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How the Word “Communications” Seduces Knowledge Mobilizers into Mistaking Productivity for Impact

 Mistaking Productivity for Impact

10 Questions to Help You Discover Whether You’re Mistaking Effort for Efficacy

Language can be so darn slippery. A single letter can alter a word’s meaning, as in the difference between “communications” and “communication.”

Through my work as a coach and content creator, I run into many researchers and research professionals who confuse the two terms. I also find the same misunderstanding among entrepreneurs who are commercializing research and not-for-profits that are trying to leverage resea…

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Three Must-Dos Before You Start Strategic Communications Planning

Three Must-Dos Before You Start Strategic Communications Planning

Once the holiday music starts playing on the radio, you know it’s time for strategic communications planning.

So you schedule a team meeting (maybe even an offsite retreat if your budget is flush), send out the calendar invites, and then turn back to your to-do list for the day.

Now that you’ve made a date with strategy, you can put it out of your mind until it’s time for the big event, the session that will mysteriously reveal how your next year will unfold.

I call this the crystal ball appr…

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Have you tried this low-tech way to make research communication more efficient?

translate

Try translating your meaning instead of transcribing it

Many client conversations start with a complaint about some aspect of the writing process. I hear statements like these:

“I just can’t seem to find the right words.”

“My grammar is terrible.”

“I want to know how to express myself more concisely.”

On the surface, such statements can seem to point to mechanical issues:

  • Fumbling for the right words could indicate a usage issue (problem with accurately using vocabulary).
  • Feeling ashame…

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Using the Research Value Chain to Communicate Impact

Value Chain Communicate Impact

When I worked as an eLearning designer, I had the privilege of spending time with high-profile management consultants from global firms. One of the things I noticed right away about this group was that they got to play with some cool toys: frameworks, diagrams, and methodologies with catchy acronyms.

I felt like a kid let loose in the aisles of Toys R Us. As a literary scholar, I’d learned to use different theories to interpret texts, but I’d never before seen a theory neatly captured in a sing…

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Three Ways to Simplify Complexity Without “Dumbing It Down”

Three Powerful Ways

We live in a world where sound bites rule the airwaves and tweeting contests among political candidates have replaced intelligent public debate. In business, the one-pager rules. Strategic plans are now compressed into placemats and funding requests into short pitch decks

At the same time, the huge challenges we face as a planet—and the solutions needed to address them—defy easy simplification. If it were truly possible to boil climate change issues down into an infographic or blog post, we wou…

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Five Tips for Getting Stakeholders to Read Your Knowledge Mobilization Messages

Five Tips for Getting Stakeholders to Read Your Knowledge Mobilization Messages

If you’ve had any experience sharing research findings with people outside the academy, then you know that knowledge mobilization is never about merely conveying knowledge. Nor is it about ensuring knowledge gets understood. Fundamentally, it’s about building relationships.

Often, however, we get so involved in the process of producing easy-to-digest content that we overlook the relationships that need cultivating.

Take the simple example of writing a news release for your organization’s websit…

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Before You Dive Into Arts-Based Knowledge Translation, Consider These Five Risks

Before You Dive Into Arts-Based Knowledge Translation, Consider These Five Risks

It's a noisy world out there. Whatever target audience you're trying to attract to your research, you can assume they're being bombarded by an onslaught of information competing for their attention.

This unfortunate reality is true for policymakers, investors, funders, practitioners, community members, patients, clients, customers, and even colleagues from other academic disciplines.

A new client, an academic establishing a private coaching practice, recently reminded me of how tough it is in …

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Three Techniques Anyone Can Use to Think Like a Graphic Designer

Graphic Designer (1)

To borrow a theme from the eighteenth-century poet Alexander Pope, a little Canva is a dangerous thing.1

Canva and other web-based applications provide small businesses with affordable tools that are easy to manipulate. But ease of use doesn’t guarantee quality of results. It wasn’t the chisel or the paintbrush that enabled Michelangelo to carve his Slaves or paint the Sistine Chapel. It was his art.

“Art” has become a rather old-fashioned word these days, relegated to museums and galleries co…

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If You Want Your Research to Make an Impact, Embrace Your Unique Writing Voice

Persuasive writing

The transition from academic writing to business writing can feel a bit like leaving the highway to go off-roading.

In the academy, the communication path is paved with clear expectations. The goal is usually to inform, explain, or teach. That means, the focus is on the subject matter, and the approach is to explore the subject systematically and thoroughly.

In the business world, however, the road to successfully communicating your ideas tends to be rockier. When you're writing for an industr…

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Persuasive Writing Techniques to Get Buy-in for Your Vision

Persuasive writing (1)

My dad was a pilot, which meant he was always watching the sky with a pilot’s long-range vision. On family road trips, he could see sights his passengers would never have glimpsed without help.

“Did you see that hawk just circle above those trees? It was right over there.”

“Is that a falcon or a crow?…. Oh, it’s gone now.”

“There’s an eagle… Whoops, you missed it. Again”

Visionary leaders have that same gift of farsightedness. And, like my Dad, they can have trouble getting others to see wha…

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