Essential Communication Strategies (PDF)

Learn the tricks-of-the-trade of becoming a great technical
communicator

Remember when you were an undergraduate and freshman composition
seemed so irrelevant to your life? After all, you were going to
conquer the world with technological know-how. Your spellcheck
software would handle the details. Now that you're a professional -
pitching an idea, vying for a contract or grant, or presenting at a
meeting - getting your point across effectively suddenly seems
pretty essential for success, doesn't it?

Fear not. This light-hearted text, brimming with proven
techniques, good advice, and real-world examples that you can
easily apply to your own case, will turn you into an adept
communicator. Written expressly for technologists, this is a
simple, concise, and practical guide to the communication dynamics
of writing, presentation delivery, and meeting interaction.

Herbert Hirsch, in-demand consultant who developed these
techniques for his own prolific engineering career, teaches you how
to use "scripting" to plan for communication events. More than a
mere outline or storyboard, scripting is a powerful technique that
assists you in getting the right structure and content, in the
proper order.

Using scripting, you will master the fundamental principles of
communicating:

* How to grab the reader's or audience's attention from the
start

* How to maintain the connection while proceeding smoothly from
topic to topic

* How to provide the substantiation for the points you made

* How to communicate with people from other groups, such as
marketers, investors, users, and others

* How to overcome such obstacles as fear, boredom, and aversion
to your material

Distilling the art of communication to its essence, Essential
Communication Strategies empowers you to communicate with
confidence and authority in every situation, to every audience.