 Communication, down here perhaps, communication is a basic skill most of us practice every day often without really realising we're doing it and rarely intentionally. My name is Donna Benjamin, I'm a project lead at Catalyst IT and I sit on the board of the Drupal Association. But what makes me qualified to talk to all of you about communication? A colleague made me realise that I'd been taking some of my skills for granted. I have a Bachelor of Arts in theatre and drama. I have another qualification in internet and web computing and I'm a qualified trainer. All of those things add up to me having studied a body of knowledge that I don't even think about now. It's kind of like once you learn to ride a bicycle you don't think about how you learnt to ride a bicycle or the mechanical actions you take to keep those wheels turning. I take it for granted. My colleague was prompted to ask me about this because I was so relaxed and comfortable about speaking in front of people. It didn't fill me with dread or nerves like some of our other colleagues were discussing and their challenges of how to improve their speaking skills. So this was what prompted a little bit of reflection. So that's what I sort of bring to the stage if you like, a sense of stage craft, of connecting with you as a great stage craft in action. Okay, so this is me. I've already gone through this. So what I wanted to do today was to invite you into a conversation, not just stand up here and talk at you for an hour. I wanted us to kind of engage a little bit in this thing, this thing called communication. Stage craft is just one element. This bit, me, broadcasting to you speaking is only one element. The thing you learn when you work in theatre is that you need to know yourself as much as anything else so that you are able to perhaps pretend to be someone else. And that's probably the one tip I give most people who are first standing up on stage and wondering how they're going to do it and I say, pretend it's not you. It's not about you. It's about all of you. It's the audience. Know thy audience. This to me is the real key to communication. It's what's happening. It's what you're all doing right now. You're actually the important factor in communication. It's the listening that matters. We usually think when we talk about communication, about the broadcast bits, about the speaking, about the writing or reading or presenting, speaking, talking, whether it's broadcast on whatever medium, whether it's a billboard, it's all about the kind of broadcast part. But I want us to bring back and say, perhaps that's not the whole story. It's the listening that matters. And how do we improve our listening skills to be more effective communicators? Communication is a two-way street. I love this image. There's a lot of communication going on in this picture. Does anyone want to kind of call out some of the things they see here? Why would this, why would I say this is communication? It's all right. You can speak. Street signs? Yes. There's two street signs. What else? Beautiful. So I'm going to repeat for the recording. On the one side of the street there's a lot of free expression. And on the other side, there's a lady hiding behind a curtain. Yes. Thank you. So there's a lot going on here. There's graffiti. Graffiti is an amazing form of communication. It's not very, generally not authorised. In Melbourne, where I'm from, it's become street art and very well loved and recognised. But it wasn't always so, right? So graffiti. And there's artwork and there's signs. And one of those signs is one way that I'm saying communication is that two-way street. So this is one of the reasons why this matters. This is pretty interesting time in history. We have up to five generations of people in our workplaces. That's extraordinary. They all have different ways of preferring how they consume and engage in communication. They may not necessarily fit the stereotypes, but it's just this vast kind of array of types and sorts and things. As many as five generations with diverse communication appetites make up today's workforce. So let's get into it. I wanted to kind of distill this big, broad, hairy topic of communication into three things. The what, the how and the why. So let's start with the what. And I'm actually not going to spend a lot of time here. I think about the what as the actual message you're trying to communicate. The idea, the story, whatever it is that is that message is the what. And I kind of distill it right down into what we often do with communication is transmit culture, whether it's workplace culture, big art stuff, we're often transmitting culture and all of the little bits and pieces that live within that. But that's not where I want to dwell today. I think the big bit is the how. This is where we all have room to grow. No matter how great a communicator you are, if you take the idea that you can always be better, if you can focus on developing your mastery, this is where we all have room to grow. How do we communicate? Now, if you read your abstracts carefully, you were you were warned that I would ask you to engage in a little bit of communication. What I'd like you to do is turn to the person beside you or clump into threes or fours. Have a chat about this question. How do you communicate? How? What does this mean? How do you communicate? I'm going to give you a couple of minutes. I want you to have a chat, throw your ideas around. Because I think we all do this every day, right? But we don't stop to think about it. Unless you're a communications professional. I would suspect there are a few of you in the room today. Hands up if you consider yourself a communications professional. There's a few of you, right? So you probably do think intentionally about what communication is. So I'm going to call on you to be our experts in the room. The rest of us are absolutely brilliant amateurs, okay? So huddle up, group, cluster, have a chat. How do we communicate? Okay. I see some of you starting to wrap up your conversations. Others are still in full force. So as you sort of start to kind of bring