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Great Public Speaking – Right in Your Own Backyard
One of the many reasons why I enjoy living in the Bay Area is the seemingly endless opportunities to hear good speakers. I am a member of Left Coast Writers (LCW), and recently attended our monthly Literary Salon held at Book Passage Independent bookstore in Corte Madera, CA. Under the...
Public Speaking and the New Year
For many, 2009 was a struggle. Fortunately, the worst of the economic downturn seems to have passed. In its wake, many people were left wondering what had just happened and what they could have done differently. But as we enter the new calendar year, most of us switch from reflection...
Content Tips: How Much is Too Much?
I’ve been working with a group of technical professionals this week and am running into a familiar techie issue. My technical guys love monologue. And the longer, more data packed and deeply obscure the better. They make the case that if they are speaking to a technical audience, a complex...
Sorry to have to ask. Will you please stop apologizing?
I recently had lunch with a friend who I haven’t seen in a long time. It was a wonderful reunion and great to catch up with her. As we sat and talked I realized that my friend spent a great deal of time apologizing. Once I heard this pattern emerge...
I got a call today from a woman who owns a bakery that specializes in selling gluten free products—cookies, biscotti, scones and other wonderful wheat free foods. She has a good niche market but wants to grow her business—and someone told her to look into public speaking as an avenue...
Speaking of Telling Stories in the Executive Suite
I have been working with a client in our Executive Immersion program and am once again reminded of the critical role that stories play in executive effectiveness. My client is working hard to develop a communication approach that balances IQ and EQ—that is, using intellectual, analytical, problem solving tactics combined...
Sticky Slides
This ad is a good example of how your brain adjusts reality to what it thinks it should look like. I read this sentence the first time as "Don't drink if you drive", a familiar slogan.I find myself doing the same thing when reading headlines full of buzz words and...
If you can't explain it, you don't understand it
The best way to prepare a presentation is to practice on a complete (but intelligent) outsider. Even (maybe especially) if your audience consists of industry experts. You see this often in pitches of technology startups to venture capitalists for fund raising. The entrepreneur is an expert. The VC audience knows a...
Powerful graphics software is enabling a wave of font art. While each of these images might be digital artistic master pieces, I am not convinced of how effective they are in communicating the message. They catch attention, but do they stick? What do you think? See a list of 150+ of...
One of my investor presentations in the public domain
Almost all presentations I design are highly confidential. Presentations of publicly traded companies to stock analysts are an exception. Recently I supported Psion in designing their 2009 preliminary results presentation.Most of you will remember Psion as one of the pioneers of PDAs and the Symbian operating system. After some M&A...
VC pitch: don't spend time/slides on the obvious
Time is precious when pitching to a venture capitalist (VC) for funding your startup. Don't waste it on things the VC is already convinced of. Examples:Common beliefs, i.e., in 5 years from now people will be downloading dramatically more data to their mobile devices than they do today. This can...
Beyond images that just show things
Most stock images are descriptive: search for "ice cream truck" and you get what you asked for. The position the image puts the audience in, is at least as important (maybe even more important) than the object it represents. Look at this image of the inside of the Notre Dame...
PRESENTability
Dilbert fun about PowerPoint Presentation
Over the years, Dilbert’s characters have been dealing with lots of PowerPoint Presentation (should I say BAD presentation?). Thanks to PowerPoint Ninja for collecting those strip. If you want more, you can see the entire collection on PowerPoint Ninja post. Share with me: Have you good cartoons about PowerPoint or presentation? Posted by: Denis...
Save the Date – Incredible Wedding Invitation
This is an awesome wedding invitation. This couple made a short movie to invite their friends and family to their wedding. As I wrote in: Be memorable by being different & surprising, “To stand out from the crowd, we need to be different, unique.” If you want to see something truly different, watch...
I Present Naked to the Board of Directors
New stunning campaign from Citrix for is GoToMeeting solution. A true eyes catching ad, with an intriguing message. How can you be naked to present to the board or to collaborate with coworkers? (see picture beside from Los Angeles Airport). You have to use GoToMeeting. It is a solution for online meeting. The...
Creative ad – A Bus Stop with a Tuque
A bus stop wearing a tuque!! I saw one on twitpic today, I know it is cold in Quebec City (I leave there), but this is really funny. It is real creativity. Thanks to @LaGeeke for the information and the picture. As you can see the tuque is related to the milk ad....
Conseils de Nicolas Roberge pour les gestionnaires en TI face aux médias sociaux
This post is only available in French Joueur très actif des médias sociaux de la région de Québec (et individu extrêmement sympathique), Nicolas Roberge a contribué à l’article du journal Les Affaires intitulé : Quatre conseils aux gestionnaires TI indécis face aux médias sociaux La version en ligne sur le site LesAffaires.com ayant...
Speaking Pro Central
Troubles Talk: Has The Great Recession Doomed It
Way back in 1994, linguist Deborah Tannen brought "troubles talk" to the surface. 0160; In her book TALKING FROM 9 to 5: WOMEN AND MEN AT WORK, Tannen brought out how this tended to be a bonding device for women, even professional ones, at work. 0160; An increasing number of...
There's are signs of economic recovery. 0160; It hasn't snowed for a while here in New Haven, Connecticut. 0160; But today I realized many in the complex where I live are in emotional lockdown, still. 0160; Remember how we used to remind everyone about those time changes, twice a year? Brought...
"Desperate Housewives" - That truth behind the shadows
Tonight was a time when reality struggled out from illusion and closely kept secrets. 0160; Angie reveals to Gabby, on their way back from Manhattan, that Danny's father was a a bad man who involved her in another person's death. 0160; By accident, Gabby reveals to the wrong person in...
