Communication is what makes us human: More tips for thinking, writing and speaking in a world of quicksand communications

31. Look ‘em in the eye.	It may be hard to do 100% of the time and maybe not always is this advisable, but being conscious of where your gaze is can be of tremendous importance. Unconsciously, we may avoid looking at another person.  Our vision may drift to the ceiling, the floor, or to our desk or our laps. Sometimes we nearly close our lids to remember or “reach back in memory.” All these are lost chances to connect and collect information and feedback you can use instead of overlook.
32. Stand tall like a tree.	There is more to standing than meets the eye. Meeting someone or doing a presentation, we have about 2 seconds to make our first impression. Let’s make that one first impression ‘true’. Gina Cook explains the origin of the word ‘true’.
33. Sitting on the edge or how to not be a sack of potatoes.	It's easy to sit back and relax in a comfy chair or sofa, and it is perfectly fine in most informal contexts! When the setting is an interview or a meeting, keep from appearing like you're settled in at home with a bag of popcorn by sitting on the very edge of your seat. It's an old interviewing for TV trick that keeps your back straight and you looking alert, awake and at the top of your game, not at the end of your day.
34. Vocal range and volume.	Have you checked in with your diaphragm lately? Speaking before an audience begins with your gut. The reasons for this are both for courage and strength. Take a deep breath into the area below your lungs and feel your diaphragm expand. Next, breathe out and slowly push the air out from your lips. Use your diaphragm and its strong muscles to power your voice instead of your spindly voice box. You can sing the entire score to "Tommy" or "La Traviata" by using the power of your tummy, not your vocal chords alone.
35. Listen and learn.	Use your smartphone recorder to record yourself reciting a favorite passage from a poem or novel. Try it normal speed, then repeat in fast mode and then slow mode. Listen back and try to not criticize but notice which words were "lost" or "swallowed" in your poem or passage. What else did you notice? Try doing a recording with an intentional smile. Listen back and see what differences you noticed in your recording. If you were a complete stranger, what would your impressions be?
36. You're only speaking to one of us at a time anyway.	When I was a young radio announcer, George Cooper, the radio legend, was program director at our station. He took me aside and gave me some advice about reading the news. He complimented me on my writing and voice, then he asked me to try something new. It changed my life. He asked me to try my next newscast by keeping the idea of someone I know and like a lot, such as a beloved nephew or niece in my mind's eye while I read the news on the air live. The idea of telling the news to one person, who I cared for, instead of an amorphous many who I didn't know, transformed my announcing. My newscast took on another tone, something warm and packed with meaning. I have made a lot of money voicing commercials and videos by using this one-to-one approach.
37. Performance anxiety and why you want at least some of it.	Whether you are in the NFL or a poet at a small venue about to step up to the microphone, the butterflies in your tummy are a signal that is healthy and normal. Your heightened, tense and even anxious feelings are preparing you to bring your all to the job ahead. Breathe deep to relax just before you step out in front of the crowd.  When you begin you'll be at your best, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.
38. Bring the whole family along.  39. Tell your story. 40. You don't have to agree with everyone's ideas, but it is always good to know where they come from.	If there is an important meeting or presentation you are preparing for, don't forget to bring along the family tree, and even those whose names are forgotten. There are generations of hard working, survivor-types in our DNA. They didn't fight so hard to see us quake in the knees without them by our side. They are a posse of supporters who stand beside us in spirit wishing us well. Walk in the doors or through the curtain with them by your side. We each have a story to tell, or a trillion. If you want to share yours, find a friend and listen to their stories. Ask questions that get people talking about things that matter. I've had several informal dinners where my guests tell stories based on the prompt, "Don't believe everything you think" and the results have been pretty entertaining and enlightening. When differing political beliefs arise, notice if you are feeling tense or angry and breathe deep. Then with a gentle tone, ask, "Tell me how you came to this position or idea, I'm interested." What you learn may surprise you.

