CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

My apologies. I'm shouting, I know. But a quote in last month's Wired Magazine really stuck with me and prompted this week's blog entry.

In that issue, Clive Thompson wrote a great article on the "new transparency" that is rapidly unveiling a reluctant corporate america. "I think that most of the rage people feel toward these big institutions, like government or corporations or media, is that they feel they're not listened to, that no one's there," says Shel Israel, coauthor of Naked Conversations. By seeming "basically like a normal human," a company can quickly generate a surge of goodwill."

What about this rage that author Israel observes as commonplace? In addition to high levels of caffeine, logjammed traffic and unrelenting schedules, could this 21st century anger actually be attributed to lack of listening? Perhaps the explosion in popularity of social media points us to a void being filled around the deep, human need to be heard?

I guess the proof is "you know where". Check it out today. Take time to really listen to someone. Respond to a blog. Ask to be heard. See how it feels.

Thanks for listening!

Listening is good business

Recently I sat quietly on a conference call and witnessed a public relations firm lose an account with a client of mine.

The client was very clear in her concerns and requests, yet the folks on the other end of the line just didn't seem to get it. They barreled forward with ideas and apologies and, being a public relations firm (no offense to my esteemed PR colleagues) did a lot of talking. What the client wanted was to be heard. By the time the call was over, so was the account.

And Listening for a Change was born.

I've been talking about launching this initiative for at least a year, but this one incident was the tipping point that launched me into cyberspace and, hopefully, connect with other listening fans and those who might want to give it a try.

So what is it about listening that makes it so rare, so hard to master, so difficult to find in this Age of Communication? Certainly we're spending enough money to be heard....the telecom industry, despite its challenges, is raking in billions of consumer dollars to keep us connected.

(And, apparently doing a good job of getting heard themselves--Telecommunications companies spent $60.3 million on political contributions over six years and a minimum of $83.4 million on lobbying over two years, according to a 2005 Center for Public Integrity analysis.)

But, I digress. Apparently we're hungry to be heard. But is anyone really listening? Certainly the majority of us have ears that work pretty well--though listening is not limited to all things audio. Nevertheless our appetite to be heard isn't being met by the fast food communications diet of our culture. Listening seems to be a little like healthy eating: we know about the food pyramid, but it's just so much easier to drive through.

What if we learned to listen, really listen, to each other. It takes a effort, to stop, be present, be curious, to actually BE with people. It might sound touchy-feely as a business strategy, but what do you have to lose? Maybe that key account...

More later. ..

Listening is important, honey!

Listen actively.
Listen empathetically.

I'll talk about this more later.

my first post

this is my first post.
only good vibes!!!