What’s at the Heart of All Great Business Communication?
Posted On March 25, 2015 BY Dean Brenner
The hardest thing for any subject matter expert (SME) to do is to explain his or her area of expertise in simple and clear ways. When we are “in” it, when we are living the topic every day, and when we know a lot about it, it is really hard to distance yourself from it and […]
Embracing the Communication Age
Posted On March 19, 2015 BY Dean Brenner
I hear people refer all the time to a seemingly indisputable fact that we are neck deep in The Information Age. Everything about the way we generate it, consume it, store it, and share it is changing, rapidly. But while those trends are real and will continue for the foreseeable future, there is a bigger […]
5 Steps to Giving Your Message More Impact
Posted On March 16, 2015 BY Dean Brenner
Over our last several posts, we have been reviewing the key characteristics of great business communication: Clarity, brevity, context… and today’s topic: impact. Does you message stand out? Do you make it easy for your audience to remember what you say? Does your message make an impact on the mind of your listener? You need […]
Context is King
Posted On March 11, 2015 BY Dean Brenner
Over our last several posts, we have been touching on a few of the important ingredients for great communication… clarity and brevity chief among them. Today we touch on a third critical ingredient: context. Context is critical. Context creates relevance. Context helps your audience engage and listen. Context helps your audience care. We are all […]
In Search of Brevity
Posted On March 9, 2015 BY Dean Brenner
Have you ever sat through a meeting, or a conference call, or a presentation, and thought to yourself… “Oh my god… I wish this person would get to the point…“? Yeah. Me too. Many, many times. We all know what it feels like to have our time wasted by someone who just won’t, or can’t, […]
Curt Schilling Did it Right
Posted On March 5, 2015 BY Dean Brenner
I am not a fan of former Boston Red Sox player Curt Schilling. In fact, as a Yankee fan, he was the player I hated the most. But today, he has earned my enduring respect… not because of something he did as a baseball player or in his current career as a sportscaster. No. He […]
Your Message Can Never Be TOO Clear
Posted On March 3, 2015 BY Dean Brenner
Here is something your colleagues or customers will never, ever, say to you… “That presentation was TOO clear. Please be LESS clear next time.” There are very few universal truths in the business world. Many issues and topics depend on context and the details of the situation. Rarely can we make rigid rules of things […]
5 (More) Ways Your PowerPoint Slides Can Hurt You
Posted On February 25, 2015 BY Dean Brenner
This is a topic we have written on before, but it merits another emphatic mention. PowerPoint and slide decks are completely overdone, to the point where the whole concept of the business meeting presentation is often (and accurately) lampooned. But many large organizations still rely on the internal presentation as a primary method of communication […]
Help Your Audience Retain Your Message
Posted On February 23, 2015 BY Dean Brenner
I’m writing to you early on a Sunday morning from my hotel room in Perth, Australia, the sun still hiding behind the eastern horizon. My colleagues and I are blessed and grateful to have a client base that takes us all over the world, with active relationships on five continents. And while that means we […]
What to Know Before You Tell Your Story
Posted On January 23, 2015 BY Dean Brenner
At The Latimer Group, we talk and write all the time about the ability to communicate clearly. That is our purpose, our mission, our raison d’etre. To succeed in the 21st century global business environment, you need to be able to communicate with your colleagues, employees, customers, prospects, and shareholders, and you need to be […]