A Taste of Savannah

The Southern Speech Communication Association is meeting in early April in Savannah. It’s always a challenge — fun one, most of the time — to find great places to eat in a new city. What’s the best way to find a fabulous restaurant or jazzy piano bar? Listen to the locals!

My students and colleagues at Georgia Southern rose to the task when I asked them their thoughts on their favorite places in Savannah. 

The Lady & Sons AKA Paula Deen’s
“This is the restaurant that put Savannah on the map, according to some. Put your name in early in the day for a table, or you might not get in.”
102 W Congress St, Savannah
912.233.2600

Moon River Brewing Company
“Love this restaurant! Great appetizers and they brew their own beer!” “It’s the BOMB!” “It’s on the Haunted Pub Tour. And they have great tuna!”
21 W Bay St, Savannah
912.447.0943

Clary’s Café
“Best known as the diner from Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil. Great breakfasts.”
404 Abercorn Street, Savannah
912.233.0402

Corleone’s Trattoria
“An Italian restaurant with a nice atmosphere. Sit outside if the weather is nice. Call and make reservations”
44 MLK Blvd., Savannah
912.232.2720

The Crab Shack
“This is an outside restaurant that has big platters of kind of low country boil type food, and it is towards Tybee Island, so it’s kind of out, but worth the drive”
40 Estill Hammock Rd., Tybee Island
912.786.9857

Firefly Café
“Great for vegetarians & vegans . . . and everyone else, too”
321 Habersham St., Savannah
912.234.1971

Jazz’d Tapas Bar
“It’s underground and an amazing dining experience”
912.236.7777
52 Barnard St., Savannah

Olde Pink House
“It’s in a pink house that was built in the 1700s; always low lights, candle lit” “Classy piano bar on the bottom floor”
23 Abercorn St., Savannah
912.232.4286

Shrimp Factory
“Great fresh seafood and nice atmosphere”
313 E River St., Savannah
912.236.4229

Skyler’s Restaurant
“Best crab cakes in town, without a doubt”
225 E. Bay St., Savannah
912.232.3955

Spanky’s Pizza Gallery & Saloon
“Greatest [chicken] fingers in the southeast. And the spuds are great, too!”
317 E. River Street, Savannah
912-236-3009

Vic’s on the River
“Upscale. Always very nice and very good”
16 E River St, Savannah
912.721.1000

Vinnie Van GoGo’s
“At the end of City Market, mostly out-door eating, and the best pizza I’ve had. They only take cash, but you can order by the slice or pie.”
317 W Bryan St., Savannah
912.233.6394

Wasabi
“Try the Sushi Boat . . . amazing! Fresh! Funky atmosphere and reasonable prices”
113 MLK Blvd., Savannah
912.233.8899

Wild Wing Café
“If you’re just looking to have a fun bar night with live entertainment and great wings, definitely go to Wild Wings.”
27 Barnard St., Savannah
912.790.9464‎

Zunzi’s
“An intriguing combo: South African and Italian”
108 E. York St., Savannah
912.443.9555

View Savannah Map with Many More Restaurants

See Chatham County (Savannah and surrounding area) restaurant inspection scores from the Health Department

But You Never Told Me!

If you are anything like me, odds are there’s been a time (or 20) when you swore that “No one told me about the ___,” only to find out later that indeed you were told, but you hadn’t listened to the message. Why does this happen? There could be myriad reasons.

Perhaps the short video clip below will provide one of the reasons. NOTE: This video is safe to play at work or around your young children.

So what are some tips you can use to become a better listener, especially during International Listening Awareness Month (sponsored by the International Listening Association)?

• Listening is a Ten-Part Skill, written by Ralph Nichols (“The Father of Listening”)
• Ditch the Distractions, provided by the International Listening Leaders Institute
• 10 Ways Educators Can Listen Better to Their Students
• 10 Reasons Parents Must Become Effective Listeners
• 10 Ways to Show You Are Not Listening
• Give the Gift of Listening
• and always rememember Rule #1: Stop Talking (thanks to Linda Eve Diamond)

Ten Ways NOT to Prepare for College Advising

For about a dozen hours during the last two weeks, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of advising undergraduate students who are in their first or second years of college. Though several of them came to their fifteen-minute advising appointment extremely well prepared, most did not.

Below, you will find a list of ten things NOT to do when you are being advised.

1. Don’t show up. That’s right, several students were no shows for their appointments. (That wasn’t really a surprise, but it was disappointing.)
   
2. Come in and say, “Okay, tell me what I need to take next semester.” Whatever happened to being responsible for your own learning?
   
3. Make excuse after excuse why you have withdrawn from class after class — and still expect that a professor might give you an override to get into a full class. Yes, there are definitely some reasons to withdraw from classes, but when it becomes a habit, it begins to reflect poorly on your ability to manage your schedule. For every class from which you withdraw, there probably was another student who wanted to get in before the semester started, but could not because the class was full.
   
4. Spend more time looking for ways to avoid taking your core classes than actually taking the classes. Everyone in the university needs to take a core of similar classes. Even you. And don’t expect that your advisor will tell you “which ones are the easy ones.”
   
