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Communication - Craft or Culture

Many of you are aware that RG events continue to be counted by members towards CPD credits for your various profession institutes. Members have told us in recent surveys that they greatly value this CPD component of the Richmond Group experience. Effective communication is a crucial part of any professional’s armoury but not one that we spend sufficient time on. In view of this we are very pleased to have the first part of a 2 part session on communication presented by Gareth Bunn. In this first session, Gareth will concentrate on the craft of designing spoken word messages.

In the last two decades there has been a massive increase in the channels of communication (such as blogs, Twitter, email, Skype etc.) available to us. But little attention seems to have been paid in that time to the different design principles attached to different media (except perhaps web page design). Perhaps the most neglected and abused is the spoken word – the presentation.

The result is much confusion. People frequently think that an entertaining speaker must be a good one. Well, this would only be true if the objective was to entertain. A consultant’s job is rarely this. Because of the ubiquitous PowerPoint, it is not uncommon to see presenters projecting dense literature, or even their notes, on to screens and walls. And we carry a belief that to be persuasive we must transmit an abundance of information.

Training in the design of spoken word messages – presentations – is a rarity. Although there are some exceptions, such training does not routinely appear in our schools or universities, or in the business world.

Yet the spoken word is the oldest – and arguably the best – form of communication. And there are techniques available to us, which we can use to design messages and have real confidence in achieving the outcome desired.

Neuroscience and anthropology provide us with explanation and understanding; Cicero and Aristotle provide us with the tools. Although technology has changed markedly in the last two millennia, human beings have not.

Gareth runs his own company Gareth Bunn Consulting which specialises in executive coaching, training in communications skills and consulting (in bid coaching). Until 2007, he was at Capgemini as VP responsible for Government and Public Services industry sector, which included Central Government, Defence and Security, Justice, Local and Devolved Government, Healthcare, Education.

Gareth has been Vice Chair of the Public Sector Council of Intellect (The technology lobby group for industry and Government in the UK), and has represented the IT industry on the Government’s Strategic Supply Board coordinating group (a joint industry and government board). He has also recently become a member of RG.

Agenda as PDF download.

Before the Coffeee Break:

Life’s too short to blog - Discussion

Some of you will recollect Kaye Nightingale’s presentation to Richmond Group just over two years ago on the benefits of blogging in building your network and expanding your market. In today’s session some early RG pioneers who now regularly write blogs will discuss their experience, the reasons why they set up their blogs and what they feel they have got out of them.

We hope this will be an interactive session and would ask you to visit their blogs in advance and bring any questions or comments you have about them to the meeting. RG members taking part in this session all welcome constructive criticism. Their blogs links are as follows: