Signposts, transitions and summaries In two previous articles (nonverbal communication structure 01 and nonverbal communication structure 02) I discussed how an organised pattern to your presentation is a powerful nonverbal tool to aid your audience’s comprehension and your message’s delivery. And much like route signs and mileage markers help the traveller, so to can you help the listener or reader of your communication. Three devices you can […]

Colours are powerful communicators. Colours in our communications can affect our moods and our understanding. Knowing what colours represent to our viewers helps us understand why fast-food chains use lively oranges, yellow, and reds, and why the cool, tranquilizing blues and greens and the earth tones of navy, burgundy and chocolate are in airlines.  Research has shown that colour can even effect the IQ scores […]

My erudite colleague in Washington DC, Andrea Weckerle (pronounced, on good authority, as ‘weck-err-lee’), almost psychically taps into something that has been concerning me this week — the ability for what might ordinarily be wise, gentle and considerate souls to put fingers to keyboard before the brain has fully engaged and thence launch into invective and spit-hurling. In her post, The Online Disinhibition Effect, The Divine Ms […]

Successful marketers and advertisers understand very well how easily people can be influenced by prestige appeal. That is why most political candidates take pains with their appearance before they come on to the platform, why a number of them wear, for example, an expensive designer suit. A designer suit is accepted quite unthinkingly by many people as an external symbol of success and respectability. Success […]

Use of false humility Another trick of suggestion that is frequently abused is false humility. This trick can be most readily practised with greater success by those who, rightly or wrongly, have achieved some sort of reputation. With my eldest daughter’s last stressful year at high school still a vivid memory in our family, we often noted from her comments about her day and her […]