-->

Communication is what makes us human: More tips for thinking, writing and speaking in a world of quicksand communications

21. Start with “why?”	In case you haven’t seen Simon Sinek’s TED Talk, it’s time to see it now. Because I said. See how well that works? I’m giggling and hoping to have made my point. Stop and think about "the why" of your writing to not only be more effective in your communication, but to start with what is most valuable. Your reader's attention is real estate that's scarce. How you begin makes all the difference.
22. Use attribution.	Giving credit to your sources is an important step to building credibility with your audience. It's also a good practice to offer thanks to those whose work you are quoting.
23. Nurse! Scalpel!	Editing your words makes them Goldilocks perfect. Hemingway was asked why he edited the ending of A Farewell to Arms 39 times times, "What was it that had stumped you? He responded: Getting the words right."
24. Sentences are like a slinky toy.	Why is a slinky toy irresistible to play with? It changes. It can be stretched or compressed, slung or arched like a caterpillar. Sentences are similar. Long, meandering sentences can take your reader into a maze of emotions that can lead or lose your reader in the stunning array of choices you lay out for them on the smorgasbord of ideas that you lovingly crafted.  And, as you can see, they can lose the reader in the tall grasses. Break long ideas into shorter sentences. Bunch short ideas into longer sentences. Play with them and listen to the music they create as you re-read them.  Readers want music in writing. Think with your ear. Add the element of rhythm, by changing, repeating, building and contrasting those ideas and the words we use.
25. Remixing is human. Believing we are original is indulging in a bit of magical thinking.	A digital world makes the sampling easier, but remixing has been going on for eons. Check out the Kirby Ferguson video series.  These documentaries rocked my world and freed my thinking from the paralyzing fear of failing to be "original" in creative undertakings. Even Newton's quote about standing on the shoulders of giants is from a previous quote.  Really.
26. The world you create in writing is a place your reader enters to walk around and experience. You play the role of "pedacito de Dios" (a bit of God).	For decades and decades, I have remembered the stories in my third-grade reader about children helping during a crisis or emergency in their town. Scenes are intact in my much-laundered, frayed chambray shirt of a brain. Those worlds I traveled to in print stayed with me. I want to build worlds with words for others to enter, experience and at the end, say that they enjoyed and will hopefully also remember.
27. Who, what, where, when, why and how. Without them, words are only words.	A miner has tools, so does a baker or a gardener, an accountant or a seamstress. Writers: meet your tool box!  Keep them sharp and use them daily at the beginning, middle and end, check them on a list that you consult faithfully.
28. Care about your reader. 29. The mainstream is a myth. 30. Make it, shake it, rattle it and roll it.	Why does caring enter into the equation of good writing? While your intention drives you the writer in how you write, the spark that ignites the process is caring. Caring entails believing that sharing matters. That spreading ideas builds our lives and cultures.  Does everyone have this spark? Yes, but some express it in ways other than writing. For example,  dancing, cooking, golfing, stopping to give five dollars to a man holding a can at a stoplight, to name just a few.   29. The invitation was sent to each of us when the Internet upended the world of mass media. Let's toast to that world, because it had many valuable gifts, but its race is run. Daily we build its replacement, each of us, tweet by tweet, blog by blog and posting by posting. With our eyes wide open, writers, filmmakers, artists, activists, makers and do-ers. Now there is space for all voices. We are makers, not shoppers. Find out what makes your brain light up and leap in to learn more, and do more. Even if it's not perfect at the start, enjoy the ride for the joy creativity brings.  In an episode of On Being, the evolutionary biologist Kevin McCarthy tells us we are descended from 50,000 generations since the Pleistocene era. Each, I guarantee, spent more time with their eyes and hands doing and creating than simply shopping or consuming.