5. Don’t look in the college catalog to see what will be required for your major; expect your advisor to know all the details off the top of his or her head. It surprised me that several students “knew” they wanted to major in a certain subject, but did not have any idea what courses would be required for the major, or that a certain GPA was required.
   
6. Don’t check out the online registration service from your college to see when your earliest registration date and time are. Find out when your registration time is, and make your advising appointment before this time, so that you can register at the earliest possible moment. Many classes fill quickly, and the earlier you can register, the more likely you can get in.
   
7. Expect your advisor to be able to counsel you on which major you should choose AND help you choose classes for next semester, all during your allotted 15 minutes. Choosing a major is an important, perhaps life-changing, decision. Make an appointment with a professor or advisor in the majors you are interested in far ahead of the advisement period.
   
8. Give your advisor a blank stare when he or she asks you, “So what steps are you taking to bring up your grade point average?” As the old saying goes, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” Many majors have minimum GPAs required for admittance to their programs; make a plan to exceed that minimum by as much as you can. Utilize the many services your university has to offer for study skills, tutoring, etc.
   
9. Respond to text messages while your advisor is talking. Come on, the appointment is only 15 minutes. Couldn’t that wait? And if it couldn’t, would it be so hard to say, “Please excuse me for just a moment. There’s something urgent I need to do”?
10. Leave your iPod earbuds in your ears so you can continue to listen to your music (and use your pencil and pen as drumsticks on the desk) while the appointment is going on. Seriously. As a 20-year career educator and parent of four, I don’t shock easily, but the rudeness of this took me aback. And it happened not once, but twice, with two different students. At least neither of them hesitated at complying when I asked them to focus on our meeting rather than their iPods.
    

Now, it probably sounds like I don’t ever want to advise students again. Not quite. . .

During my “dream appointment,” and I did have one of these, this is what happened:

A young woman walked up to me confidently, put out her hand to shake mine, and said, “Good morning, my name is Katey. Thanks for meeting with me today.” She and I walked back to my office, chatting about where she is from and why she chose her major. Katey sat down, reached into her backpack, and took out her planner. She turned to a page where she had marked up the core requirements sheet with classes she’d already taken and highlighted those she was considering for the next semester. Katey turned serious when she noted, “I know I need to take the second English class in the series, but I looked online, and the classes are already full.” Hmmm. This was intriguing! She had done some significant preparation for this meeting. We worked together to come up with an alternate plan that took into account what to do when Plan A wasn’t going to work. We looked ahead to required courses to her major and selected two that are prerequisites for many other courses. We briefly discussed how she could get involved on one or two campus organizations related to her major. And the whole meeting took less than ten minutes.

If only there were more Kateys! Maybe there can be if students can know what to expect of the advising appointment.

For another “what NOT to do,” see How to Fail a Class Without Really Trying.

Humorous Quotations About Listening, Part Three

As International Listening Awareness Month (sponsored by the International Listening Association) progresses, let’s take some time to enjoy several humorous quotations about listening. This posting is part three of a three-part series.

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing, nobody listens and then everybody disagrees. — Will Rogers

Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening. — Dorothy Sarnoff

Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen. — Homer Simpson

Isn’t it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists? — Kelvin Throop III

A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat. — Katharine Whitehorn

The true male has never yet walked
Who liked to listen when his mate talked. — Anna Wickhaur

My friend Bob is a radio DJ, and when he walks under a bridge, you can’t hear him talk. — Steven Wright

See parts one and two of this series.

Humorous Quotations About Listening, Part Two

As International Listening Awareness Month (sponsored by the International Listening Association) progresses, let’s take some time to enjoy several humorous quotations about listening. This posting is part two of a three-part series.

The older I grow the more I listen to people who don’t talk much. — Germain G. Glien

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. — Hubert Humphrey

One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody’s listening. — Franklin P. Jones

The opposite of talking is not listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.— Fran Lebowitz

If you want to know how your girl will treat you after marriage, just listen to her talking to her little brother. — Sam Levenson

The difference between listening to a radio sermon and going to church. . . is almost like the difference between calling your girl on the phone and spending an evening with her. — Dwight L. Moody

Boredom is having to listen to someone talk about himself when I want to talk about me. — Tom Paciorek

An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger. — Dan Rather

And now listen to some Out to Lunch Jokes from Katey, a second-grader

Mobile post sent by listeningmatters using Utterz.

Humorous Quotations About Listening, Part One

Now that March has arrived, it is  International Listening Awareness Month (sponsored by the International Listening Association); let’s take some time to enjoy several humorous quotations about listening. This posting is part one of a three-part series.

