A former Prince George media personality is now an author.
David Heyman was a radio reporter in Quesnel and a newspaper reporter in Prince George in the 1990s. He was with The Citizen when an offer came from the Calgary Herald, which took him back to his hometown in Alberta.
Heyman left the media in 2005 to pursue a career in public relations and communications. He ascended to the rank of a senior political consultant for Alberta premier Ed Stelmach. He held this position for three years before turning his aspirations to starting a family and moving back to British Columbia. He now lives on Vancouver Island where he has done more political consultation and public communication work in the past couple of years but also ventured back into journalism.
He is now the publisher of a periodical called Victoria Report, a weekly newsletter covering the B.C. Legislature, but he also kept his keyboard clicking, writing his first book. It was published online just in time for the launch of 2013.
Heyman calls the completion of The Little Book of Big Misunderstandings as "the main accomplishment for me" in 2012.
"You could describe my book this way," said Heyman. "I recount 10 disasters in history that were caused by communications breakdowns - the Titanic, the space shuttle Challenger, the Halifax explosion are three - and show how they could have easily been avoided if the people involved had just spent a moment or two communicating effectively.
"I then explain that it's important for everyone to know all human languages are inherently vague and ambiguous, and that people need to take that into account when people's lives are at stake," he added.
The book is available on amazon.ca for the kindle and kobobooks.com for the ipad.
One reviewer on the Amazon website described the book thus:
"The author has a great command of history and its relevance to the present. Misunderstandings are the focus of the book and he relates the little ones we have each day to the big ones that can change history."
Another note on Amazon said, "At the end of the book, there is a simple method you can use to make sure you are understood when you need to be most."
The book, covered only by a red front and white lettering, retails for $3.95 on either download site.
"If things go well with it, I'll do a print run in the spring," Heyman said.
