of your […]

No news is always good news

24 November 2012

For a while when I was younger, whenever I went away without my parents, I was confused. All my classmates and peers would always be in constant contact with their family, whilst my parents would cheerily wave goodbye and then eagerly listen to the second by second story upon my return. It took me a […]

When they're wrong, how can you change someone's point of view?

20 November 2012

Frequently we encounter people that we disagree with, frequently we talk about why they're wrong, but rarely do we consider the steps to convince them to change their views. Many people seem content to tell people that they're wrong, without making the effort to explain *why* they're wrong in a way that they'll respond to. […]