OK, I've not blogged for a while. I've been mentally busy and all over the place. I'm in Chicago at the moment which is great apart from the fact the guy in front of me in the Apple store bought the last iPad and, in the next hour, I need to buy a suit for a business meeting I didn't expect. I'm hoping I don't wind up looking like Crocket from Miami Vice or some kind of strange sitcom character with a mauve jacket and sand coloured trousers.

Speaking of trousers, back home, I've just checked the BBC Website and saw this:

Gordon Brown 'bigoted woman' jibe caught on tape

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been caught on microphone describing a voter he had just spoken to in Rochdale as a "bigoted woman".Off camera, but not realising he still had a Sky News microphone pinned to his shirt, he was head to tell an aide: "That was a disaster - they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? It's just ridiculous..."

Gillian Duffy: "I want to know why I was called a bigot

Asked what she had said, he is heard to reply: "Ugh everything! She's just a sort of bigoted woman that said she used to be Labour. I mean it's just ridiculous. I don't know why Sue brought her up towards me."

Now, I don't think the charismatic Mr Brown had much hope anyway in the 2010 election but this is surely the last nail in his coffin.

This Brown Trouser moment will go down in history as his "why did I say that....?" regret.

Somebody once said to me "It's not what you say that can damage your reputation, it's knowing when to say nothing."

Gordon didn't need to say anything out loud. He would have been much better served to just keep it inside and let it fester in secret. There was no possible value in him saying what he said out loud to his aides. But, there was every risk that he would be overheard.

When people say things, they don't always consider the outcome of their words. If you think about it, communication is about nothing more than getting a response and an outcome. You say something, expecting people to respond to it and, potentially, do something.

Gordon's communication here isn't outcome focused - that would have been "Can you ensure that Sue doesn't bring people to see me in the future who have differing views to the image we want to portray as a party."

Whenever we communicate, whether we want to or not, we're generating responses from people and outcomes based on their response. Gordon Brown must realise from his evaluation of his own communication that he didn't expect the outcome to be 'total devastation of his reputation during the most important week in his career".

Whenever you communicate, just pause for a second and think "what outcome am I hoping to get here" and "what outcome might I get by accident".

Even if it is just hovering your mouse over that send button from time to time.