Speaking Of...

Friend or Foe?

iPhones, Blackberrys, GPS, Instant Message, Texting--are these your new Masters, and are you their Slave? Have you replaced the old fashioned verbal conversation with text, even when the person you communicate is steps away? Is silence, or being 'unplugged,' now unnatural to you? We all seem to have too much to do, and too little time.

Speakers, beware. It is a subtle and seductive relationship. We embrace the technology, thinking it will save us time and make us more efficient. All too quickly, the technology owns us, and stress mounts. Superb speakers are also superb listeners, to the human voice.

Speaking, like life, is a balancing act. The Great Idea, that will make a speech memorable, or maybe even change a life, often comes when we least expect it, when we are otherwise unplugged, or listening to another person speak.

It is a relationship that always requires attention, or as speakers we will lose the human edge that makes our communication most effective.

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