your thoughts together, some of you who perhaps finished early came to some clear conclusions quickly, perhaps. Some of you has got into heated debates, I could tell from the noise and the energy in the room. Yeah. So someone perhaps, you know, call out some of the some of the thoughts or insights that you had. How do we communicate? Got some, some thoughts to share? Yes. So let me see if I got this. So starting with some people use phone calls, but perhaps they like to use face to face. And there's the difference between speaking to customers and Hello, welcome, come on in. And some of the challenges of having different types of communication to those different audiences. Yeah, great. Thank you. Some some others. How do we communicate? I've thrown up some of the elements of it. And I imagine that some of you touched on on some of these. What are others? Yes. So there's a shift from having used the phone to starting to use video and have that opportunity to see people as they communicate, which adds facial expressions and more richness than you get just on the phone. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. That's really interesting. So George is talking about his organization where they've got a combination of people working together in the one place present. And they've got a number of others who are working distributed. And they're coming in and and if you've even just got one person distributed prompts everyone to use the augment the communication with technology so that it allows everyone to participate to the same extent. Lovely. Thank you. Yes. That's a lovely story. Thank you. So just to sort of summarize that is this person from amazing labs is building up their distributed team and they're they're finding that that that difference between the the located team and the people who are coming in distributed over technology, the lack of the remotors being able to see body language and nonverbal communication that we all do and take for granted when we're with each other. Like I could make a whole bunch of physical slapstick that would never go on the recording. Right. There's physical things that we do. We say facial expressions, body language, shut down, open up. These things are huge. But when we start to have this sort of blended situation, we realize how much we're missing and think about how we have to compensate. Thank you. Really great insight. Thank you. Yes, sham. Thank you, sham. So the the key learning that sham has has found is that that in person connection upfront makes a really big difference. And so they've built that into their process that it changes. Have others found that? Is that a common kind of yes, some nodding, some hands up at the back? Yes. So, you know, because we lose so much in in using technology when we lose those visual cues, making that initial connection is really important. And it's one I would argue that once you've had an opportunity to connect face to face, it gives you a lot more leeway to be understanding about the things you might be missing when you don't have it. Yeah. Thank you, sham. Great. And thank you. Yeah. Lovely. Is anyone else doing that? Few? Yeah, that's so. So what they're doing for the recordings benefit is the Louise company have started doing or have been doing for some time, a newsletter. Because what they're finding is that when people are communicating, they kind of know what's going on, they've been involved in that. But it's all the stuff they don't know that's going on that gets really frustrating. And so collating that and putting it into a newsletter and a sort of out of band, I guess, non synchronous means of communication gives it everybody a chance to get up to speed. Lovely. Thanks, Louise. All right, let's have one more. Yes. Yes. Yes. Reformulating was the word used absolutely. And it comes into mind. Oh, it's gone to sleep again. Dammit. I'll continue on. It's the important part about listening in my view is clarifying that you have understood the message someone is trying to give you and then giving them a sense of feedback and reassurance that they've been understood and reformulating that back in a way, which is not just repeating exactly what they said, but showing that you've internalized it and understood it is is really important part of it. That's fantastic. Thank you. Okay, so I'm going to have to wake that up again in a minute, but I'm going to let you have another think about what made about how we communicate and we've talked about technology and some of the challenges of being in person and present and having teams who are remote. But what are the things that set someone apart? So if you think of a great communicator, what are some of the behaviors or traits that you think I'm going to have a little chat while I get my computer back on back on the stage. Have another little chat. Maybe you've got some examples. Maybe you can think of great communicators. Maybe they are people. Maybe they're colleagues or maybe it's just behavior that you've you've learned to recognize. Okay, so just have a quick chat while I beat my computer into submission. Okay, what makes someone a great communicator? What do you think of with the words a great communicator? Do you think of Star Trek? Seriously, what makes someone a great communicator? A storyteller. Yes, lovely. Yes, the possibility of listening, listening to the person you're communicating with. Yes, being very selective, regardless of who you're talking to with a colleague or a client, you want to make sure that you're coming across as clearly as possible. That makes me think of another one, which is choosing the right language. Now, we're in Europe, so I'm sure that many of you are multilingual. So there's human languages. And are you speaking in a language that you share, or are you using a third language, but also professional language, jargon. We often get lack clarity when we get start using jargon. Lovely. Thank you. Back there and then with you. Yeah. Asking questions when you don't understand, seeking clarity, seeking understanding. Again, I think that's part of that listening piece. Great. Thank