I was asking people recently what would make them more likely to leave comments on the blog.  I got some great feedback from fellow blog owners Emma and Claire recommending something called “MyChingo” – which sounds weird but is in effect just a way of leaving voice mail or a phone message on a website.

I followed this thread to the voice-mail conversation on Mike Sansone’s Converstations blog.  There’s some interesting discussion there about the pros and cons of the new widget – is it just technology for technology’s sake, how does it add to or detract from the rest of the conversation (which is still virtual after all… )

Well you can have a listen for yourself if you’re curious.

Anyway it was the comment from Claire on Mike’s voice-mail that got me drawn in – she makes the point that people have different learning styles or representational systems and that we need to be flexible
enough to meet those different styles and preferences.

Which made me think about people that I know – some of whom love writing (like me) but others who would always prefer to chat, to talk on the phone, or even just to leave a message to say “hi”.

And if that sounds like you, why not give it a try?

You’ll find the audio comment box under ‘something to say’ on the left hand side  – scroll down towards the bottom of the screen to find it.  All you need to do is press the button that says ‘leave a message’ and follow the instructions on the screen.  You’ll be asked for your name and e-mail address (which isn’t disclosed) then you can record your message.  You can play it back and record it again if you want to, then when you’re happy with the message press “send” and it comes through to me.

You could leave a message to say hello, ask a question, make a point or just play back the messages and listen to what other people are saying.

Let me know what you think of the new widget – either by writing a comment or leaving me some voice-mail…

For example if this makes perfect sense you might sense, “oh, I see what you mean”.  That would be linked to the visual system.

On the other hand you might still be wondering what I’m talking about and say “it’s all Greek to me”… which would be auditory (what you can – or in this case cannot – here).

By this point you might find yourself saying “oh I’m starting to get a handle on it now” which might suggest… that’s right, a kinaesthetic preference.

It can be fun to watch out for the predicates that you and other people are using (yes, that was me being visual).  It’s another way to improve communication with other people (and your self!)

You will be familiar with the idea that we pay attention to the outside world through our five senses:

seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting

These translate in NLP terms as:

visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory, gustatory

Sometimes you will just see the letters that stand for them:

V, A, K, O, G

Well, just as we see, hear, taste, touch and smell the outside world we also re-create or re-present those sensations in our mind, using our senses inwardly.

We use all of these systems, but we will tend to favour one over others.  This is what is known as the preferred representational system.

Joseph O’Connor defines this in the NLP workbook as “the representational system that an individual typically uses to think consciously and organise their experience.”

You might find references to representational systems in relation to learning styles.

For example a visual learner will want to see things (pictures, diagrams, handouts); an auditory learner will gather information from the spoken word, sounds, and noises; someone with a kinaesthetic learning style will want to learn through touching, feeling, holding, doing or practical hands-on experiences.

Increased awareness of these representational systems can help us communicate better with other people.  It can also make us more self-aware – perhaps of things that help us to learn, or get in the way of our learning.

Words that link to a particular representational system are known as predicates.  You can find out more about predicates here.