Compelling Communication is designed to tell a story.

Starting with the essentials of the art, it moves on to how to write with real impact, the remarkable but often underappreciated power of storytelling, and then the fearful land of public speaking and presentations.

From there, it ventures into the online world, how to get your work featured in the media, then strategic ways to use communication to achieve your aims.

Like many good stories, it begins at the beginning. In Chapter 1, we cover the foundations of effective communication.

Whether you’ve read the book or not, here’s a quick quiz to test your knowledge of the essentials:

    

So, how did you do? Did any of the answers surprise you?

It’s interesting that the basics of good communication are very different from what we were taught in school, or learned in the world of work. We explore more of that as we journey through both the book and the course.

Another foundation of effective communication is a concept known as the golden thread. It ensures your work is focused and professional, and also saves you effort by eliminating any irrelevant material. It’s so named because you can imagine it as a golden thread of narrative which runs through your content.

Let’s put the thread into action with a challenge. Imagine you’re coming to visit Cambridge. It’s a brief trip, in the springtime, and you emailed me to ask what to visit. You only have a couple of hours free, so I’ve sent you an ideal suggested itinerary. I’m nice like that.

But, unfortunately, I’m having one of those days and I seem to have digressed at various points. First of all, what should the golden thread of this message be? Can you sum it up in one simple line?

Next, can you spot the points which wander away from it, waste your time and might just be annoying asides?

    

In terms of summing up the golden thread, and striking an electronic line through my wanderings of waffle, click here.

Most importantly, can you see how much sharper and more effective my message is if I follow the golden thread? Not to mention saving me work by preventing me going off on those annoying asides.

  

Finally for our quick tour of Chapter 1, a video game for you. I’ve put together this two-minute presentation on the essentials of good communication, but I’m not sure I’ve done very well.

How many errors can you spot? And just to cheer me up, please also keep an eye out for which parts work better!

When you’ve had a think, you can look below the video to reveal the answers.

  

So, how many errors did you spot? And was there anything good about that mini lecture? Click here to see our thoughts.