you. Beautiful. I think that's the TLDR for my whole talk. I love it. So let me see if I can, if I can do a justice, I might get it back in pieces. It's clarity, brevity without distorting what you're trying to say. I'm missing one and consistency that you carry through on that your actions meet what you're saying. No contradiction between what you're saying and what you're doing are the signs of a great communicator. Thank you, Raj. Lovely. There was one, yes, huge, massive. Now I want to have Aretha Franklin come in. Respect. We don't get good communication without respect. The talk I gave a couple of years ago was actually on constructive conflict resolution and respect and respecting your opponent is so critical. So yeah, even when you don't agree, respect makes such a difference. Yeah, thank you. And there was one, yes. That is beautiful. I'm not sure I can repeat that and give it justice. A great communicator is someone who can leave their listener feeling respected and empowered, not diminished and degraded. Yeah, lovely, thank you. Two more, I'm loving this. This is fabulous, yes. Yes. A great communicator makes sure they're prepared and organized, which gives the people who they're meeting with a sense of that their expectations will be met. Yeah, lovely, thank you. It's a good one, yes. Absolutely. Empathy, up there with respect. We don't have a song like R-E-S-P-E-C-T on empathy, but that's actually one of the ones which I think goes to the heart of why I think listening is the skill that we can all do to practice, because really listening and taking the time to understand gives you the opportunity to develop empathy for what that person is saying and where they're coming from. Thanks Greg, really good, yes. I would say some are, some are and perhaps but not with good intent. Very great question. So the comment there was, I agree with all of this, how could I not? It's all sort of probably pretty self-evident, but would I say a politician was a great communicator? Yeah, hands up. Let's see what the audience thinks. Do you think politicians are great communicators? Summer, summer, there's lots of hands kind of doing the wavy thing. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? When I was doing some of my background reading for this talk, I also went looking for great communicators and I don't know, you may have picked up from my accent on Australian. Our former Prime Minister Julia Gillard was not generally actually a great communicator in my view in terms of getting up and speaking, but she gave one cracker of a speech in Parliament called the misogyny speech and she was diabolical and the contrast with that talk where she was delivering with passion and like off the cuff compared with some of the very formal, you know, communication that she would do to camera and press conferences and stuff. But that was really interesting. And another example was actually Michelle Obama and when they go low, we go high speech. And that example was talking not about necessarily just, you know, a natural talent, but that she had practised. But what was key about that particular speech was how tuned it was to the audience. It was not just about standing up and giving a flourish of oratory like perhaps her husband was used to doing, but she really connected with a lot of people in a really sort of powerful way. I think that was kind of interesting. So this sense of what makes someone a great communicator can vary. So Julia Gillard's politician, Michelle Obama not really a politician, but really a politician. Yeah, interesting. Thank you. Great, great comment. Yeah. That is very interesting. I'm going to try and repeat that back. Part of the challenge that we have as Drupalists is common in with politicians that the thing we have to talk about is perhaps not something they necessarily want to listen to, you know, and it can come across as something they're not interested in and how do we find the way to make it relevant to them, sort of. Okay, very good. Thank you. And of course my computer's gone to sleep again. I don't know if you noticed, I was playing with my power settings and it's conspiring against me. Clearly, I need a communication kind of remediation with my computer later. We'll have a conversation. So what makes a great communicator? So all of these things, that ability to tune into the audience, I think is one of the real differentiators. Then I think there's just some basic skill technique stuff that people learn and that comes back to the stuff around stage craft. Little things like, I'm not kind of like when I first, you know. So that's just technique, right? So there's some of that stuff that you can just learn and practice. I've not been doing a very good job of this one today, but speaking more slowly, especially if you speak a different language to your audience, or you have a funny accent, as I do, to take the time to speak more slowly and clearly than perhaps you would if you were just having a conversation with somebody, things like that. Another one, which I've also been guilty of not doing properly for this one, is never look at your slides if you're giving a talk. You should actually continue to look at your audience and if you're really lucky, you might have a prompt, a foot video. If you don't, this is what I've done. Not that it's really working for me today, but hey, that's a different story, right? So there's just some little things. And the other one is you'll notice I'm not here, right? Does that seem like a difference, like if I was doing this whole talk from here? I, you know, I'm a little height challenged versus here where I can be much more engaged and directed with you. I'm not hiding behind something. There's not something between me and you. These are little things. These are things you can learn and lots of people can teach this stuff, right? But it's stuff I just didn't even think about because of my theatre background. I just sort of took it for granted. And someone said, no, there's something in that. Maybe it's something that we can remind people that, hey, we can learn this as technologists, as