Imagine sitting in your office concentrating on completing your latest project when the phone rings. It is the producer for your local television station. She saw a post on social media about the work you are doing and wants to know if you can come in to be interviewed on the noon news. Do you say yes, or no? Are you ready when the media calls? Chapter 32 in the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ upcoming book, Communicating Nutrition: The Authoritative Guide, encourages foo

Think back to the last product you purchased. For me, it was a new planner from someone on social media. Did I truly need another fancy planner? Absolutely not! The woman shared how she once missed a client meeting due to having her schedule written in multiple places, and I totally connected with the organized chaos I call my life. There’s truth in the saying: ‘Facts tell, stories sell.’ She could have told me about how lightweight the planner was or how it had special space

They say you can’t teach an old dog a new trick. I disagree. There are numerous stories of older people learning and achieving great things. In our family, the example we use is my mother learning how to drive a car for the first time at the age of 68 after my father passed away. Talk about having courage to learn something new! For me, my new “trick” is attempting to learn how to effectively use Instagram. I’ve only been on the social media platform since early April and def

On the first day of class, when I asked the students in our Nutrition Communication course at Purdue to share why they had picked their major, the most common answer was a variation of “to make a difference” or “have a positive impact.” Good answer. The nutrition profession is in good hands. In the past, to make a difference, a nutrition professional would invest many hours meeting one-on-one or in small groups. That remains an immensely valuable investment. However, we now h

For most of human history, conversations took place face-to-face. Then, in the late 19th century, with the invention of the telephone, technology allowed us to converse with others across great distances. But, these conversations still occurred in real time, and allowed us to hear nuances of speech and interpret feelings, even without the benefit of facial expressions. Fast forward to the 21st century… Today, conversations are more likely to occur via digital channels – socia

What do you think is illustrated with the visual aid depicted in the photo? Did you guess BMI (Body Mass Index)? This visual aid can be used to illustrate that BMI is an imperfect proxy for body composition. Similar to underwater weighing, which is used to more accurately determine body composition, these two cans of soda demonstrate that because the composition of their contents is different one floats and the other sinks. This is how to use it with an audience: Get two can

Successful communication creates a sharing of ideas and feelings between the communicator and the audience. It results in an audience that attends to, engages with, and takes action on a message to achieve desired outcomes. Strategic communication design begins and ends with the audience. A communicator who knows their audience is able to design communication that accounts for what the audience already knows, what they do, and what they care about. Successful communication re