THE PITFALLS OF CONVERSATION

• Tune in to yourself. If you ever get the sense that you are rambling on and on and that your voice is droning, stop talking and give the other person a chance to speak.
  
  
• Ask for feedback. Ask directly if he is interested in whatever you are talking about, or if he wants to change the subject.
  
  
• Avoid talking endlessly and hogging the conversation. Instead, toss the ball to your date, eliciting a response and listening attentively. If you have a tendency to go on and on, develop a sense of timing, or purposefully set a limit for yourself. Sound bites ( a quote from a person) on a network news show can be as short as eight seconds. A talk show host usually will let a person have his say for no more than two minutes before making some other comment -- no matter how interesting the information. A late-night comic's routine may go for three minutes, but it is punctuated with audience responses. As a radio professional, I know it is best to make a point in only up to a minute. Even President Clinton's radio address in the Oval Office was under five minutes because he noticed that stations carried his report only when it ran that short length of time. Especially in the age of MTV-quick images, the average attention span has shortened, so make you point quickly and clearly.

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