If a communicatee is at all interested in understanding a communicator and the communicatee misunderstands something the communicator communicates, it is almost always the fault of the communicator.
I need to communicate better.
Hundreds of headlines wash over us every day. And part of why many of us engage in this flow is because we have faith that over time, this torrent of episodic knowledge is going to cohere into something more significant: a framework for genuinely understanding an issue. And we live with it ’cause it sort of works. Eventually you hear enough buzzwords like “single-payer” and “public option” and you start to feel like you can play along.
But mounting evidence indicates that this approach to information is actually totally debilitating. Faced with a flood of headlines on an ever-increasing variety of topics, we shut off. We turn to news that doesn’t require much understanding – crime, traffic, weather – or we turn off the news altogether.
Cameron’s Colosseo letterpress poster is now available: The only question is, black or white? The black is oh so tempting!
Jon Stewart Skewers Media’s Obsession with Chat Roulette: Funniest Wii Craps reference ever, as well. It’s really interesting to me that Chat Roulette is getting this much “attention” when TinyChat has been around so much longer, essentially does the same thing and more, and is much more useful to the average person. Just goes to show how viral public sex acts can be.
The 2005 email that spawned Picnik, Google’s latest buy. If you’re thinking about launching a startup, you should study this e-mail carefully. It’s a perfect example of exactly how a crazy little thought becomes a big idea, and even on its own, it’s better than most “official company business plans” people present to VCs. I gave a talk at Webstock in New Zealand a couple of weeks ago about creating a startup and I wish I had this to dissect at the time. Really good stuff.
I actually really like how clubby it is. Unfortunately it means I won’t be commenting on any Tumblrs since I don’t officially “follow” anyone besides via RSS, but that’s probably ok. Maybe the answer to the world’s wide-open commenting problem is something like this.
I was a guest on Dan Benjamin’s new weekly radio show last week, along with Merlin Mann, Christina Warren, Adam Keys, and Dave Nanian. Subjects discussed include Newsvine, keeping your own identity after becoming part of a big company, and the RADICAL concept of only publishing stuff to your readers and followers that is actually true.
Given that pre-compiling CSS is an official “best practice” these days, why not use that compile step to extend CSS in powerful ways? LESS lets you use variables, nested rules, and other niceties at author-time to clean up your rules and keep everything tidy. I believe The Wolf made something like this a few years ago, but I haven’t heard about it since.
Great article on the ins and outs of three dimensional imagery. Still doesn’t change my opinion that well-shot conventional cinematography is more impressive than the novelty that is Avatar.
This is one of the most useful articles I’ve read in a long time. As we work on focusing, strengthening, and simplifying Newsvine, the concepts discussed by Lukas ring true. “Saying no” has never been a strong suit of mine. It’s very helpful to remember how important of a quality it is. (via fullstopinteractive)
Newly released video of the space shuttle Challenger disaster: It was 24 years ago, I was in 5th grade, but I remember it like it was yesterday. School was stopped immediately and they wheeled out televisions in every classroom for us to watch the news footage. It’s great that this video has been released, but holy crap, how do you tuck something that away for two decades???
New ways of searching are almost never as useful as old ways of searching. Spezify is pretty awesome though. It’s a visually interesting, never-ending, horizontally and vertically scrollable, topic explorer. I don’t think I’d use it for digging deep on anything, but to get a quick visually rich sampling of a topic, it’s quite fun (via tiff, a long time ago actually, over email).
Reminds me of my favorite logo design advice: “Never waste a stroke”. (via gruber)
(345)
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Should we dare ask what you miscommunicated?
Fair question but one I can’t answer explicitly. Because I failed to be clear about a particular matter and subsequently failed to follow up on it with further communication, others believed something I didn’t intend to convey… and that’s unfortunately my fault and something I’m going to spend the weekend beating myself up about. And then when the weekend’s over, I’ll work on getting better about it. Sorry for the obscurity.
Now why does this sound familiar?
judging by this post you need to get out a bit more!!
;o)
Eric: Yeah, totally different subjects, but same exact principle of communication as responsibility of the sender.
Emma: Unfortunately I think it means I need to get out a bit less and that I need to start overcommunicating in a much more official way. :)
I assume you meant to type “at all interested” instead of “all at.”
Or was that a trap to see if we’d catch something? Like those “and and” duplications our eyes don’t catch because they occur at the end of one line and the beginning of another?
But yeah, I’d say that we’re all in the same boat: we could all learn to
to communicate more clearly.
;-)
(Editor’s Note: Good catch. Fixed!)
I don’t agree, it takes two to communicate. The communicatee should engage in active listening (essentially repeat back what was said to clarify they understood accurately) and then the communicator can understand that the other person took it different than presented.
I think the obsessive side of your personality may be too close to the surface this week. Call a friend and go relax. You always want to do better tomorrow, but no sense beating yourself up :-)
From TMZ.com:
Mike Davidson, after a recent misunderstanding during conversation, has announced he is now married.
Let this be a lesson to all readers: miscommunication with a stranger can end in matrimony.
– false
I agree with Don that it is a two-way street. Many times, the communication process breaks down because a person hears what they want to hear rather than what was said.
Next time you’re arguing with someone, stop and ask them to repeat back what you just said. It is amazing how often they can’t or it is totally different.
People tend to fight the battle they want, rather than the one at hand. Sadly, this is common in relationships and marriage.
Basically, the fault can fall on either side.
Never drink and blog! (just kidding)
Obviously you’re not familiar with such phenomena as selective hearing, denial, or simply the refusal to listen.
Don, Matt, and leodora: You are all correct, but even given those impediments, the simple repeating of the statement shortly thereafter and the mentioning of it an a documented form (like email) can do a lot to reduce ambiguity and misunderstanding.
Have a look at my latest posting….could this be Apple’s most exciting announcement to come? If not this year, maybe next? Hope this cheers you up!
Yep, Don, Matt and leodora are all spot on.
I’m finding that I’m now putting as much as possible in writing these days, although it chews up some valuable time, it has already saved me from several potential issues that would have chewed up even more time.
If it’s in writing it’s hard to refute… If it’s verbal it’s way too easy for the communicatee to turn their perspective into fact.
Cheers.
Perhaps another course in Speech Communication is in order?
Funny, I’ve got a post closely related to this in the works…
Anyway, not having any idea what this is about, and thus making it a bit hard to communicate about – I think, with most communication it’s a two-way street with the majority of the responsibility for good communication on the sender. The receiver, or “communicatee” has to make some effort to understand, but once that is done, I agree with Mike here, miscommunication usually falls on the shoulders of the one doing the communicating.
If you take the time to express yourself well, explain things in detail, clear up ambiguities, etc. you’ll start to see that people understand you more. When it comes to business I find that over communication is a safe bet. Make sure people get what you’re saying, don’t leave any room out there for failed communication and you’ll be ok most of the time.
A favorite quote I’ve been using more and more often:
(although I’ve been replacing “explain something” in place of “write”)
Don’t write merely to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood. – Robert Louis Stevenson