Effective communication is at the heart of so many successful projects, relationships, and endeavors. Given its magical ability to make things happen, we thought it would be helpful to bring some of the best communicators we know together to share their stories and insights around how they developed their ability to communicate effectively.
Jessica Robles
Before pursuing photography full-time, I worked in several sales positions that really sharpened my communication skills. One particularly intense role was at a company renting classic cars for movie productions in Los Angeles. The fast-paced nature of that industry meant I often had to handle stressful situations quickly. I had several roles there, including answering the phone and managing social media. I really enjoyed the social media aspect, especially taking pictures of the beautiful classic cars. However, answering the phone could get pretty stressful. There were a lot of details involved in renting out the vehicles. Read more>>
Taylon Sumners-schwartz
Effective communication is one of the most important parts of my job as a criminal defense attorney. Looking back to when I was first deciding to focus on criminal defense as my main practice area, I had the opportunity to volunteer at a maximum security male penitentiary teaching criminal justice to inmates. In speaking with these men, a majority of their complaints regarding their representation and experience within the criminal justice system was the inability to understand and be informed regarding what was happening throughout their cases, as well as the refusal of those within the court system to listen to them and answer their questions. Read more>>
Allaina Maria
I am a consumer and use services daily that requires me to communicate with others. One of the biggest complaints with dealing with companies is poor customer service. I don’t care how good or bad the product is, poor communication or lack thereof can tank a business. I adopted the personal policy to learn through all things, be it good or bad. Dealing with poor customer service, I learned how I did not want to be or make my consumers feel when communicating with them. I am my own brand, and I want to make sure that I am putting out the best version of myself. I make it a point to consider my clients/consumers and put myself in their shoes. How would I want to be communicated with? Adopting that practice, I am able to authentically connect with my audience because I too am them. Read more>>
Fanny Nordmark
All of my life I have been interested in how to best make the people around me thrive. As a team leader, especially in a creative field, it is especially important to communicate both with your coworkers, superiors and clients in a way that makes each person feel heard, important and as if they are essential to the positive outcome of any project. When I was a student at Hyper Island in Karlskrona, Sweden, this was they key skill we were taught. Even though it is a design school, collaborating and communicating were the most important topics in each project we worked on. By learning how to alter communication styles based on personalities of who your are speaking to, and by always taking your own ego out of the equation, I learned how to both be a better leader, and how to better communicate to clients in a spirit of collaboration rather than a ego-led singular focused way. Read more>>