History repeats itself because no one listens the first time. — Anonymous

Conversation: a vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. — Anonymous

“You know, it’s at times like this when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young!” “Why, what did she tell you?” “I don’t know, I didn’t listen!” — Douglas Adams

My wife says I never listen to her. At least I think that’s what she said. — Anonymous

If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.— Anonymous

It’s my job to talk and yours to listen, but please, let me know if you finish before I do. — Anonymous

Women like silent men. They think they’re listening. — Marcel Archard

To understand this important story, you have to understand how the telephone company works. Your telephone is connected to a local computer, which is in turn connected to a regional computer, which is in turn connected to a loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of Lawrence, Kan. Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it suspects you’re going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the computer above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the one above it, until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe break down in tears and tell your closest friend about a sordid incident from your past involving a seedy motel, a neighbor’s spouse, an entire religious order, a garden hose and six quarts of tapioca pudding, the top computer feeds your conversation into Edna’s loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on the porch to listen and drink gin and laugh themselves silly. What Women Want: To be loved, to be listened to, to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held. What Men Want: Tickets for the world series.— Dave Barry 

Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. — Ambrose Bierce

An actor’s a guy who if you ain’t talkin’ about him, ain’t listening. — Marlon Brando

It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear. — Dick Cavett

I’ll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I’d listen to it! — Tom Galloway

Edelman Digital Bootcamp: Exhausting AND Energizing

Have you ever felt exhausted at the end of a day? I’m sure we all have, especially when the day is filled with physical activity. But have you ever felt worn out after a day when you spent the day involved in intense listening?

That happened to me just yesterday. Even so, I didn’t even once feel the need to raise my hand, like the student in Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoon, and say, “May I please be excused? My head is full.” If it’s possible, I came away from that day both exhausted and energized . . . so many great ideas were generated and shared on how to make social media an integral part of the public relations strategies.

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the Edelman Digital Bootcamp, hosted by the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication. This intense one-day workshop was designed for students and educators from throughout the Southeast. In addition to a large contingent from UGA, several other schools were represented: Kennesaw State College, Clemson University, University of West Florida, Georgia Southern University and Auburn University (War Eagle!).

The news release prior to the event described Edelman Digital Bootcamp like this:

Edelman, the world’s leading independent public relations firm, seeks to provide students and educators hands-on skills integration training about the professional use of new media.

Bootcamp participants will break into teams and Edelman practitioners will direct them in a mock campaign. Students will have the opportunity to work one-on-one with Edelman facilitators to research, design and implement a social media solution for the assigned client. This approach will allow students to network with professionals while also gaining hands-on experience.

An additional track will be available to educators, focused more on sharing ideas and encouraging the adoption of new media in more communication curricula throughout the Southeast. Educators will have the opportunity to discuss the practicalities of teaching new media, share lesson plans and more.

Edelman intends to expand its Digital Bootcamp to other college campuses across the nation in what they hope will become an annual event.

As the day progressed, I had my notebook computer out and used del.icio.us to make note of the websites mentioned during several of the presentations. You’ll find that list below; most of the sites are free to use. I’ll share more of my thoughts on the bootcamp later this week, especially on Tweeting and its effect my listening during the day.

• Ning – Create your own Social Networks!
• Ning in Education
• Ask a Ninja – The Ninternship
• http://www.skype.com/ :: Make calls from your computer — free to other people on Skype and cheap to landlines and cell phones around the world.
• Amazon.com: Flip Video Camcorder: 60-Minutes (White): Electronics
• Utterz – Mobile post to your blog or social network page
• Ustream.tv
• TubeMogul.com – Online Video Distribution and Analytics
• http://chris.pirillo.com/
• Internet Radio, Citizen Broadcasting, Social Media Podcasts – Blog Talk Radio
• Real-time Twitter Search – Tweet Scan :: see what we were Tweeting about at the EDB
• Kall8 800 Numbers & Toll Free Number Services :: Kall8 is the only fully integrated toll-free service that offers traditional 800 service with a complete set of online tools to manage and track your toll free numbers in real time. With Kall8, you can instantly activate and forward your 800 numbers, view
• QIK | Streaming video right from your phone :: Ready to stream live videos from your phone?
• http://www.krazydad.com/blog/
• Upcoming Webinar to Focus on the Evolving Social Media Release
• Bloglines :: Stay up-to-the minute on all your favorite news, blogs and feeds. Sign-up now. It’s Free.
• Google Reader
• BlogPulse
• Forward Blog » Blog Archive » A little nerd knowledge never hurt anyone ::  To provide a comprehensive, ever-evolving, online springboard for students and young professionals in PR. Hosted by Auburn grad Erin Caldwell.
• The Long Tail: Sorry PR people: you’re blocked
• Edelman Digital Bootcamp — Educator Materials | Edelman Digital Bootcamp
• Communication Overtones
• Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!
• PR Prospects :: PR Prospects is all about sharing new PR talent with the organizations and agencies that need them. Please meet these Auburn University students. Give them your consideration.
• kaye.sweetser’s favorites tagged with “adpr3510″ on del.icio.us :: PR Research Method Class at UGA – ADPR3510 :: Links & resources for PR Research Method class at UGA taught by Dr. Kaye Sweetser.
• TextMarks :: Welcome – Make information accessible from any cell phone – via text messages. Coordinate Activities. Express Yourself!
• Swift :: Mobile Site Creation, WAP Builder and Mobile Marketing Tools
• Crazy People (1990) :: A bitter ad executive who has reached his breaking point, finds himself in a mental institution where his career actually begins to thrive with the help of the hospital’s patients.
• FeedBurner :: Start FeedBurning Now. Type your feed or blog URL below.