Preface / Introduction

“3...2...1…” The red “ON AIR” light blinks on and the myriad studio lights illuminate the studio. The teleprompter slowly scrolls up as I stare into the abyss of a 55mm camera lens, knowing that 35 million people are on the other end. “Hello and welcome!”, I start off, with an enthusiasm and smile on my face... 

As a TV news anchor in India, I spoke to a large Indian, and often international, audience daily. Sure, it was harrowing at first, but over the years I learned to control my anxiety and develop a keen sense of how to treat the camera- an inanimate object - like my audience - ordinary friends, family and customers. They are skills honed after many years being in the television business, skills that anchors the world over must learn.

But when COVID-19 spread throughout the planet, suddenly everyone was thrust into becoming anchors from their own homes, with the computer lens substituting for the camera lens. And while I had relied on TV to share my message, people started using Zoom and other videoconferencing platforms as their medium. 

COVID-19 has indeed changed the way the world operates. The way people communicate, learn, do business, and interact socially has seen a radical shift. Zoom, and other online platforms like Webex and Teams, are proliferating.  These platforms were being developed remarkably fast leading to the time of the pandemic, and exploded when it hit.  A May 2020 report by global consulting firm McKinsey & Company concluded that in order to cope with COVID-19, the world “vaulted five years forward in consumer and business digital adoption in a matter of...weeks.”

Online Communication platforms like Zoom are user-friendly, capable and powerful, and their zooming market valuations are an indicator of their potential. Becoming proficient at understanding, navigating and then shining in communication in these online platforms is not just a good to have, but a critical 21stcentury skill. New technology and public speaking both instill a deep and significant fear in people. This book, along with its accompanying website, social media offshoots, and various follow-on pieces, blogs and related op-eds, attempts to take you on a journey to first demystify online communication, and then to shine on these new platforms.  

For a while, I have been thinking about writing a book that draws on the lessons of my journey.  As a television anchor and then as a communication professor for graduate students at some of the best universities in the world, I have taught my course on The Arts of Communication 40 times to date, done shorter sessions for over 100 senior executives and diverse leader groups around the world, and anchored over 800 shows in front of live audiences of tens of millions. This collection of communication performance and teaching experiences has enabled me to develop expertise in coaching people to shine online and in person, helping them bring their most authentic, relaxed and competent selves to challenging situations. 

Serving as a national anchor gave me a particularly powerful look at being able to find a connection to the audience while looking at and speaking directly to an inanimate object, the camera. This was my job. To shine on-air and online, day in and day out, pushing to learn, and excel, slowly, but steadily.

The Zoom world involves similar sensibilities. The setting is transformed from a real one, where you are looking into people’s eyes as a leader, teacher or influencer, to a virtual one, where you are looking inside the “eye” of your computer. Subtle but important controllables, such as your voice pitch, pace and modulation, eye movement, use of arms, and confidence, warmth and mood, become more apparent and important. 

This book is written for the “active consumer” of online communication. Someone who is leading a webinar, teaching a class, running a meeting, or doing a TED-esque talk online. The active consumer also includes a graduate student who wants to maximize her performance for the 30% of her course grade that is reliant on class participation, the new corporate hire who wants to ensure that the few sentences he shares during an important work update meeting resonate and create a positive impact, the new house hunter who wants to ensure that the real estate agent team on the other side fully understands her needs and price points, and the tennis coach who wants to make his perspective is heard in the regional coaching conference.

To have an impact, you need to be impactful. This is often a combination of being insightful, considerate, polished, confident, energetic and likeable. This book draws on the best of communication impact learnings that I have developed in my courses as a Professor and career as an anchor, but also gained through research as a scholar in the field, drawing from relevant literature, collaborating with experts and related thought leaders, and gaining insights and reactions from my students, to define and refine my perspective. 

To date, I have heard and given immediate verbal and written feedback to over 3,000 short, four-minute speeches, and have read over 10,000 reflection pieces from these students, amongst the brightest and most motivated of any around the world.  My work has also been international, and perspectives that I have encountered, diverse. I have worked with US, European and Indian graduate institutions, Greek, Indian and Phillipine diplomats, American senior police officers, lawyers, management consultants, public health officials, university professors, Central Bank officers, and private equity partners, amongst other groups. Each group has pushed me to broaden, customize and refine my teaching and perspectives at least a bit, and the result has been a fairly robust set of principles, perspectives and thought nuggets that I am excited to share. 

All of this has contributed towards having an “ethos”, or credibility, worthy of a few hours of attention and reflection from you, as a reader, no matter where and who you are. So, onward….