About

At the time of this blog’s inception I have a day job as the General Manager of Edelman Melbourne. If you’re looking for some deep insight into the origins of this blog then there’s a better tale to be found on the first post of the blog.

Instead of rehashing that here I thought I’d share the origins of “say it different” as a concept. The reality is, I have no idea where it came from. All I remember is a vague idea that I’d once heard a brilliant piece of advice for dealing with difficult people who didn’t understand what I was saying: “Don’t say it louder. Say it different.”

To this day I have no idea where I actually heard it, so I loosely attribute it to my grandmother, a woman with an unhealthy penchant for Mills & Boon novels and the novel biological heritage of having had both her grandfathers arrive on the first convict ship to land in Tasmania.

One of her grandfathers was a non-commissioned officer aboard the ship, the other a convict. After serving out their respective sentences the officer became a constable (or some law figure, I forget the details) and the other the local saddler. Their children wed – ergo, my grandmother.

So as I figure it, if a cop and a convict can get their shit together and communicate effectively, then it’s incumbent on the rest of us to give it a decent crack.