WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM THE SIMPLE ELEGANCE OF STEVE JOBS’ WORDS
In June 2005, Steve Jobs found himself standing before the soon-to-be graduates at Stanford University. He gave a speech that many say separated him from most other admired business leaders. It was a talk that fixed his place as the …
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IF STRING THEORY CAN USE SIMPLE WORDS, SO CAN YOUR NEWS RELEASE
As I talk with people about the need to simplify what they say or write, the push back that I often hear goes like this: “I like what you’re saying in theory, Wiley, but I work in a technical field. …
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JESUS KNEW THE KEY TO A GOOD SPEECH: USE 1-SYLLABLE WORDS
Few would argue that the Sermon on the Mount is one of the most inspirational speeches of all time. This being the Lenten season, I thought it might be fun to see how it measures up for its word choices. …
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HOW OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH AND RUBIO’S RESPONSE STACKED UP
America was treated Tuesday night to two first-rate speakers: Barack Obama and Marco Rubio. What you thought about what they said probably depends on whether you are a hard D, a rigid R or somewhere in the middle. There was …
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HOW TO MAKE SURE YOUR MESSAGE WILL DO THE JOB
When I’m not doing crisis work, I conduct workshops and give speeches about how to make your point so that people actually hear it. I run people through an exercise that often catches them by surprise. I want to share …
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GODADDY HANDLES CRISIS WITH SKILL; NOT SO FOR LOCAL PROVIDER NUOZ
The big tech news this week – apart from the release of the Apple iPhone 5 – was the turmoil on the web when servers started crashing or otherwise misbehaving at GoDaddy. GoDaddy is one of the largest website hosting …
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ONE WRONG MESSAGE, ONE SOCIAL MEDIA CRISIS
COMMENT FROM WILEY: Welcome guest blogger Melissa Agnes. This is the first of a 2-part series. Both the magic and the curse of social media is how one little post, one little video, one little comment can take one …
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IT’S TIME TO STOP SELLING GUNS TO HOMEGROWN TERRORISTS
I’m not going to talk about crisis communications today, except to say that the Aurora massacre once again demonstrates that every business and organization could find itself in a heart-wrenching crisis by the random acts of a madman. That’s all …
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FIRST RESPONSE TO CRISIS SHOULD ALWAYS BE ‘WE’RE SORRY’
If you’re in a crisis, basic crisis communications require that your first statement must say both that something bad happened and that you are terribly sorry about it. It doesn’t matter if you know that it was your fault. You …
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5 STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH A SOCIAL MEDIA CRISIS
by MelissaAgnes2nd of 2 parts by guest blogger Melissa Agnes Yesterday we examined how real and instant a social media crisis truly is. Today, I’m going to elaborate on 5 crucial strategies you can use to prepare your company or …
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