The Brand Chef, Andrew B. Clark sent in his take on the Human Talk series that he jotted down while watching The Terminal. As usual, Andrew looks beyond surface matter to come up with a pure gem of insight.
Victor, the Tom Hanks character, epitomizes the truth in speaking humanly and breathing a fresh breath of reality into a standardized and surreal environment. His character comes in as a completely square peg, and through empathy, compassion and understanding (as well as some diligent self-education), changes the lives and perspectives of everyone involved.
Through business and personal events, I find that if you listen; if you identify; if you (at least) empathize, then the Human Talk can take its course with natural and unfettered distraction. But as the Stanly Tucci character finds, if you only follow the rules, the conversation will die from lack of oxygen.
Andrew is spot on when he talks of empathy. If you are truly empathetic to your audience, whether you are writing a blog post, an email, a tag line, or even just a simple notice for your customers, the question of whether or not you sound like a human, doesn’t even need considering.
This is something that’s often much easier to say, than it is to do.
Finding true empathy is a subject that I’ve discussed before on The Fresh Peel. It’s a deep subject, but there lots of ways that you can learn to become more empathetic. Dig in and explore the subject of empathy!
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This post is part of the Human Talk series.
If you would like to contribute your good or bad Human Talk examples, Email me. I’ll accept photos, stories, videos, audio, etc. and give credit where credit is due.
Chris –
Wow. Thanks for the tip ‘o the hat. I’m honored to be featured. And, again, great direction for the blog post series.
HUMAN TALK is so often lost by regulatory and legal jargon that the customers lose out on a service or product that (may) be PERFECT! If we can convince companies to put down their guards and CARRY ON A CONVERSATION with their customers, they may see their brand become something more than a logo and sales collateral. IT MAY BECOME ENGAGING… (tru”E”)
Frightening, huh?
I’m biased, but this is one BEAUTIFUL post!
Keep Cooking!
Andrew
@Andrew – No problem. Thanks for sending in your thoughts.
The recent Ikea news is a great example of a company that isn’t afraid of natural communication with their customers. I mean they’ve been letting one live in one of their stores for a week!
Do you hear that?
It’s the groans of all the companies out there moaning about how they actually have to talk to their customers now.