Project: Communication
Develop the communication skills to successfully advocate a position of interest
Background: "Communication is the key to understanding" - the theme of my History Day competition in 8th grade. So true. Communication is a critical component of most of my projects.
Business: A successful business leader is able to tell a story from multiple angles to multiple audiences that doesn't contradict itself: inside the company to management and to workers, outside the company to investors, partners, and customers.
Politics: A successful public servant similarly has to be able to tell a compelling and understandable story to his/her colleagues and various constituencies, better than those of his/her adversaries.
Technology: even the area of my doctoral research, natural language understanding, is well-tied into communication, focusing on the other side of the equation - giving a computer the tools to 'understand' the language used in text. (It made me keenly aware of all the different ways people can express themselves.)
Words play a large role in all of these tasks, as does verbal delivery. As such, during graduate school I took courses in argumentation and public speaking in the Rhetoric department and a course in political language in the Linguistics department, as well as self-studying historical speeches and the art of storytelling. Still, in today's ad-saturated, multimedia environment, words are but a small part of the cacophony of sense stimulation. Marketing and all of its related siblings (advertising, public relations, sales, etc.) provide important new tools for advocacy. I thus took even more courses in business, including Negotiation and Conflict Resolution and Marketing for High-tech Entrepreneurs, earning my Management of Technology certificate. Beyond classes, I have also had practical experience through teaching, through management of multiple student groups, and in leadership and field positions in the 2007-08 Obama Presidential campaign.
Status: Constantly active.
This project is crucial to my current policy work and my other projects. It is always active, if only in so far as staying observant of businesses and political leaders selling their ideas, products, and brands.
Get involved: Framing through storytelling is a really valuable skill. I would like to form a storytelling group to practice and discuss this art. Interested? Contact me!
Related Projects:
Leadership & Management - a key component
Question Answering Research - the other side of the equation —> understanding
Entrepreneurship - a key skill
Social Networking - marketing the GSC and FOCI
Progressive Infrastructure - an essential tool
Background: "Communication is the key to understanding" - the theme of my History Day competition in 8th grade. So true. Communication is a critical component of most of my projects.
Business: A successful business leader is able to tell a story from multiple angles to multiple audiences that doesn't contradict itself: inside the company to management and to workers, outside the company to investors, partners, and customers.
Politics: A successful public servant similarly has to be able to tell a compelling and understandable story to his/her colleagues and various constituencies, better than those of his/her adversaries.
Technology: even the area of my doctoral research, natural language understanding, is well-tied into communication, focusing on the other side of the equation - giving a computer the tools to 'understand' the language used in text. (It made me keenly aware of all the different ways people can express themselves.)
Words play a large role in all of these tasks, as does verbal delivery. As such, during graduate school I took courses in argumentation and public speaking in the Rhetoric department and a course in political language in the Linguistics department, as well as self-studying historical speeches and the art of storytelling. Still, in today's ad-saturated, multimedia environment, words are but a small part of the cacophony of sense stimulation. Marketing and all of its related siblings (advertising, public relations, sales, etc.) provide important new tools for advocacy. I thus took even more courses in business, including Negotiation and Conflict Resolution and Marketing for High-tech Entrepreneurs, earning my Management of Technology certificate. Beyond classes, I have also had practical experience through teaching, through management of multiple student groups, and in leadership and field positions in the 2007-08 Obama Presidential campaign.
Status: Constantly active.
This project is crucial to my current policy work and my other projects. It is always active, if only in so far as staying observant of businesses and political leaders selling their ideas, products, and brands.
Get involved: Framing through storytelling is a really valuable skill. I would like to form a storytelling group to practice and discuss this art. Interested? Contact me!
Related Projects:
Leadership & Management - a key component
Question Answering Research - the other side of the equation —> understanding
Entrepreneurship - a key skill
Social Networking - marketing the GSC and FOCI
Progressive Infrastructure - an essential tool
First Published: 8/1/2005; Last Revision: 6/1/2010