The Spoken Ideaby Irwan Hanish

Better ideas deserve better conversations.

A lot can go wrong between having an idea and another person understanding what you mean.

In The Spoken Idea, I share what I've learned about communicating across languages and disciplines, and how we can express ideas more clearly, listen better and understand one another.

What I share

From an idea in your mind to an idea another person can understand.

After more than ten years of teaching, training and public speaking, I keep coming back to three parts of communication:

Form the idea

Sometimes the speaking problem begins before you speak.

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You know roughly what you think, but the idea is still unstructured. So you start talking before you know which point matters most, how the pieces fit together or where the answer is going.

I share what I've learned about thinking while speaking, organising an answer, framing a point and deciding what needs to be said first.

Express the idea

Knowing something and explaining it are different abilities.

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You may understand a subject deeply and still struggle to make it clear to someone who doesn't have the same background. This becomes harder when you add time pressure, an unfamiliar audience or another language.

I share what I've learned about explaining complex ideas, presentations, difficult questions and communicating clearly through English.

Meet the other mind

Communication is not finished when you've said what you wanted to say.

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The other person may hear something different from what you intended. And sometimes the important part of the conversation is in the question you haven't asked yet.

I share what I've learned about listening, asking better questions, disagreement, misunderstanding and what helps people understand one another better.

Join The Spoken Idea
Irwan Hanish

About

I'm Irwan Hanish

My academic background is in immunology, microbiology and Islamic philosophy of science.

I've spent over a decade teaching science, philosophy and communication. A large part of the job is helping others understand complex ideas.

I also didn't grow up speaking English. I only started taking English seriously as an adult.

That gave me another perspective on the same problem. You can know what you want to say and still struggle to express it as clearly as you can think it.

So, in The Spoken Idea, I explore a question that sits behind all of this:

What helps one person understand another?

Spoken English at work

Clear in English

Many multilingual professionals and scientists face a specific problem.

They already have the expertise. But when they need to explain it in English in a meeting, during a presentation or when answering a difficult question, their English doesn't always show what they actually know.

Clear in English is where I help them speak more clearly and confidently in those situations.

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