Message Not Received by Phil Simon on Audible:
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Summary:

George Bernard Shaw once famously said, "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

Although he died in 1950, Shaw's words live on, especially in the business world. Far too many executives, salespeople, consultants, and even rank-and-file employees suck at communicating. Some think that they're speaking and writing effectively when they drop ostensibly sophisticated terms like paradigm shift, synergy, net-net, form factor, and optics. Others think that they're being clever.

No doubt that you know the type. Maybe you're even one of them and don't realize it. These are the folks who regularly rely upon obscure acronyms, technobabble, jargon, and buzzwords when plain English would suffice just fine. They constantly invent new tech-laden words, bastardize others, and turn nouns into verbs. They ignore their audiences, oblivious to the context of their words. In other words, they talk without speaking.

If bad business communication is a disease, the prevalence of hackneyed and utterly meaningless terms is just one of its major causes. Aside from using confusing language, many corporate folks depend almost exclusively on a single communications vehicle: email. In the process, they actively resist new, powerful, and truly collaborative tools specifically designed to make people work and communicate better.

What's the net effect of this near-pervasive failure to effectively communicate while at work? The precise monetary figure is impossible to quantify. At the same time, though, it cannot be overstated. At a minimum, communication breakdowns are directly responsible for myriad inefficiencies, duplicate efforts, ineffectual campaigns, project failures, largely avoidable gaffes, internal political squabbles, and forgone business opportunities. 

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Message Not Received by Phil Simon, Narrated by Jonathan Yen

Matt Giroveanu, Rachel Bouton, and Kiki Mikkelson improvise a love song in Vern’s Audible special, "A Very Improvised Holiday Musical".  The prompt for the special was to create a new holiday on the spot, and the live audience chose “pickles” as the celebratory food, “periwinkle and maroon” as the holiday’s colors, and “the poop emoji” as the sacred symbol (Oh, millennials). But the resulting musical is surprisingly sweet.
 
Listen to the FULL holiday special on Audible: http://tinyurl.com/VernSpecial

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A Very Improvised Holiday Musical (Teaser Clip)

Exclusively on Audible, an original audio documentary narrated by award-winning actress Mary-Louise Parker.

It’s always hard to make the crowd laugh — especially when joking about war, PTSD, and mental health. Strong Ending follows three military veterans as they attempt to turn their most painful stories into laughs by participating in a stand-up comedy boot camp.

After joining the military, deploying to combat zones, and coming home fundamentally changed, Michael Garvey, Isaura Ramirez, and Patrick Harth challenge themselves to share their stories on stage and perform original stand up-comedy about their experiences for a packed house.

Narrated by Emmy and Tony award-winning actress Mary-Louise Parker and featuring interviews with professional comedians Rob Riggle (The Daily Show, The Hangover) and Maria Bamford (Lady Dynamite, Arrested Development), Strong Ending explores the science behind the healing power of laughter and the role of military-comedies in popular culture.

Is laughter really the best medicine? Listen to find out: Audible.com/StrongEnding

Strong Ending  - Maria Bamford on Mental Health & Comedy (clip)

Strong Ending - Rob Riggle On Comedy (clip)

Featuring Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy, Eliza Skinner.

In this scene excerpt from a live cast reading, alien commander 9-Krelblax orders his navigator, Zzarvon, to set a course for the Big Dipper but things get off track pretty quickly.

Download and listen to the full Audible Original, "The Pole Vault Championship of the Entire Universe", at Audible.com/PoleVault!

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