Raise Your Voice by Brian Sooy

Author:Brian Sooy [Sooy, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781605440309
Publisher: RockBench Publishing Corp.
Published: 2019-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

SECOND, SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE: WORDS MATTER

Broad-based messaging, unless it is simply to build awareness, is not an effective method of engaging the business community. For instance, when you repeat words like innovation and entrepreneur often enough, eventually they begin to have the opposite effect of what was intended: Innovation becomes passé; and when everybody is an entrepreneur, the message is one of “all things to all people.” It becomes too broad and not focused.

The key is focused messaging, delivered in the same language that business speaks. Read Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Forbes, or Harvard Business Review; immerse yourself in the voice and tone of writers who speak the language of business every day.

Educators speak the language of academia. The marketing department and program communications need to be the bridge, the translators, and speak the language of business.

Industry terms, as identified in curriculum (or within a program that is developed internally at an institution), are not always current (or the usage has evolved). With the rapid pace of technological advancement and the conversations around those advances, a nonprofit that serves those industries will need to be aware of the changes at every step.

Acronyms will be meaningful to your staff – but don’t serve well as conversational talking points. Approach your choice of words, language, and tone of voice as if you are having an ongoing conversation with your audience.

Disruptive innovation happens at a kickstarter.com pace – rapidly and enthusiastically – whereas on the institutional level, adapting to industry changes and communicating to those changes occurs at a pace that may not keep up. Communication with the business or technology community must be in language specific to that community.

With the array of engagement tools available to any program or institution, the program needs to be on the leading edge of engagement, and not on the trailing. Get to know your audience and become familiar with the networks where they share information. Then meet them there.

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