Understanding your audience often discussed as one of the most important steps of the communication process; however, it is often the least well practiced and understood stage as well, largely because most documents (or other forms of communication) have multiple audiences, with multiple needs. In her Strategic Communication Framework, Debbie …
A systematic process can significantly improve your communication practices and outcomes, especially in technical communication contexts. In this short video, Debbie Davy briefly outlines the need for and describes her Strategic Communication Framework. Her framework was presented in depth at the IEEE PCS Conference in Limerick, Ireland in July 2015, …
Melissa Clarkson
Think about the last time you began to prepare a formal presentation for a group. There is a good chance the presentation included slides. If you were not reusing an old set of slides, you probably opened up PowerPoint or Keynote, picked a template, …
Three key practices for getting to know and really communicating with your team members
In my last post, I spoke about engineers’ and engineering students’ bias towards seeing ‘what’ their team members produce as opposed to ‘who’ their team members are and ‘how’ they can contribute …
Brian Price, Lecturer at Aston University, UK, explores the metaphor of the “information onion” in technical and engineering communication, which helps reveal important strategies for effectively delivering and designing information for your readers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5COPk-bwX0
His talk on “Peeling Back the Layers of the Information Onion: Using Complex Layered Visuals for …
International organizations need to communicate with stakeholders with diverse cultural backgrounds. Different cultures have different values, which may have implications for how messages are evaluated across cultures. Different cultural values may lead to different stylistic preferences. Does this mean that organizations need to adjust their …
By Patricia Sheridan
A three part series on a fundamental principle of effective group communication
Too often I meet with engineers and engineering students whose teams are not functioning well. They will talk to me about the project, they will talk to me about the deliverables, and …
By Pat Truman
Three years ago…and I still remember four simple words a presenter said to me after his presentation. His efforts had engaged us for 90 minutes. We’d learned a lot. Our enthusiasm was audible. The session had flown by. I shook his hand and …
Professional communication often involves producing documentation for slightly different contexts, sometimes over the course of multiple years. Information about the same product, process, or event is often delivered to different audiences and to meet different purposes. Product specifications might need to be developed for an …
