The number of things in life that improve through practice is amazing. The list includes just about everything. When I give talks about the importance of communications skills for people who work in technology, I always take a few minutes to emphasis the value of practice.

If you want to be a good communicator, you are going to have to practice on a regular basis.

Why Practice

Communications skills are use it or loss it skills: if you don’t do it on a regular basis, you will get worse.

I learned this lesson the hard way. Several years ago I had a job where I was actively discouraged from communicating with clients. The CEO told me that all the developers on the team were bad communicators. Since I was a developer, that meant to him I was a bad communicator. It didn’t matter that I had experience communicating on behalf of a nobel prize winning international nonprofit organization. In his mind, and the minds of many people, it is simple definitional: technologists cannot communicate with other humans. The worst part was that my communications skills degraded over the first couple of years I worked there – I fell to his expectations. Demonstrating that I am capable of communicating effectively is why I started this blog and is part of why I started this series.

When I first started writing regularly again I had to work harder than I expected. My skills had atrophied to some extent.

I still knew all the rules, but following them was harder. So I keep going. Ten years on I’m still writing to force myself to keep in shape.

Practice your writing because it makes you better and keeps you sharp.

How to Practice

There is a concept called Deliberate Practice. Originally developed in 1993 by Anders Ericsson, it’s the idea that practice needs to be intentional, give you feedback, and force you to work hard. This is the best form of practice for any skill. It’s designed to help you learn to do almost anything better, one focused step at a time. And when you can do that you should.

But it requires access to immediate feedback, focused time, and the ability to define small measurable goals well. That are not things we all have all the time.

While the proponents of deliberate practice seem to look down on other forms of practice, I believe they are important too. They talk about “naive practice” as “maintenance”. There is nothing wrong with ongoing maintenance. If you stop, you back slide; so don’t stop.

How Not to Practice

You need to do the work, even when it’s hard. Do not use AI during your practice.

The various AI tools around can generate amazing amounts of content amazingly fast. Some of it is even good. But the point of writing for practice is to make yourself do the work. You need to feel the pain. Practice should be hard for you – at least some of the time.

A guy at the gym lifting weights with a fork lift. He's weak, everyone around him is strong.
Because I’ve never practiced drawing enough, I had Gemini help me with this ridiculous image. I never use LLMs to do the writing here. A good cartoonist would create a better image.

Using an LLM to practice your communications skills is like taking a forklift to the gym. Sure, I can get a lot more off the floor with a forklift than I can on my own, but I’m not going to get stronger. You need to do the heavy lifting yourself. The harder you have to work, the more you are learning and improving.

Getting Feedback

Getting feedback can be hard.
Getting useful feedback is even harder.

I make an effort to put my content, and myself in places where I can see it discussed. Ohana Slack, Drupal Planet, LinkedIn, and other places can generate discussion and feedback that’s useful to see.

When I present at conferences I get immediate feedback. Most of it is just well intended support from friends. I appreciate support from my friends, but rarely does that help me grow. Sometimes someone will offer ideas for how to improve the presentation. They will ask questions about an edge case I hadn’t considered, suggest a book I haven’t read, and other similar notes that help me improve my thinking. I love this feedback, but it’s rare.

I find to get the best feedback I have to directly solicit it from someone I trust. When I guest lecture for my wife’s students I ask her for feedback the next time we’re together (usually she tells me I speak too fast, which is generally true – I’m working on that). Times when I’ve gotten strongly negative feedback I’ve shared it with a trusted friend to see if there is merit in the concerns. They can help me extract anything useful and filter any ugliness for me.

What to Practice

My experience is that what you do for practice doesn’t matter a great deal. What’s really important is that you do it and get feedback so you can improve.

Here are some things you might consider for practice:

  • Essays for Medium, or other blogging platforms
  • Contribute project documentation to an open source project
  • Short Stories or other fiction writing that you publish online, as an ebook, or print on demand
  • Participate in online writing challenges
  • Create a YouTube (or similar) channel

Whatever you pick, you want to be in control of how often you create content. If you aren’t in control, you might find yourself cut off from chances to practice. Make sure you can create new content on a regular basis.

Find something you are willing to do for practice, and do it. Get feedback and use that feedback to make yourself better.