-->

Communication is what makes us human: More tips for thinking, writing and speaking in a world of quicksand communications

12. Observe the flow of traffic in any group communication to identify traffic violators	Notice the ways some people dominate a conversation with their patterns of speech in conversation. How does that make you as a listener feel? Take time to study the ways people use to make their point. Do they weave in and out of traffic honking their horns? Do they argue with logic or by bullying? Do they listen and respond or are they only repeating what they’ve already said? How effective is a bully in the long run? It’s a delicate balance, but worth the time to allow a give and take. It’s important to notice when you are being pushed or patronized, and to respond with respectful correction, and then to move on to make your point.
13. In any conversation, passivity is its own punishment.	Take your turn and risk being wrong or right. Speaking out, asking questions, declaring your observations are all necessary. There really are no dumb questions except those that are not asked.  You may be asking the question that’s on the mind of many. Wallflowers belong on wallpaper. Stand up, speak out, have your say. It’s how we learn. Being passive or saving face by withholding is an invitation to allowing fear rule your actions.
14. Did someone push your last button?	Notice that it’s happened. Take a deep breath. You are no longer in the thick of it, but are now patiently observing. Now, you are able to be the adult. Do some adulting.
15. Recognize the handicaps in a communication medium.	McLuhan called some media hot and others cool. Digital media like texts or emails are cool in that they have superb speed, but lack content that inform us about the mood or tone of the sender. Fight the urge to respond until you get more information. Confirm your ideas about what was sent in another way, such as in a phone call or face to face.
16. Writing is thinking.	Writing may get messy, but no one said ideas came gift-wrapped or tidy. It is important to get out the messy first draft (see Anne Lamott’s more colorful description). Writing and thinking don't have to stay messy when we think of the process as not being perfect “right out of the gate,” but as having prep time and steps, just like high-jumping or cake decorating.
17. Follow the thread.	Hansel and Gretel followed bread crumbs on the forest floor. Here’s something easier. Hand your reader a thread or a piece of twine or rope, if you prefer, to allow them to stick with your flow of ideas and be able to follow you. Keep their hands on the thread by avoiding distractions or aimless jumping from topic to topic. Are they still with you? Check the thread!
18. Invite your favorite reader to be your imaginary editor.	Return to your writing after a few hours have passed and put on another hat. Become your favorite reader. Test out what you’ve written with someone in mind whose opinion you trust. She can be a good friend or perhaps a teacher from your past who helped you. How does your work sound to them? Would they follow what you are saying or would they get lost? We can’t cover ever base at once, but we can keep our favorite reader as a guide to what to add and what to delete.
19. “You’ve got to dance like nobody’s watchin” applies to writing, too.	Yup. You’re out there and anyone can shoot you down. But what are the alternatives? Staying silent? If you have a poem inside you, or a novel or short story, an essay, even a song or editorial, it wants out! Why not try it, and see what happens? Leave the writing to the writers and the judging to the judges. You will get both rejections and acceptance. But before these comes expression, which is its own reward.
20. Listen to the ‘genius in the wall’ and don’t even think about being one.	Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic about the term “genius in the wall” in ancient Greece. It was a sprite who might or might not emerge from the wall to assist the artist or mathematician in their work. If the resulting product was successful, then the artist or mathematician would share the glory with the genius. Likewise, mistakes were shared with the “genius in the wall” because they had failed to show up. Since the genius in the wall was erratic this allowed for more attempts at creative work without the pressure or stigma of always being right, or “being a genius.” In the Renaissance era the term “being a genius” came to replace the term “genius in the wall.” Gilbert says this stifled creativity since it increased the pressure on mere mortals. By removing the role or assistance of a fickle “genius in the wall” partner, mistakes were no longer expected or acceptable of people who were lucky or unlucky to be deemed as “being a genius.”

-->

Communication is what makes us human: Tips for thinking, writing and speaking in a world of quicksand conversations

