Bovée and Thill's Guide to Videos for Business Communication is now available free to all adopters of Bovée and Thill business communication texts. The guide, prepared by Dr. Maria Schellhase of the College of Southern Nevada, has links to nearly 50 online videos in 27 subject categories. The guide includes discussion questions for each video […]
Author Archives: George Dovel
A Bumper Crop of Corporate Crises: Discussion Resources for Your Classroom
Between network security breaches and random corporate blunders, it's been a rough few months for GM, Target, Neiman Marcus, Adobe, Michaels, Lululemon, SeaWorld, US Airways, Yahoo, and about half the population of the Internet, thanks to the Heartbleed glitch. Their grief is our good fortune, however—at least in terms of providing discussion material for business […]
Hall of Fame: Red Ants Pants Communicates with an Authentic Voice (with PowerPoint Slides for Classroom Use)
Sarah Calhoun founded Red Ants Pants because she was frustrated by the lack of hard-wearing pants for hard-working women. Her passion for meeting the needs of her customers shines through in the company's communication efforts—along with her zeal for making work fun and meaningful. Not many firms could tell their founding story in goofy rhyming […]
Hall of Fame: CDBaby Shows How to Meet Reader Needs (with PowerPoint Slides for Classroom Use)
CD Baby, the world’s largest retailer of independent music, uses clear, positive language to help musicians understand the process of selling their music through the company and its affiliates. By making the effort to communicate clearly and succinctly, the company encourages a positive response from its target readers. We've annotated two slides that point out […]
Hall of Fame: Hailo Shows a Positive Way to Communicate Negative News (with PowerPoint Slides for Classroom Use)
Hailo is a popular taxi-hailing service operating in London, New York, and other major cities. With a quick tap on a smartphone app, passengers can hail any Hailo-registered cab in the area, without waving in the street or hunting for a place where taxis are likely to be found. The system does have a potential […]
Teaching Storytelling Through Narrative Infographics
Infographics tend to fall into two basic categories: stylized data presentations and narratives. The former, such as this piece on customer satisfaction and loyalty, don’t necessarily convey any more information than basic charts and graphs in a conventional report or webpage would, but their communication value lies in their ability to catch the audience’s attention […]
Hall of Fame: How GE Uses the Facebook Timeline to Tell Its Company History (with PowerPoint Slide for Classroom Use)
The timeline feature in Facebook is a great tool for visual narration, particularly if a company has a rich library of compelling photos and other visuals to use. And as GE demonstrates, if you're telling a story of innovation, it helps if you can start the story with an image of one of the most […]
Multi-Stage Messages: Another Intriguing Challenge of New Media
One of the more intriguing challenges/opportunities created by the array of new media choices is the concept of the multi-stage or multi-platform message, in which the delivery of a message starts on one platform and moves to additional platforms in order to give readers the complete message. For example, you can use Twitter to grab […]
Teachable Moments with Infographic Résumés
Infographic résumés are getting a lot of buzz these days. We cover them in all three of our business communication textbooks and provide a variety of examples via our Real-Time Updates and Business Communication Headline News services. In certain situations, a well-designed infographic résumé used at the right point in the job application process can be […]
Starting the New Term: A Great Time for Students to Hone Their Networking Skills
We’re pleased to be joining you for another year of sharing business communication tips and techniques. With many students looking ahead to the job-search process, this is a great time to discuss professional networking. Networking is a multi-purpose learning tool because it combines so many important business communication skills, from conducting research and adopting the […]