Plagiarism is not only a school crime

News this last week of the year is that plagiarism is something that occurs not only in college classrooms and high-school classes but also in the "Real World" of sports journalism. At Coker College and at colleges around the country there is a good deal of emphasis put on the academic crime of stealing other people's words and ideas and claiming them as your own. Students often wonder about this 'big deal.'


Well, this week there is an ESPN announcer who is much more aware of the Big Deal as he has been suspended from his job for taking paragraphs from another reporter and using them as if he had crafted them himself. The original author took this action to task as a way to get some ownership of his work back in his control.

There is a great solution to how to avoid plagiarism charges -- CITE YOUR SOURCES. This solution is as important to public speaking as it is to public writing.

Walter Edgar interviews Greenville Mayor

The interview that is currently airing between Walter Edgar and Knox White is inspiring from a community building perspective. The major lesson remains, nothing happens overnight but nothing happens if people do not join together to make things happen. That is a lesson we learn over and over again in Hartsville but it is also lesson we have to keep teaching ourselves. Hartsville is good but right now - not great. Hartsville can be great -- if we want to be great. We are a small city. We will not be for everyone but we can be much more enticing and attracting that we are right. We have to keep working. (Hartsville was just mentioned in a sentence with a number of other progressive cities -- it is the company we want to be in. We have to keep ourselves in this company.

This week I was speaking with a high school student from Long Island. His father had been in Greenville many times on business. The prospective Coker student and Coker lacrosse player, described the downtown as "cute." Not a bad description coming from a teenager. His father also mentioned that Hartsville did remind him of Greenville, even if on a smaller basis. We have the basics but we need to work much harder, doing much more to become a totally attractive place to live and visit. We have lots of people working on this. We have lots of ideas percolating. We need to find ways to continue working together from all our areas (divided any way you might want to think about it) if we are going to survive the set of challenges that are now facing us.

Knox White just said the first time he saw someone taking pictures of downtown Greenville was in 1999.Today cameras and tourists swarm downtown Greenville every weekend and often during the week.

Walter Edgar's Journal will air again on Sunday evening and I hope others will listen. Mayor White had a short paragraph about the need for inclusion and the difference inclusion makes. He said when you do not include you run into lots of problems. I think his quote was, "You pay for it dearly."

Monday, we welcome a new city manager, Natalie Zigler. She will be walking into some amazing challenges as she moves into her office on the first day. I hope those of us who have been living and growing in Hartsville continue to rally and help her and our current City Council become those people we look back on in five, ten or fifteen years with a pride for the positive changes they were able to help us develop as a community.

List some challenges --

We have some beauty spots -- Coker College for example but one look at our entire city and you know we need real emphasis on beautification.

We have high-achieving schools -- but try to prove any of our schools are high achieving to a first-time visitor who (with the exception of the Middle School) sees buildings that have been and look like they have been around for five or seven or ten decades. You want to know what difference a nice looking school makes -- talk to the people who work and learn at the middle school or to the people who teach and learn at GSSM or to the Coker College students who inhabit the new library and information center.

We have some unique retail experiences -- but if we are going to be a mecca for shoppers, we need a lot more unique retail experiences.

We have a cosmopolitan atmosphere -- that we often keep hidden from outsiders. In the arts -- you won't find many communities of our size with our offerings -- but many who live in Hartsville are not aware of a portion of what is offered.

One person for whom I used to work had a saying that I have used in many group discussions having to do with community building. His admonition was "When you stop getting better, you stop being good." We have lots of room to get better.

Audiences need to know why they should listen

Speakers put themselves through the anguish of preparing a speech because of the importance of the message they need to share. In today's world it is a truly arrogant speaker who believes that just because they have a message to share they are going to have an audience. Speakers must let audiences know "WIIFM" very early in the presentation or their audience will be long gone, even if still in their seats.

Last night I was a conversation that began with the other person remarking, "Why do so many presenters start in the middle?" It really was more a criticism than a question. The presenter started with what was important to the presenter and not what might have been important to the audience. There was not statement of why the change just starting in that the change was happening. If speakers help audiences know why the message may have importance, audiences will help speakers by paying attention.

While I always preach the major rule of communication is to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE there is no question that in our society the reason for this knowledge is so you can tell them "What is in it for them" to listen to your message.

ALSO TRUE IN MARKETING --

I began to think this needed to be said when reading a blog post by Paul Gillan this morning having to do with business to business marketing. Gillan points out that in today's business climate what suppliers used to keep as proprietary they have to now share because customers need to know. Here is one part of his comment: "Make Marketing a Service to Customers - I didn't write down who said this, but the comment stuck with me long after the conference was over. The traditional role of marketing has been to create an image or deliver a message. Service had little to do with it. But in the new world of tuned-out customers, the only way to get make an impression is to be helpful, entertaining or memorable. This is one reason we’re seeing a race by B2B marketers in particular to give away tactics and information that were once their source of competitive advantage. It’s the only way to get prospects to pay attention. Marketers need to ask themselves a new question: "How can I help?”

So, if your are a speaker or a marketer you need to remember the audience or the customer starts with the question -- Why should I buy from you?

Novelty Resonates

When we talk about public speaking we often talk about being creative with your messaging. We also underline how novel information will engage listeners and the goal of speaking is to engage the listener. While the link that is part of this message is not a speech, I think it goes a long way in demonstrating how novelty in messaging will GRAB attention:

"THOMSON AIRWAYS" DO WATCH.....THIS IS GREAT!!!!!


Thomson Airways, Ltd. holds a UK Civil Aviation Authority Type A Operating License permitting it to carry passengers,
cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats.
They have a fleet of 63 Boeing and Airbus aircraft, and in this video, you will see their cute cabin crew in action.
http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/forums/thomson-airways-safety-video-superb-27746.aspx#33820