1. Find out how you do your best thinking and when you are able, give yourself the best environment possible.	Do you need music or quiet? Do you need to list questions or look at pro’s and con’s instead? Do you need another person to explore a question with or are you better off alone or working with Google or Wikipedia?
2. Communication is intention.	Know the reason for your communication because your audience will be asking about this first. Whether you speak in person, on the phone, in a text or email, there is an important “channel” that tells your audience as much as your words or voice. We are all tuned in to listen for this channel to determine what your intentions are: To inquire or to demand? To explore or to stake your territory?
3. Words matter. Think before you speak.	Encourage the habit of listening with intention and pausing to let a thought percolate and be understood. Let there be silence and space between exchanges, especially passionate or heated ones.
4. Questions are your friends.	It’s too easy to misinterpret and misunderstand because there are so many emotions and distractions during most conversations. And that’s just on our end! Add to that what is in the minds and experiences of your audience. Ask questions for clarification.
5. At the end of an interview or any weighted conversation, ask “Is there anything you would like to add that we haven’t talked about yet?”	My documentary about San Antonio during WWII began with a quote from an African American D-day veteran who I interviewed for half an hour with almost no usable quotes until I asked this question. It was the best sound-bite of the entire program.
6. In life, as in print or electronic communication, editing is not only allowed, it is encouraged and nearly always improves on the original.	It is very rare that you can never change something that you’ve said or written, even if it is a whopper. You’re allowed to make mistakes as long as you do your best to correct them. You’re not allowed to make mistakes and knowingly ignore them.
7. Talking to babies and children builds their trust in their own curiosity and interest in learning.	Kids don't learn about their world from screens, but from their people. Here’s where it starts for humans. Listening and responding is an equally important form of affection and protection kids require to grow into their own sense of wonder and possibilities.
8. It’s OK to say, “I don’t know” or “I’ll let you know when I find out.”	It is better to admit the truth than to ruin all trust in a communication with a tidal wave of excuses or conjectures that the listener usually perceives as false and distracting.
9.  Public speaking is like practicing hitting a softball.	The more you step up to the mound with a bat in hand, the harder your hands’ callouses become and the better your chances are for hitting the ball. You’ll lose most of the discomfort with time, yet you’ll probably always want some ‘performance anxiety’ to keep your presentations in the moment and interesting.
10. Cultivate your inner voice. 11. Communication provides education. (Wes Anderson)	Keep a journal, write a blog, create a podcast on a passion you have. The more you listen and work with your ideas and words, the easier communication becomes. You learn ways to begin, to end with a tying back to the beginning, to edit, to add interest with questions or quotes, and other “tricks” to help give your voice a platform to be read or heard by others. The more we learn about others, especially those considered to be enemies, the better we can see their points of view or how they were raised. With technology today, we have learned about people from the other side of the world. We learn that people from every country are humans with beliefs taught to them. Governments start wars. People generally want to understand others and change their points of view. We do this through effective communication.

-->

Channels of My Imagination

We watched television last night that made me wish for more.

I was asked to be a judge for Cinefestival this year. The task of a festival judge is to view and make critical decisions scoring projects by the strength of the story editing direction etc.

It is a most imperfect process but one that is necessary when you need to assign values. Filmmakers’ long months of complex work researching and building their productions are reduced to points, quantifying by necessity the creative work that, thrillingly and by definition, escapes number assignments.

We saw stories of homegrown music and art that grow like cactus around here, with only a little rain and total disregard from mainstream, commercial mass media.

What is missing in the current rain storms of media flowing to us from the Internet, satellites and cable that are currently replacing the managed mainstream offerings that television has had for 50 years is a curator. Without a curator, we are blind in a storm and thus we may find we are going in circles instead of forward. Luckily, last night we had a curator, who selected the submissions for us to judge, festival director, Manuel Solis. He is busy organizing the 40th edition of the indie festival at The Guadalupe Theater July 5-8 this summer.

Watching the lineup of documentaries last night reminded me how much I miss local creative documentary productions. I imagined how amazing it would be if we had a steady supply of locally-sourced productions:  Imagine a Narciso Martinez channel beside a Neil deGrasse Tyson channel. A Sandra Cisneros channel beside a Chris Rock standup comedy channel. A mad mix of mainstream and mini-stream.  In this way, the media we consume would be a well-proportioned plate of delicious fresh food, a balanced diet that helps us grow stronger in ideas, actions and identity, looking inward as well as outward. 

There needs to be an app for that.

I need an algorithm to find more works about our city and region.

But first, before that, I need an algorithm that supports local artist to create more videos about our city and region.

And before that, I need an algorithm that, more importantly, sparks in the minds of artists notions about local and regional topics to be explored creatively with outcomes or endings unknown: A journey taken for whatever insight and learning may be revealed in the process.

At the very start, I need an app for video documentaries that ask more questions than provide answers. Documentaries whose arc evolves in the process of interviews and the editing timeline as much is in the minds of the producers.

