Can You Hear Me?: How to Connect with People in a Virtual World

Description

Communicating virtually is cool, useful, and becoming more universal every day. But the actual communication is often quite bad. Indeed, everyone agrees that the quality of human connection we feel in virtual meetings, email, and other forms of virtual communication is awful. Worse than boring, virtual communication very often leads to misunderstandings, because it deprives us of the emotional knowledge that helps us understand context. How can we fix this? A key problem is that we are busy trying to replicate the experience of a face-to-face meeting in the virtual world, assuming the same rules apply. That is a big mistake. We need to shift our focus and energy to a new challenge, unique to the virtual era. As communication expert Nick Morgan argues in this essential book, recent research suggests that we need to learn to consciously deliver a whole set of cues, both verbal and nonverbal, that we used to deliver unconsciously in the previrtual era. Indeed, we need to update all our rules of connection for the virtual sphere, rethinking them from the beginning and avoiding the mistake of assuming that they are inherently similar to face-to-face connections. Can You Hear Me? explains and guides you through this important process, describing what the current research reveals about what works and what doesn't in virtual communications, and creating a new set of rules and practical tips for how to connect with people--your team, your audience, your organization--when you can't be physically present. If you work or manage in an organization that has more than one office or customers who aren't nearby, Can You Hear Me? is your essential communications manual for twenty-first-century work.

Nick Morgan is one of America's top communication coaches and thinkers. His clients include leaders of Fortune 50 companies. His blog reaches 100,000 readers every month and is widely syndicated. He appears regularly on CNN as an expert commentator and is a frequent contributor to HBR.org. He is the author of Give Your Speech, Change the World and Power Cues, both from Harvard Business Review Press. Author social media/website info: publicwords.com/ twitter.com/DrNickMorgan facebook.com/nicholas.h.morgan linkedin.com/in/drnickmorgan/

Advance Praise for Can You Hear Me?: David Meerman Scott, bestselling author, The New Rules of Marketing and PR-- "A few years ago, the promise of virtual communications seemed like some sort of utopia. But it's increasingly tough to actually get our points across to other people online. Nick Morgan digs deep into the science and culture of online engagement and offers a valuable prescription for how we can all do better." Daniel G. Amen, MD, founder, Amen Clinics; New York Times--bestselling author, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life-- "Nick Morgan's fascinating and important new book, Can You Hear Me?, will surely promote good brain health by helping people handle social media better, avoid embarrassing virtual mistakes, and feel more connected in their work and life." Sabina Nawaz, CEO coach, keynote speaker, and writer; former executive, Microsoft-- "As a coach to CEOs who've helped shape the half-real, half-virtual world we live in today, I know well what a formidable challenge it has become to successfully communicate in that world. Nick Morgan's new book helps us all rise to that challenge." Rebecca Corliss, Vice President of Marketing, Owl Labs-- "At Owl Labs, our goal is to make video communication feel more natural and inclusive by accurately capturing facial expressions, body language, and the other visual context. Nick Morgan's simple rules for improving virtual communications are sorely needed." Garrett M. Graff, Executive Director, Cyber & Technology Program, The Aspen Institute-- "With wit and wisdom, Nick Morgan reveals a dark side of the modern communication revolution. This important book shows how we need to work to ensure that technology doesn't rob us of the humanity, emotion, and empathy that can make life--and work--fun." Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister, Canada-- "Nick Morgan's new book, Can You Hear Me?, is a must-read for the clarity it brings to the confusing, increasingly virtual world we all live in today. Get it to learn how to communicate effectively when the rules aren't easily known."