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A review by chromeorange
Making Conversation: Seven Essential Elements of Meaningful Communication by Fred Dust
2.0
I read this because it was free with my WSJ subscription.
I don’t have a ton to say on it. It’s a pretty typical self-help book. It doesn’t surprise or offend. In fact, it’s pretty bland.
The main premise starts out promising. A successful designer is going to give his perspective, after supposedly a ton of research, on how to “design” conversations. It sounded like he would give very practical steps, tips, and tools to use. “Do this, don’t do that. Here’s a specific framework, and here are various options within that.” Instead, 85% of it is nebulous generalities of what to do, instead of concrete answers, falling into my biggest complaint of books in this genre.
Also, despite his claim of doing so much research, the book still feels like it’s based mostly off personal anecdotes. There’s no numbers, no studies, no measurements...nothing convincing from a quantitative view. We just have to take his word that these things work. What research did he actually do? I know he did some, but I’m still not entirely clear.
I don’t have a ton to say on it. It’s a pretty typical self-help book. It doesn’t surprise or offend. In fact, it’s pretty bland.
The main premise starts out promising. A successful designer is going to give his perspective, after supposedly a ton of research, on how to “design” conversations. It sounded like he would give very practical steps, tips, and tools to use. “Do this, don’t do that. Here’s a specific framework, and here are various options within that.” Instead, 85% of it is nebulous generalities of what to do, instead of concrete answers, falling into my biggest complaint of books in this genre.
Also, despite his claim of doing so much research, the book still feels like it’s based mostly off personal anecdotes. There’s no numbers, no studies, no measurements...nothing convincing from a quantitative view. We just have to take his word that these things work. What research did he actually do? I know he did some, but I’m still not entirely clear.