I need an algorithm that sorts the entertainment available in the lineup that comes in from the current curtain of rain. One that promotes local and regional productions and collects some for us to pick and view some nights on the couch, so we can learn more about this place we live in, drive across and spend our lives drawing our breath from.

I had a taste of that future last night.

Amá!! Amá!!

Amá!

It is the week before our first performance and I am suddenly shy and have developed grave doubts about this play.

For the past six months, six of us have been mining our memories of our mothers. It’s been like examining old clothes out of a long-forgotten closet. Some of the clothes no longer fit, others were just a fad so you toss those aside and then there are the true finds, the ones you are tempted to wear again but when you try them on their seams disintegrate.

There have been tears. What to do about these fears that I’m breaking some pact I don’t remember making about ancient family secrets?

It has been so long since I’ve talked with her I nearly don’t recognize her voice. I don’t hear her like I might hear someone standing beside me; the listening is going on somewhere unmapped, between inside of me where memory resides and somewhere unknown.

Carry-on!
Andale
Keep going!

Are you sure you wouldn’t mind? You sure it’s OK?

Andale
No le aflojes!
Don’t let go!

And that’s how I got my permission, no, my blessing from my Amá more than 30 years after her death.

The weeks and months of writing and rehearsal were spent hacking at memories overgrown with weeds. I wasn’t alone finding my ankles caught in the thick grass between what was and what was remembered. At several points I tripped and felt stunned at the loss of balance and shock of being suddenly fallen.

What the hell am I doing standing in front of strangers in my metaphorical underwear?

For what purpose are these long forays into lives and lessons so long ago completed?

But are they over? Doesn’t my own life and that of all who knew and loved Amá still carry within reverberations of her laughter, echoes of her words and the heat of still palpable loving embraces?

Oh my God! If she’s that much alive, then I’m sure in a heap of trouble because she is sure to be pissed as can be about me telling strangers about her and her life! Oh my God!

So I went from behind one skirt in my fear to behind another.

But I heard her clearly. She said:

Andale! No seas gallina!
Don’t be a chicken!  Get on with it.

I got out from behind the skirts of the ghosts of my own making and saw what my reasons had been from the start:

To tell my mother’s story; mine, not that of my siblings or anyone else’s; that’s for them to do not me.

To tell the geography of her life on the borderlands.

To tell about how her life was touched by three centuries.

To tell about her challenges after dad‘s death and the way she finally found her self again in the rubble of her life.

To tell the story of a woman who loved perfection, yet who fell short of it in many ways.  Amá did meet her high standards, however, in the questions that counted, though some remain unanswered.

Did she do her very best?

Did she love with her whole heart ?

Where, after all these years, were the pliers, scissors and scotch tape whenever she barked at me to run and get them for her? Amá before her death might’ve minded my metaphorical underwear demonstration, but not Amá 35 years later. She has grown along with the rest of us she assures me. And then, as quickly as she arrived, she fades into the shadows offstage after—could this be possible? A Carol Burnett tug of an earlobe—to wish me well, and to remind me as only a mother can, to tell her story and mine loud and proud.

"Buzz!! Buzz!! Resume Viewing Buzz!! Buzz!!"

Imagine a future where the partnership we have with our screens (black mirrors) evolves to the next level. 

In the second episode of the first season of Black Mirror, the screens of our media are no longer held in our hands, they are the walls of our homes, projecting animated images more bucolic than nature can deliver. Think Disney. 

And who powers these lighted screens of our lives? You guessed it, we do. On gym exercise bikes we pedal for hours each day to stay in shape and power the grid, earning points like salaries which are then spent on time in bed, toothpaste, food and screen choices. Think Time Warner.

In the future the series depicts, it costs points which we pedal like hamsters to accumulate in order to sleep. Worse, and this is the gift of the episode, it even costs points to decide to close your eyes and not consume a program you might find offensive. Alarms sound and the screen blinks the warning "Resume Viewing!"

The story shows the protagonist struggling but sadly coming full circle to also fall into the trap that took his girlfriend, entering the entertainment slave class to become perform for the programs that distract the peddling slave class.