What Happens When You Forget What You Wanted To Say?
Introduction by Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications There are many reasons to be fearful of speaking in public. If you’re reading this, you don’t need that list. You already know it by heart. I used to be one of those people, scared to death of getting up in front of a group, saying the wrong thing, […]
Mergers, Acquisitions and Management Transitions: Using Crisis Communications Principles to Achieve Better Outcomes
By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications Our firm is best known for helping clients respond to crisis threats, emergencies and similar events where reputation is on the line. The communication response we create in these situations is designed to help an organization tell its side of the story to those who matter most. Those important audiences […]
Better Presentations: How to Stop ‘Rough-Drafting’ and Learn to Speak with Precision
By Marsha Hunter, writing for Attorney at Work… When we speak, why do we so often fail to finish our sentences? Linguists must know the answer to this question, but I am at a loss. All I’m sure of is this: Lawyers find it difficult — often impossible — to finish sentences. They have some […]
When Do We Actually Need to Meet in Person?
From Rae Ringel, writing in the Harvard Business Review… Three days in the office, two working from home? Or two weeks in the office, then two at home (or some other, more alluring remote locale)? Everyone in all the time, like in 2019? These are some of the options leaders are considering as they grapple […]
Troll Farms Reached 140 Million Americans a Month on Facebook Before 2020 Election, Internal Report Shows
From Karen Hao, writing in MIT Technology Review… In the run-up to the 2020 election, the most highly contested in US history, Facebook’s most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were being run by Eastern European troll farms. These pages were part of a larger network that collectively reached nearly half of all […]
Why Women Face Different Standards on Zoom and What to do About It
From George Bradley, writing in PRNews… Research from The Harris Poll shows 39 percent of women, but just 25 percent of men, turn off video during Zoom calls. That’s a fairly significant difference. In addition, when they turn on video, women are more likely than men to prepare (do their hair, change clothes or clean visible workspaces). […]
Don’t Let Ransomware Attackers Hold Your Communications Hostage, Too
By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications In 1989, the first episode of “The Simpsons” aired. The Berlin Wall came down. And during the World Health Organization’s AIDS conference, one of the first documented ransomware attacks occurred – distributed via floppy disk. A mailing list of 20,000 doctors and AIDS researchers received a floppy disk that was supposed […]
I Can’t Go On – What’s Behind Stage Fright
By Joan Acocella, writing in The New Yorker… Sara Solovitch, in “Playing Scared: A History and Memoir of Stage Fright” (Bloomsbury), says that while she was a good pianist as a child, she fell apart—sweating, trembling—when she had to play for an audience. She got through the Eastman School of Music’s preparatory program. Then she […]
How the 10-Second Rule Can Dramatically Change Your Conversations and Make You a Better Leader
By Jason Aten, writing for Inc… Communicating is easily the single most important job of leaders. If leadership is mostly about influence–and it is–then the ability to communicate a vision and motivate people to move toward that vision is the single most important characteristic a leader can have. The problem is, communication is hard. Sometimes […]
The Power of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why
From the archives, and still powerful, Deborah Tannen, writing in The Harvard Business Review… The head of a large division of a multinational corporation was running a meeting devoted to performance assessment. Each senior manager stood up, reviewed the individuals in his group, and evaluated them for promotion. Although there were women in every group, […]