Communicating effectively with those around you requires empathy and sympathy. Does this mean that you, as an effective communicator, must be a touchy-feely person or ascribe to new age values? Not at all (unless you want to, of course!). Rather, empathy and sympathy can be learned. But before you can be empathic and sympathetic, you …
Continue reading “Want to be a good communicator? Learn to know yourself.”
Today started off with a funny feeling. I felt off. When I went to do my morning push-ups regimen, I was weaker than normal. Something wasn’t right. I got into Mac very well dressed with a neatly pressed polo and fine woolen black slacks, ready for an important meeting. However, when I checked my messages, …
Continue reading “A beautiful conversation followed by terribly sad news”
Tonight I led my first on-line tutorial with my class of professional communicators in the Communication Theory course I teach for the Master of Communications Management program (joint between McMaster U’s DeGroote Business School and Syracuse U’s Newhouse School of Public Communication). We had an excellent session. The students in the class, whom I have …
Continue reading “Excellent first on-line MCM733 CommTheory Class”
Alicia was having the most interesting morning. It was late August, and the days were already starting to have that slight hint of a chill in the morning that reminded her that the school year was just around the corner. She’d woken up in the little hotel room she was occupying for a week at the …
Continue reading “Chapter 6: Alicia flings a watermelon wedge and finds a friend”
A friend of mine challenged me recently to explain why I am a university professor. “Why did you choose this path?” she asked me, over a glass of pinot grigio and nibblies on the terrace of the Bad Dog Café on trendy Locke Street in Hamilton, Ontario. “You’ve sacrificed a lot of your private life …
I had quite the unusual day today. It made me think a lot about what it like being me right now. Here are a couple of thoughts… Yesterday, I was recovering from food poisoning, so I thought I would spend today at home. I was Acting Chair of the Department of Communication Studies & Multimedia, …
Continue reading “An odd day – I think the single life has its drawbacks.”
There is very little that is natural about communication. Word associations. Metaphors. Our vision of the world is like a kaleidoscope of moving bits of glass, settling in a slightly different configuration every time we pause to ponder. In fact, most of concepts, symbols and metaphors that we process as we communicate are of a …
Continue reading “For communicators, listening is key. A few tips to improve your skills.”
I have always been fascinated by hermeneutics, which is the study of meaning and understanding. What does it mean to mean something? More importantly, how what does it mean to understand something that someone else is communicating? In my PhD thesis, I explored whether it was possible to use the structures in a text (syntax, …
Continue reading “The study of how we understand one another.”
Today had started peculiarly for Dr. Chang – he had arisen from his bed at the usual time, about 5:45 – a time he liked because it often allowed him to stand on the porch and sip his steaming tea as he caught the glimmering lights of dawn as it rose over the ravine lot …
It looks like men have had it. According to Hanna Rosin, in her article The End of Men, from The Atlantic Monthly, it’s women rule the roost and bring home the bacon. What’s a man to do? Many excuses are put forth about men’s failure to compete in school, in the marketplace and in the …
Continue reading “The end of men? No – it’s just time to for men to change.”
