Eamon Blackthorn is a communication skills expert and author of the best-selling book SAY IT RIGHT EVERY TIME.
15 min audio Icebreakers feel risky because they ask you to be warm and direct at the same moment. This article explains the Double Bind at work in those first exchanges, why the tension is real, and how Strategic Positioning changes what happens before you speak.
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17 min audio Most icebreakers reward the loudest voices and leave quieter people invisible from the start. This article gives you a practical, step-by-step process for designing opening moments that draw out overlooked contributors and set a genuinely inclusive tone before the real work begins.
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15 min audio Icebreakers fail when they feel forced. The Me Too Bridge is a six-step method from Say It Right Every Time For Women that turns cold openings into genuine common ground by finding shared experience quickly, signalling warmth, and giving others an easy way in.
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21 min audio Breaking into a group conversation feels awkward without a reliable system. The S.O.C.I.A.L. Method gives you six clear steps to scan the room, open naturally, find common ground, include others, amplify quieter voices, and exit gracefully. It turns social anxiety into practiced skill.
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22 min audio Most people treat icebreakers as improvisation. This article gives you six named frameworks for opening conversations with confidence, drawn from decades of practice and the strategic positioning principles in Say It Right Every Time For Women. Choose the right structure for the moment.
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17 min audio Opening a conversation well is harder for women than most communication guides admit. This article gives you a practical, numbered icebreaker process built for real professional situations, including the specific missteps that undermine first impressions and how to avoid every one of them.
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4 min audio At the 16th East Africa Communication Association Conference held at St. Paul's University on August 27, 2026, African scholars issued a direct challenge to the global tech establishment. Their message was pointed: Africa must stop receiving AI tools and start building them. The gathering focused specifically on how artificial intelligence is reshaping education, research, and communication across the continent.
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3 min audio Target sold a Halloween costume that customers found deeply offensive. The backlash was swift and public. Target issued an apology and pulled the product, but critics argued the response stopped short of addressing the real question: what does the company plan to do to make sure this never happens again? The apology arrived. The accountability did not.
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3 min audio Senior executives frequently talk over, dismiss, or flat-out ignore colleagues with less organizational power. This is not a new problem. What is new is the growing conversation about how professionals can respond effectively in the moment, without torching their careers or surrendering their credibility. The stakes are real: every time you let it happen without a response, you train the room to keep doing it.
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3 min audio Harvard Law School's corporate governance forum published a piece examining what separates strong board leadership from weak board leadership. The core argument: getting it wrong carries real organizational risk. The piece positions board communication and decision-making clarity as defining factors in whether leadership actually leads or simply occupies a seat at the table.
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4 min audio A new report from CARMA reveals a striking split in how artificial intelligence is being perceived. Public trust in AI climbed to 30 percent, while media coverage of the same technology has grown noticeably more skeptical. The two lines are moving in opposite directions. That gap is not an accident, and it is not a coincidence. It is a communication failure hiding in plain sight.
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4 min audio La Trobe University built a robot named Fletch that simulates an emotionally charged, frustrated parent. Student teachers practice difficult conversations with Fletch before they ever set foot in a real school. The goal is simple: get the reps in while the stakes are low, so you don't fall apart when the stakes are high.
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