I have started a new semester at college and as anyone who has had even a passing glance at the Bible can attest, some of the books are not the most riveting reading you’ve ever had.

‘Numbers‘, for example, is a book that I could easily use as a cure for insomnia.

So I picked up a copy of the Bible on cd, complete with full dramatisation.

Now, I’m not here to suggest you all race out and equip your mp3 players with a copy of the Bible (although it would be wonderful if you did :-)), but what forcibly struck me as I listened to some of the cds is how a simple change of modality can make the world of difference.

In my manifesto [pdf] I talk about how important it is to ensure that you deliver your message in the medium that the recipient wants to receive it in.

Now, I LOVE reading, but there are times when my preference is for auditory processing, such as listening to business seminars and workshops rather than reading the transcript. Listening to ‘Numbers‘ with dramatic ‘colour’ is a lot easier for me to process than reading the dry words on a closely-typeset page.

So the question I ask you is this: are you considering your audience’s processing preferences and offering your material in different modalities? What are the costs of doing so? What are the opportunity costs of not?

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Okay, I’ll ‘come out’ and admit it — I’m a Shelaholic.

The man could go and make Jeffrey Dahmer look like a kindergarten teacher and I’d still read him.

Shel has the most amazing set of credentials:

• he is prescient — he is able to read the winds of change
• he is a prophet — he is willing to stick his head above the parapets and get it kicked in, all in the name of telling fellow business communicators what we need to hear
• he is selfless — the willingness of Shel to help out fellow communicators, to share his not inconsiderable knowledge for free, is legendary
• he is a skilled and erudite oral communicator — witness any one episode of FIR to appreciate his ability to clearly communicate ideas and views without the usual ‘uuhms and errs’ that betray most of us; note, too, his recent achievement at the IABC International Conference
• he is a wordsmith — he knows how to string a sentence together and make it sing.

For evidence of the last point, I ask the jury to consider a recent post of his, entitled Sweeping statements.

The post, a critique of a seemingly clueless and ill-researched ‘op ed’ piece by a consultant, is taken apart by the Holtzter in spectacular but unassuming fashion. And he ends it with a paragraph so dripping in understated sarcasm that my breath was taken away, my smile ineradicable for a full five minutes, and I was filled with a fervent desire to ‘out’ myself and compose the very post you now see before you.

I’m sure I’m as guilty as anyone else of making sweeping statements, but after reading this one, I pledge to be more careful about it. I wouldn’t want to paint anyone with a brush based on a cursory review of facts that leaves an inaccurate picture on display that readers may assume was carefully researched and factually accurate.

Keeping calling them as you see them, Shel!

Technorati : business communication, business communicators, shel holtz

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What a busy week!

While he prefers “illegal” action,” Allan’s been threatened with “legal action” by Melanie Tannenbaum, a WikiBios user (we discussed WikiBios in Chat# 11), after posting about WikiBios on Desirable Roasted Coffee. Allan and I agree WikiBios is still a bad idea & just getting worse. And we believe a lot of Web 2.0 “social networking” sites are inherently rife with liability issues.

Myself, having been smitten by Second Life, I’ve transgendered again. Now completely asexual, I have set Allan and I up on the Podcast Island of Second Life. We are just two doors down from For Immediate Release (a podcast you should listen to, if you have time after ours), and our furnishings are much, much better (Allan is still stranded on Help Island - though help is to be had from C.C. Chapman).

The Better Desirable Roasted Communications Cafe has a store! Tee-shirts (our logo is too big for skimpier garments; anyway, thongs are so last night) and coffee mugs. We aim to have a Very Large Crude Carrier line out next year.

Paull Young audio comments, and Luke Armour writes kind words about us on his blog.

Finally, Allan had a nice experience with social media this week. Through the generosity of Giornale Nuovo’s “Mr. H,” who periodically culls his library for the benefit of readers, he received The Writings of John Evelyn in the mail and is happy.