Drupalists. You know, we don't necessarily think about using stuff like stage craft, using your whole stage. And this one, this is the only point where I've actually I'm in light. And I can feel that. That's something I learned in theatre. I can feel that there's light on me here as opposed to over here in the dark. Here I be gollum. Precious. Humour. Silliness. This is another way to connect with your audience. You woke up. There were people who were like completely not paying attention. But now they're like, oh, what's going on? I missed something because you laughed. Yeah. All right. So I talked about the what. And I've talked a bit about the how. The bit about the how I haven't spoken much about is the channels. You know, when I say we've got, you know, five generations in the workplace, this vast array of preference of how people like to talk, like moving from phone to video, like preferring to meet in person, like having a newsletter. All of these things are different channels. And there's just more and more of them. And there's going to be more and more of them. So it was our friend, Marshall McLuhan, who said, the medium is the message. And it's never been more true. The thing that you're communicating is intrinsically linked into the way you're communicating or the myth that you're using. Never forget that. Make the most of it. The thing you can communicate in a tweet versus the thing you can communicate in a presentation like this. There's a common thread, but you use different words. You have a different scope for using it. So the medium is the message. And excuse me while I just step behind the curtain again and have another conversation with my computer. While I do that, I want you to think about that how. So we've talked about stuff like listening, verbal, non-verbal, body language, the channels and all that sort of stuff. Can you perhaps, I'm in your little chat, think about where that's come together for you in a really powerful and interesting way where the medium and the message were beautifully aligned. Yeah? While I go off and have a little moment, I hope with my machine. Okay, let's bring this home. So let's have a couple of examples. When I'm also conscious they were in the lunch one time slot and there's a lunch two time slot. And if I let you go early, you might get a head start. So I'm keeping that in mind. So I just want to come back to this. Any ideas where the how, the how we do it, the medium come together in interesting ways in really well aligned examples. I want to find a couple. No one had any. When your wife is pregnant and she's only showing you the indicator, the medium and the message are beautifully aligned. Very good. Thank you. Nice one. That's visual. That's non verbal. Yeah. Yes. The safety demonstration that stewards give. Yes. What a great one. It's like the medium and the message are perfectly aligned. Yeah. Nice one. A lot in this. Okay. Yes. Sorry. Asking, putting your hand up. Yes. Yeah. I haven't thought a great one. I haven't thought about so that the act of putting up your hand is a message. And the medium all in one. Yeah, really nice. Okay. One more. I could do this all day, but we don't have time. Going. Going. All right. So which brings me to the why. We talked about the what. Very briefly. Transmitting culture. The how, which is where we can practice and build our skills in all sorts of different ways and all sorts of different, you know, perhaps becoming mime artists to improve our body language. Practicing speaking, writing, listening all those things. But really why the why of communication? Why do we do it? What's the point of all of this sound and fury signifying nothing? So if you want to make a difference, instead of making a point, make sure you have a call to action. Very communication, he does speak, right? CDA, right? You've got a CDA button called to action. But I think this goes beyond that. I think that the ultimate point of all communication is to drive transformation of some kind. Perhaps you're absorbing content because you want to learn. So learning is the why. Perhaps you want to change the world. Perhaps you want to have a different conversation with yourself. So that action, what steps will you take because of a communication? And if you're thinking about your audience, when you're communicating to them, how do you want them to be transformed? What steps will they be now empowered to take that they couldn't before? What is that next step? Like what is the why? Why are we absorbing all of this information? Why are we ignoring so much information? What is it that makes it communication? The dialogue, the transformation, the why? This is one I don't necessarily have an answer for. And there will be a different answer for every message. But there has to be a reason. There has to be some purpose. And I'd like to say there has to be some kind of impact and action that drives the need for that communication. Perhaps it's a simple thing like I understand better now. It doesn't necessarily have to be earth-shattering. But that why really has to inform both the how and the what to really get at the heart of your why. Make sure you have a call to action. So bringing it together, distilling it down of all of the communication skills there are, listening to me is the most important one. The what is the listening? The how is daily practice. We get better at things when we practice them and do it with intention and say I can improve on that. That we do it with others. We can help others get better by working with them. And they say you only really learn when you teach. So how do we encourage better listening? And what does that really mean? And I think some of the things that come up around seeking clarification, asking questions, building empathy, daily practice to reach mastery. You just keep working on it. You don't settle on your plateau that I can talk good now and that'll do daily practice. Listen. And ultimately that why? To have more impact. If you really take the time to listen to your audience rather than expect them just to listen to you you're likely to have more impact because