Honing the power of words

This is an archived blog from when I ran Conscious Public Relations Inc. from 2008-2018. Excuse the potential outdated-ness!

While reading Richard Branson’s Screw Business As Usual yesterday and thinking back to a conversation I had with a colleague of mine over tea, I became increasingly aware of how important it is to teach children how to write properly, and how adults must continually improve their writing ability.

Branson writes: “I saw that unfiltered, face to face communication is the key to many of the world’s problems. It’s the key to conflict resolution and leads to hope for the future. Words can change ideas, bring peace or war – or foment a revolution. Revolution can be many things, including turning old ideas on their heads and doing things another way – a better way.“

Branson was talking about face to face, verbal communication rather than sending an email to someone, of course. But for introverts like me, writing may be our first learned method of communication. I have always been a stronger writer than a speaker… but I have to admit, if I did not hone my writing, I would not be as good a speaker and be able to articulate my ideas as well.

This is just one example of many Facebook status updates that I see on a daily basis:

While I sympathize with this person about the situation that was being communicated, I could not help but think that the more we communicate digitally, the more children are unlearning how to properly communicate themselves. Short, snappy statements are not enough. We need to retain our ability to choose what is important to say, to argue, to tell stories, to spark debate, to resolve problems, to articulate a business idea or sell a product or service, or an idea that may change the way the world does things.

How do you suggest we as adults continually improve our ability to communicate?