Comments on: Communication Skills for Bloggers

By: How Not to become a Grumpy Old Blogger

How Not to become a Grumpy Old Blogger — Tue, 15 May 2007 14:03:17 +0000

[...] taught me about blogging and dealing with negative people. Also posts that might be helpful include Communications Skills for Bloggers and 10 Steps to Conflict [...]

By: Question of the Day: Listeners Win at Business Performance Coaching for the Remote Control CEO

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 15:15:41 +0000

[...] Communication Skills for Bloggers, tips on assertiveness and active listening. [...]

By: Screen Rant

Screen Rant — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 17:47:31 +0000

Sorry, but I just can’t get past that hideous photo.

Vic

By: Lori L

Lori L — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 20:18:03 +0000

FWIW, I liked the image, thought it aptly illustrated the article in an attention-grabbing way, and was surprised (and intrigued!) when it elicited such strong negative reactions in others. Different strokes, indeed!

From Darren’s comment above it seems that he certainly didn’t intend to gross anybody out. But hmmm….what if he had intended to be provocative? Or even shocking?

*pause for strokey-beardy moment*

I love to see people taking chances rather than settling for a 50% gray, wishy-washy, “happy medium” guaranteed not to offend anybody (that’s a recipe for for a snooze-fest if I ever saw one!).

I manly wanted to comment on the interesting meta-conversation going on here, but the actual article’s content was a good read as well. Thanks Darren.

By: Communication Skills for Bloggers by Blogging Pro

Communication Skills for Bloggers by Blogging Pro — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:02:07 +0000

[...] Communication Skills for Bloggers Darren Rowse on Problogger.net has put up a really great post, including a disturbing but representative image on being tongue tied. I should clarify at this point that I’m not talking about communication skills in terms of how to write effectively (I’ve covered this elsewhere and would hope bloggers have a reasonable grasp of it already). Instead, for the purposes of this post, I’m referring to relational communication skills – something that I think that even the best bloggers struggle with. [...]

By: Blogging for the Public - B4P - By Urban Grafix » Quickie Links for all #4

Blogging for the Public - B4P - By Urban Grafix » Quickie Links for all #4 — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 14:39:20 +0000

[...] Adobe Photoshop CS2 UpdateMicrosoft Unveils ZUNE TodayProblogger – Communication Skills for BloggersB4P On Adsense Tips for the newbie These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]

By: 10 Steps to Conflict Resolution

10 Steps to Conflict Resolution — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 14:07:52 +0000

[...] Yesterday we talked about Relational Communication Skills – essential skills for blogging relationships (ironically the picture I used in the post caused some to question whether I had some poor communication skills going on). [...]

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 13:59:15 +0000

Hey Darren,
I have learned so much stuff on your site. Its not even funny. I am glad people like you are willing to share what you have learned throughout the years to rookies like us. You are online Blog guru. I learned the A-Z of blogging from your site. Thanks dude………………..keep it going

By: sarang gaikwad

sarang gaikwad — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 08:57:24 +0000

i think the pic was appropriate. Not disturbing at all. In fact – good communication tool to convey what you wanted to say.

By: Joseph Williams

Joseph Williams — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 08:05:35 +0000

Valuable read and such detail! Thanks Darren!

By: kca

kca — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 06:08:50 +0000

LOL! Great photo.
Where did you find it? In a bondage photo club?
Ok i m kidding
I go now =========>>>>

By: Jordan the Shoe Blogger

Jordan the Shoe Blogger — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 04:59:18 +0000

Ay Balbon! The image is hideous. That’s bad communication right there. Avoid negative subjects and images because it just polarizes people. Ahahay!!!

By: Darren Rowse

Darren Rowse — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 04:04:54 +0000

thanks for the feedback katiebird. Points taken and I’ll think twice in future before using similar images.

By: katiebird

katiebird — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 03:54:20 +0000

Hi Darren,

It looks painful, like the tip is turning purple, like it would make me feel crazy if it was me with all that string wrapped around my tongue. And there is something about the slackness of the muscles around the mouth that seems totally inappropriate for the degree of discomfort the model must be feeling.

As I said, I get the point of the illustration. I just don’t happen to like this particular image. I’m sorry if I sound too strident about it.

By: Darren Rowse

Darren Rowse — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 03:16:53 +0000

Thanks all for the feedback on the image. I personally didn’t find it offensive, although it is a striking image, and hope no one is seriously offended by it. It was chosen as a way of illustrating the topic (people not communicating well – something difficult to do when your tounge is tied).

I’m interested to hear what people see about it as being disturbing?

Kris – if you click on the picture it’ll take you to the source – Flickr. I use quite a few images from there with links back to each one.

By: Kris

Kris — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 02:44:37 +0000

Darren!

Good post, been thinking a lot about this too.

I also reacted to the photo, but I do not think it is as revolting as the other comments state. Generally I think you have a creative use of images, something I (try to) use on my blog too.

Is it always your own original photos or do you use some sort of clip art archive? I see that you do not put your logo or © in the photos. Do you prevent hot linking ? Have you had a problem with people stealing your photos?

best,

kris

By: Nathan Weinberg

Nathan Weinberg — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:43:28 +0000

Darren, I second the notion that you need to do a post on using the wrong image. That thing is horrifying! Definitely not good communication.

By: Theodore

Theodore — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 23:04:54 +0000

Love the article and I only read it because the image hooked me in – very intruiging.

Perhaps it turned some people off but for me it made me look twice and drew me into your blog for the first time.

By: Bill McRea

Bill McRea — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:49:08 +0000

I feel like that with my fingers. I just wish I could type what I am thinking, because it always sounds better in my head then when I type it.

The tongue is kind of gross, but it is effective.

By: katiebird

katiebird — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:27:11 +0000

Natalie, I get the tongue-tied reference. I just don’t like the execution. A cartoon, might have been better. Really, this photo was a nightmare. If I didn’t love the conversations and comments here so much I wouldn’t have come back at all until tomorrow.