Social Influence BriefingA daily communication practice for people who influence through ideas

All Communication Practices, by Audience

Index updated .

Twenty communication practices in five sections, one section for each audience: personal conversations, leading teams, creating and teaching, selling and marketing, and advocacy. Every practice gives the steps, the exact words, the evidence with its limits, the failure signs, and a check you can observe within 24 hours. If you only do one thing, run your next message through the disclosure test.

How these pages are built

Every practice page follows the same shape, so you can find what you need quickly. A short, quotable answer sits under the heading. The body names the breakdown the practice fixes, gives three to five steps with the words to say, shows the practice working with the listener fully informed, translates it for at least three audiences, and ends with a check you can make within 24 hours and the signs that mean you should stop. A separate section states the evidence with its limits, and a worked example shows a before and an after in real words. Figures the literature does not support are written “Not reported”, and every page lists its sources with a last-reviewed date. The editorial standards are on the About page.

The five sections

Tools that go with the practices

Four free tools handle the parts that benefit from a second look: a pressure-language check for a draft message, a disclosure test worksheet, a talk-time calculator for a conversation you just had, and a planner that turns a practice into a one-page plan with an observable check. They run in your browser and send nothing anywhere. Open the tools.

Frequently asked questions

Where should I start if I only do one thing?

Run your next message through the disclosure test: would it still work if the reader knew exactly what you were doing and why? The worksheet takes about a minute and shows which part to rewrite.

Which section is for me?

Pick the audience closest to your day: personal conversations, leading a team, creating and teaching, selling and marketing, or advocacy and public discourse. Where advice does not differ by audience, the page says so once instead of repeating it five times.

Are these practices new?

No, and each page says so. They are durable, established practices made concrete for use today. A news item appears in the daily briefing only when a dated, citable event exists.

How strong is the evidence behind each practice?

Each page states it in plain words: the design of the study, who was studied, whether it has been replicated, and what the literature does not report. Where the support is practitioner consensus with no controlled evidence, the page says that.

Do I need to read these in order?

No. Each section is independent and each practice stands alone, though within a section the practices are ordered so the one with the widest use comes first.