What do you think? Agree with us? Disagree? Drop your comments on this post, or send a Waxmail to ‘comments at commscafe dot com’.

Download [11mb] and take a 21 minute coffee break with Allan and myself. And don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed to catch every sparkling discussion as we pass the coffee pot around. And if you are an iTunes user, you can find our podcast on the iTunes Music Store (for free, of course!).

Let’s tag this baby!

Technorati : FIR, allan jenkins, cc chapman, comms cafe, for immediate release, giornale nuovo, john evelyn, lee hopkins, luke armour, melanie tannenbaum, paull young, second life, wikibios

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Well, no one can say I haven’t been giving it a fair go…

I eventually found Shelville’s FIR booth on Podcaster’s Island on Second Life.

This is what their booth looks like — that’s me on the left. On a wooden crate. Probably getting a splinter in my derriere.

Here’s me sitting on the other side of their booth.

Stark, isn’t it?

By way of contrast, here’s the CommsCafe booth, just two doors to the left…

Fancy dropping by for a chat? (126, 62, 25)

Coming soon: a coffee machine and comfy couch on which to relax and read something from our extensive bookshelf, plus no doubt when he gets back from holiday CC Chapman himself will pop by for an interview…

UPDATE: I have created a SLurl — just type in LeeHopkins.name into your favourite browser and be magically transported to the gateway to a whole new world.

Technorati : allan jenkins, better desirable roasted communications cafe, cc chapman, comms cafe, fir, for immediate release, lee hopkins, managing the gray, neville hobson, podcasters island, second life, shel holtz

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Proving that a few days off doth not a slouch make, Jenkins and I have been hard at work in the kilns, creating coffee mugs for the delight of the audio cognoscenti.

Handcrafted from finest Venezuelan clay, these objets d’art are a collectors piece and worthy of gracing the finest coffee houses of the gentry and ladies of the podcast-listening world.

Click here right now to be transported to our exclusive warehouse, where you can order one of the limited edition* designer mugs — perfect for enjoying the chats of your two favourite cafe-holics.

*limited to however many we can sell

Technorati : allan jenkins, better desirable roasted communications cafe, commscafe, lee hopkins, the cafe

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Good to see that another major corporate is starting to explore Social Media.

UK finance sector podcasts with a light touch

Life insurance group Prudential is using a podcast featuring comedian Tony Hawks [Lee: a mildly funny, inoffensive, middle-of-the-road English comedian, not the ace US sk8er] to reach out to people who ordinarily may not be informed about pensions, reports Fairlight Investment Company.

As the UK’s largest pension provider, Prudential says it is obligated to try to explore new ways to get people to pay into pensions, as figures show declining numbers of investors, particularly among young people.

You can find the podcasts on the Prudential’s website.

Hat tip to the Corporate Podcasting in Australia blog

Technorati : prudential, tony hawk, tony hawks

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Steve Crescenzo.

Love him or hate him, the guy sure can write!

Putting things in perspective

…He could barely do it. I still can’t believe he didn’t have a hernia. Maybe he did. I could have sworn that at one point I saw one of his testicles roll out the bottom of his pants and skitter to the curb.

…That’s when I vowed to never complain about my job again.

…But before we got to the restaurant, I made the mistake of looking back. And I saw this man, this hard-working immigrant man who probably sends most of his money back home to Latvia or wherever he was from, standing in the street, the rain streaming off him, staring at his broken livelihood.

I was barely able to choke my risotto down.

If I ever complain out here again about how hard I have it, someone remind me of this story . . . not that you’ll have to, I hope, but just in case.

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Well, that’s enough about me; what do YOU think of me?

1. You are a very talented communicator
2. You have a superb voice for radio and podcasting
3. I had ‘Light and Tasty’ and two cups of tea for breakfast

Will that do?

UPDATE: the rebranding of DonnaP is working! This is a search term used on Google twice to find her…

Technorati : Donna Papacosta, Donna PepsiCola

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