A couple of weeks ago my daughter was channel surfing on YouTube – her favourite for fun stuff, entertainment and – sometimes – information.  She has a few YouTube channels that she checks out regularly like Livelavalive.

When she landed at Livelavalive she clicked on and watched a promo video Livelavalive (aka Mitchell Davis) was asked to make for Tom’s Shoes.  To date the video has been viewed 151,637.

The One Day Without Shoes event invites everyone to take their shoes off for a day to spread awareness about kids going without shoes.

• And ODWS promotes understanding about the experience of children in the developing world who live without shoes.
• And informs people about Tom’s Shoes business model of a double bottom line – making a profit while giving back to the global community.  Tom’s Shoes gives away one pair of shoes for each pair that someone buys. Pretty Cool.

She wanted more information.  So she went to another site and learned more about One Day without Shoes.  Once she found out all the info about the event, she promoted the event on her Facebook wall, joined the Facebook group and invited all her (over 250) friends to join.

That was not enough for her. She called three Toronto radio stations – two stations picked up her event and she was interviewed on Virgin 99.9 and KISS 92.5.  The interviews were aired several times over the Easter weekend.

She made announcements at her youth group and her school. Almost everyone at her group went barefoot at school and showed up barefoot for youth group.

A girl, committed to a social cause,  used social media like YouTube, Facebook,  Facebook groups coupled with traditional media (radio) and personal interest groups to inform and motivate a lot of people.   She used media that was available to her and her friends and she  used it effectively.

Check out the chain of events.  She found out about One Day without Shoes on YouTube.  She posted it to her Facebook Wall.  She joined the Facebook Group and invited all her friends (over 250).  She was articulate enough to have her interviews aired on radio.

I have to tell you, I am proud of my daughter and I am amazed at the impact she had through her social media savvy.

What do you get when you cross social media, a social cause and a girl committed to that cause? A mini grassroots, successful, cause marketing campaign.

What can you get when you multiply that mini campaign by thousands?  A cause campaign with the possibility of going viral.   Just imagine the potential impact and inspiration.

P.S. You can purchase Toms Shoes in Canada.

Can you remember a difficult conversation that you had recently? What made the conversation difficult? Were you happy with the outcome? How about the person that you had the difficult conversation with – were they satisfied with the conversation?

Intimate conversations or conversations that revolve around disagreement are difficult.  Are there some conversations in particular that are difficult for you? I recently asked a group of people (okay, it was a seminar on Making Difficult Conversations Easier) and here are some of the conversations that they found difficult to engage in:

•   Money conversations – (asking for a raise, asking for money back)
•   Delivering bad/hard messages (you’re fired)
•   Being vulnerable about my feelings (I love you)
•   Confronting behaviours
   

What makes these conversations difficult? 

Sometimes we don’t know the outcome… usually difficult conversations have some risk involved with them.

Sometimes we actually know the outcome and we worry about how we might be perceived by the person that we are having the conversation with. Other times, the stakes are high; we might be misunderstood and we may not achieve the outcome that we want or envision.

Our difficult conversations can hurt the people we care about. We worry that our anger will get the better of us. We might make the situation worse. Or there might be a backlash – we might get punished for speaking out.

To Have or Not to Have

It’s hard to decide whether to have a difficult conversation or not. If you don’t you might feel taken advantage of. You might harbour lingering negative feelings about someone. But if you do have the conversation… things might get worse. In fact, you may already have tried and you have suffered some of these consequences:

•   You were verbally attacked and you didn’t know what to do next
•   You were rejected and (as my father used to say) you were “put in the deep freeze for your trouble”
•   The relationship deteriorated

Do you avoid difficult conversations?

Sometimes when you suffer the negative outcomes of failed conversations, you avoid having them in the future. How do you avoid conversations?

1. Did you decide that you will never initiate a difficult conversation again? For some of us, certain conversations are so threatening that we will continually overlook an issue or leave the relationship rather than engage. The problem with this kind of avoidance is that trust cannot be built in the relationship nor can the relationship grow or develop.
2. Did you take some indirect action without having a conversation? Some times we decide that we will not discuss an issue or behaviour but we will stay on the alert for repeats of behaviours that have offended us. We no longer trust the other person and will be wary of the other’s motives and intentions. While we have managed to avoid the danger and risk of having the conversation, we destroy the fabric of trust in the relationship.
3.  Were you willing to start the difficult conversation but you gave in when the going got rough (your thinking is “okay, you are so upset that we will do it your way”). In this scenario we value peace more than valuing our own boundaries. We fear losing the connection with our friend/lover/partner/child so we give in.

Engaging in difficult conversations

Just as we can avoid difficult conversations in a variety of ways, we can engage in them in just as many ways. We can:

1. Approach the conversation with an “I will win and you will lose” attitude. I am right and you are wrong. With this stance, the issue is more important than the relationship and a successful outcome for both people is unlikely.
2. Approach the conversation with an attitude that I want to hear what you have to say. Although this is a difficult conversation, I will engage in the discussion because I care about you, I care about the issue, I care about the relationship. With this attitude, there is a great possibility of being able to navigate through the issue and come out the other side with a stronger bond between us.

Where are you on the difficult conversation spectrum? Do you avoid? How do you avoid? Do you engage in them? And what stance do you assume when you do engage…  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
 

Seven Quick Tips

1.  Avoid unnecessary words or phrases in your sentences.  Adding extra phrases makes your communication less clear.  Unnecessary words and phrases make it harder for your reader to find your main thought or point.
    
2. Energize your writing by selecting action verbs.  Verbs provide the action in your sentences. Instead of using verb phrases, use the finite verbs.  Don’t say, “The focus of this class is writing.”  Do say “This class focuses on writing.”
    
3. Don’t use negatives (notice the irony of that sentence?). Instead of saying, “she didn’t go”, use, “she stayed.”  Avoiding negatives makes your writing more succinct.
    
4. Keep your sentences short – no longer than 2 lines.  The odd long sentence is acceptable.  Too many thoughts or too many phrases modifying a sentence can cause you (the writer) to lose clarity. If you have lost it, then certainly your reader will.
    
5. Keep your sentences focused on one thought.  Again, by focusing your sentences on one thought, you are helping your reader to stay focused.
    
6. Keep your paragraphs short.  A one-sentence-paragraph gets the point across, but use those one-liners sparingly.  Any paragraph that is 5-6 sentences long, turn into two paragraphs.
    
7. Find your most compelling paragraph and move it to the beginning.  Then, reorganize your other paragraphs around it. You’ll grip people’s attention.

If you liked this post or have other tips for turbo-charging your writing, please leave me a comment.

Welcome to www.dawncomber.com – my new website. After many rewrites and redesigns, I am now the resident blogger for my writing and editing website.

I’m Dawn Comber – an experienced, professional writer. I provide creative, affordable writing and editing services for clients – for print and for the web.  I always begin by conversing with you to understand your needs, and then I help you to converse, communicate and connect with your customers.

Most of my clients are in Toronto, Mississauga and Oakville, but the beauty of technology and the Internet allows me to work with small businesses, non-profits and people just about anywhere.