I guarantee someone in your work life has had a “How do they get paid for this?” moment because you assume you know how to communicate merely because you’ve been doing it for years. In the 12 years I spent working as the in-house communications staff, I only saw a few people outside roles like mine intentionally learn how to be a better communicator. And it showed.

It might seem like a dick move to be talking about celebration when we're rounding the one-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic. After we've lost so much, as we miss more birthdays and anniversaries, postpone weddings and drastically alter the way we mark transitions, what place does celebration have in our lives?

There’s the call to action, folks. It’s in big letters twice because I want you be sure you get that point today. This concept isn’t new to regular readers; I’ve mentioned it before, and hinted at it in other pieces. The time has passed for us to passively take in media of any kind. Be intentional about what you’re taking in and whose voice you’re getting.

Words have meaning—both literal and figurative—and if we are careless with either type of meaning, it can have long-lasting and far-reaching consequences. Uninformed or hasty word choice can be a window into our biases, and shape people's perception of issues and events. Which is why we need to stop using war imagery when we talk about COVID-19.

I am a person first. I want to know when it’s safe for me to get together with my friends and family, and how we can protect each other when that happens. So here I am, putting my old journalism hat back on, and writing the article I haven’t yet seen: about how the people of Saskatchewan need to respond as businesses begin to re-open while COVID-19 continues to circulate.

A complete, formal, fleshed-out communication strategy saves so much time and mental energy—plus you’ll be able to create content faster and make better business decisions. Goals, measurement, messaging, oh my! Hiring someone to build your strategy is about putting a value on your time and energy. You get to a finished product faster, and can avoid some stumbling blocks.

A second set of eyes can be invaluable when we are writing, and it's especially important when it comes to communicating about our business. Getting out of our own heads enough to write clearly about our work is tough! Whether you're making assumptions or just forgetting a word somewhere, it is always—and I do mean always—helpful to have someone else in your corner when you're writing.

Being honest is hard. Being honest when you're wrong is even harder. Now try being honest in public; that takes some bravery. What I've also learned after almost 15 years in the supposedly evil world of public relations is that honesty is both difficult and doable. And when you do it carefully and consistently, it makes all your communication flow more smoothly.

Journalism school taught me to be skeptical of someone who refuses to comment in a news story. My years in communication have only cemented that skepticism.

Who's ready for a bit of a rant? Well today it's time for one of mine that is old enough to drive. In journalism school I wrote a whole essay on how journalistic objectivity is unattainable, and I stand behind that idea all these years later. (Which, having reviewed a lot of the work from those years in search of that essay, can't be said for many of my youthful stances. So much cringe.)

I remember being a fresh-faced newbie in communications and discovering the call to action. I could feel the shift in what I was doing when my manager left a note on my newsletter draft that said "Needs a call to action." I was trained in journalism, so my style was to just lay out the facts; it never occurred to me that I should—or even could—tell people what to do. Light bulb!

You can agree with the idea that you need to know your goal and still be bad at figuring out what the goal is for any given piece of communication. I'm sure of this because I see people communicate with each other in absence of a clear goal all the time, in business and in life.

Every time you communicate—big multimedia campaigns to short text messages—you have a goal and the clearer you are about the goal, the easier it becomes to hit the mark. We need to understand why we are communicating and what we are trying to achieve before we decide anything else.

The best work of my career has often involved a whole network of people working together to make things happen.  It's also taught me that all aspects of our life include relationships with other people. When we shift our perspective to one focused on relationship, it shifts the way we communicate and interact with people.

Do think of plans and structures as leashes or straight jackets: something that keeps you confined? I used to, too. See how they can actually create the freedom to be creative and have fun, with the brilliant side effect of doing better work.

Words have power, and we have a responsibility to wield them carefully. It's been nearly 200 years since Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined the phrase "The pen is mightier than the sword," but it remains painfully true. From our most intimate relationships to international diplomacy, our word choices can be the difference between peace and war.

Today's world is full of niche markets, subject matter experts, and nerds that are defined by their slavish devotion to a subject as opposed to the definition that looks for pocket protectors and social awkwardness. But being an expert in one field doesn’t make you a genius in every field. That means it’s time to join forces with complementary nerds.

I’m used to being the one asking questions (hello, journalism background) or teaching people how to answer them (certified media trainer here). But I got the chance to practice what I preach on the Secret Life of Entrepreneurs podcast and it’s your chance to see how I perform!

It never ceases to amaze me how little thought people put into who they are talking to and why, so strap in for a chat. Suffice it to say that before you say anything, you should know why you're saying it, but audience is a woefully neglected topic so it's time to share some thoughts.

No matter who you are or what you do, good communication will make your life run more smoothly. We can all be better communicators if we put in the time and effort, and especially if we learn from the right teachers.