you'll tune your message. You'll use the medium, the channel more effectively because you're being audience focused. We talk about user centered design. I'm advocating for audience centered communication. Any questions? Thank you very much. It was very clear and no questions. But I do see a hand right at the back. So something wasn't clear. So what was? Yes. So what is that? What is a hard problem encountered when trying to improve your communication? What are some of the really more challenging things? Well, I think it's one of those ones that varies for different people. So I'll use one of my own examples. And I guess why I've why I've chosen listening is probably a bit of personal bias as well as an extroverted kind of person. I sometimes have to remind myself to sit down, shut up and listen. Right. So that one's challenging for me sometimes. But I think the hard problems are really finding the bit that interests you. And I think sometimes it's harder to get better at something you're good enough at. Like whenever we're completely new to an area, we can we can improve really quickly, really easily by just doing some basic stuff, right? We can all get better at any bit of communication that we're currently not that comfortable with because you just need to do it a couple of times and you go, oh, that wasn't that hard after all. But I think where the real challenge comes is where you step into wanting to do mastery to become an expert at it. And I would say in some ways you can never really be an expert. There's always room to grow and improve. Good question though. Yeah. Good one. Yes. Great question and a really hard one. What do you do when the person you need to communicate with doesn't want to communicate? That they're shut down and they're, I've got an answer here. So I'll see if I can summarize that because I agree. It's like that the reason for the message is really important. So if they if they're not understanding that this communication has a reason and it's going to be make something better, you know, the action that comes out of it is going to make things better, then that's a that's a real challenge. But I think one of the things I don't think we covered it is open mindedness and how to encourage someone to take a step and unfurl those crossed arms. I think there's a key in there is like making sure that they understand what the purpose of that communication is. Perhaps they're closed because they're afraid. Perhaps making sure that it's a safer space for them to have that communication in might encourage it. There are so many reasons though why that why that door is down finding asking what would open the door might be a way forward. Really nice one. I'll come back to you to see if there's one more because you've had a few goes. Any other any other quest? Yes. So I think this is similar to the doesn't want to communicate but a sort of step even further away, which is they don't they don't want to come along on the same journey, I guess that they have an opposite view. I think that goes beyond communication to inter-conflict resolution where you've basically got oppositional perspectives and do you need to resolve it or can those different perspectives still be part of the moving forward? So it's a I think that one's a tricky one. I think that one's a tricky one. All right. I'm conscious of time. I would love to have this conversation not like this but round tables and continuing on because I think we could all go on for ages. I will put the slides up. There's some references here of different bits and pieces that I kind of tapped into as I develop the talk. Most importantly, join us for the contribution sprints or encourage others to do so. Great. That's happening on Friday. And finally, I would I really have an appeal to you. It's difficult to have a dialogue when there's a stage and an audience, but I would really love you to give me the other side of the dialogue. Let me hear from you as my audience and evaluate this session. I've put the short shorthand in there. 18, 8, 2, 9, node. We're Drupalists, right? We know what nodes are. Events.drupal.org slash node slash 18, 8, 2, 9. Got it? Say it with me. 18, 8, 2, 9. I want to get more evaluations for this session that I've ever had before. And they can be terrible. I don't care if they're bad but I would just love to hear your feedback and your ongoing thoughts. What have you taken away? What are going to be your action steps going forward? Thank you. Now go get some lunch. Sorry? Oh, I just shut it down. But yeah, sure. Very frustrating. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah. Let's do it. Enjoy it, girl. And I am collecting some of these. Oh, very good. OK, let's do it. I don't want to take your time. Right. Yeah, I want the selfie. This is my first day. Oh, really? Yes, for today. Very good. Yeah, my first. Ready? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for your comments, too. No problem, no problem. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for the great session. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your contributions, too. Thank you. And I don't want to expect things like people don't want to communicate. But sometimes they don't want to do it. So then you put that perspective and like go away. Absolutely. Absolutely. So sometimes people are trying to communicate. But if people don't want to let it go, it's right there. Yeah, it's all in the if you love something, set it free as well. Like, no, I have to take that. You've got nothing to say or add at the point. Or the reasons why you don't want to communicate are private and absolute. Very not too great. Very much great. We call them, like, don't don't stop. And no one should report or communicate to someone who doesn't want to. Absolutely. Yep, absolutely. Give me a minute to just get packed up and I'll come and chat when I'm done. It's been very bad with the Hague, it's not going to grow. So I think, I was like very much appreciative for our fun. It's okay to give up on it because it's just been bad. But it's not good. I don't know if the power of it coming through...