Say, Listen! with Serah Delaini

This week on Say, Listen!, we'll go over Audience Focus, the first "A" in our five-step PARLA process of Pay Attention, Audience, Rhythm, Listen, and Adjust.

When you focus on the audience first, you take time to think about who is receiving your communication, and attempt to understand their perspective as you create the material. I'm talking about email, chat, presentations, videos, posts, and in-person conversations and meetings.

Let's go over some tips and frameworks I've found that you can use to keep your audience engaged and interested in what you're saying.

Send in your questions to [email protected], and visit me at the Loud and Clear community where we can discuss this in more depth: https://loud-and-clear.mn.co.

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In this episode, Serah discusses communication in a volunteer setting with Bart Gibson, Volunteer Coordinator for the Mystic Moon community.

Bart has been a member of his community for about 10 years. Now the group has enough volunteer help to organize service projects and put on large special events that benefit hundreds of people.

To make this happen, Bart recommends first understanding the abilities and time constraints that each potential volunteer has. Truly listening to their intentions and helping to overcome any barriers they face goes a long way toward helping them contribute to the best of their abilities.

Second, develop a core group of reliable volunteers and plan around their schedules to make sure things are well-attended.

Another principle of great community organization is to clarify roles and responsibilities whenever there is confusion or overlap. When people start to wonder who is doing what, it's hard to get things done in a timely fashion.

Setting standards for the community in advance helps to resolve any conflicts that might come up. Bart says it's easier to bring these up before there's any issues, but anytime is better than not at all.

For these and other insights, listen to the full interview with Bart Gibson, Volunteer Coordinator with Mystic Moon. Reach Bart at http://www.mysticmoonevents.com/.

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This week on Say, Listen!, we cover the variety of abilities that your audiences have, whether it's vision, hearing, health, mental health, or other aspects of life. How can you keep accessibility in mind for people who have different ways of interacting with information and your organization?

Send me your questions and comments at [[email protected]](mailto: [email protected]).

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This week on Say, Listen!, we cover apostrophes, commas, forward slashes, colons, semicolons, and terminal punctuation. As an editor, I see lots of missing punctuation, and there are some common things people do or don't do with these marks that I'd like to bring up here to prevent you from continuing to make these mistakes.

Send me any questions you have to [email protected]!

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This week on Say, Listen!, we cover communication at work with Tara Paton, founder of Red Blaze Solutions.

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This week on Say, Listen!, we cover repetition. Let’s talk about avoiding duplication in your communication at work.

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This week on Say, Listen!, I'll introduce myself and then I'll explain what you'll get out of being a Listener, and what you can give back to the Say, Listen! community.

In this podcast, we'll cover the quirks of English and best practices about written and spoken communication at work.

Over the past 15 years, I've been a communications consultant to high-tech companies like Expedia, F5, and Microsoft, as well as individuals and small business owners. I've noticed patterns in communication that might not always get us the results we want, as fast as we need.

My guests and I will tell you stories from personal experience about how using the wrong communication techniques can block productivity and progress at work, and what to try instead. We're going to put the most common challenges I've seen into the spotlight so you can learn from them and go further, faster.

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This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm