It’s never been quicker, cheaper or easier to connect with audiences. But we don’t often take the time to think carefully about how we communicate. That means the most important messages – and the right arguments – often get drowned out.
This is a primer on communications for you and your colleagues based on thousands of years of storytelling, the dark arts of public relations, and modern neuroscience. It’s been road-tested in a busy press office, and will take around 30 minutes to complete. It’ll give you practical tips on how to connect with your audience, change minds – and make good things happen.
I’ve been inspired by Jeremy Porter’s ‘Comms 101′, and this course has benefited from conversations with the team at Cast from Clay.
What you’ll learn
- Why storytelling is a such a compelling way to convey information
- How to use frames to organise facts and opinions
- The three modes of persuasion, and how to mobilise them
- How to craft effective messages that will connect you and your audience
Stories help us to think and to relate to each other
How the structure of stories – and the shared experience of storytelling – helps us to think.
Frames organise facts and our views of the world
Words, and the metaphorical scaffolding they put around the world, shape our view of the world and what’s possible.
Messages tell stories and evoke frames
Once your words have been spoken, broadcast or published online they’re no longer yours – how they’re interpreted is almost completely out of your hands. So choose them carefully.