How to develop a paid speaking career
I shared a ‘Core Conversation’ yesterday afternoon at SXSW with the consummate professional speaker Tim Sanders , author of Love is the Killer App , The Likeability Factor , and Saving the World at Work . Aided by some great comments, suggestions and...
We learn from stories and experience
When it comes to learning and genuinely retaining something, nothing beats experiences. Formal educational or speaking settings don't always allow for actual hands-on experience with the content, but almost every learning situation — including presentation in various forms — does permit the use of stories. Stories, that is, that illustrate...
DocVerse is a company Google purchased last week that aims at making it's online Google Apps more appealing to MS Office users. DocVerse is ironically a startup founded by two former Microsoft key employees. Colaboration (having multiple people work on a document seamlessly)...
Professionally Speaking...
Volumes have been written about the skills needed for successful sales presentations. Advice abounds about how to present benefits, not features; how to conduct product demos; how to use influencing techniques; how to establish rapport; how to close; and more.......
Strengthen Your Presentation with Word Pictures
As presenters, we should always be searching for ways to make our presentations more memorable, more impactful, more sticky. Word pictures are an excellent way to accomplish this. The term 'word picture' sounds like a dichotomy or a contradiction. Is......
Teleprompters are a relatively recent addition to the field of oratory. The producer of the I Love Lucy TV show claimed credit in the 1950s for the idea and was awarded a U.S. patent for its invention [see below for......
The Don't Miss This List, Edition 6
The blogosphere -- fascinating world that it is -- consists of blather, banality and some brilliance. Luckily, when it comes to presentation advice, examples of brilliance aren't hard to find: KATE PETERS, in Who Let the Frogs Out, shares practical......
Distill Your Message for a More Impactful Presentation
Distill. It has such a nice sound. It suggests that something is being made purer or more concentrated or more essential. It is a word and activity presenters should learn to embrace. Most presentations sound as though their creators never......
I'm the first one to advise against reading a speech. It usually is tricky to maintain decent eye contact, a struggle to sound authentic, challenging to create any kind of connection with the audience...and just plain boring to listen to.......
The Campaign Spot on National Review Online
Looking at This Year's House Races in California... -- By: Jim Geraghty
Today is the filing deadline for federal candidates in California.Despite having a gargantuan 53 House seats, you don't usually see that many competitive House races in California, thanks to gerrymandering. The result is that lots and lots of House members have no real competition, and a bothersome amount - 15!...
I Don't Think Obama Thought He Would Have Wavering Illinois Democrats -- By: Jim Geraghty
Bits of news like this would seem to make passage of Obamacare through the House near-impossible, but I don't know how much of this is real opposition and how much of this is posturing to win concessions elsewhere. "[The restrictions on illegal immigrants] are enough to say I can't support this...
Pat Quinn, Hell-Bent on Taxing Illinois Into Prosperity -- By: Jim Geraghty
There hasn't been a ton of polling in Illinois governor's race, and the two that have been conducted show strikingly different results. Rasmussen puts Republican Bill Brady up 10; Daily Kos's Research2000 poll puts Democrat Pat Quinn up 15. I wonder how Quinn will poll if he manages to enact his...
Jon Corzine Funded a Terrorist. Kind of. -- By: Jim Geraghty
CentristNet calls our attention to this fascinating bit of news: Back in 2005, a gentleman by the name of Sharif Mobley received $75 as an election-day worker for the campaign of Jon Corzine, Democrat running for governor of New Jersey. Corzine won. What's Mobley up to these days? FBI spokesman Rich Wolf...
Competitive Fire Sparked in Burns -- By: Jim Geraghty
Last night, Pennsylvania Republicans picked their candidate to try to win the special election for the remainder of 2010 in the seat once occupied by John Murtha: Tim Burns. Burns won 85 votes; Bill Russell won 46. He'll take on longtime Murtha aide Mark Critz....
So Does the Senate Parliamentarian Have a Brother Who Would Like to Be a Judge? -- By: Jim Geraghty
From the last Jolt of the week: How Long Until the Daily Show Starts Mocking the Senate Parliamentarian? We’ve all had to get our PhDs in congressional procedure lately, haven’t we? In Schoolhouse Rock, it all seemed so simple: I'm just a bill, yes, I'm only a bill, and I'm sitting here...
Persuasions Blog Public Speaking, Persuasive Speech Tips, Word Illustrations, Latest Public Speaking News and Speechmastery Updates
Mar 10, Informative speech topics: A Comprehensive List of Information Speech Topics
Informative speech topics: A list and links to even more....
Mar 7, How to Copyright Something: An Overview of the Copyright Process
how to copyright something...
Mar 7, Three Pillars Crossover
The three pillars of dynamic public speaking cross over to other genres. So in the case of websites and their voice, the three pillars apply. What you write, how you write it and how the site is presented all play a part in building confidence. Check out one of my latest...
Feb 26, Pausing in Public Speaking: Pit Stop for Emphasis, Transitions & Circumstances.
Pausing in public speaking to punctuate, for transitions, for emphasis & drama, for audience to mentally respond, for circumstances. Why, When, Where, & How...
How can your dress and grooming help with your public speech success? The right clothing and apparel can actually assist you two different ways....
Feb 22, Becoming a Public Speaking Nurse, Patient Teaching Meets Public Speaking
Becoming a public speaking nurse, my journey from patient teaching to public speaking. How I did and how you can too....
Jane Atkinson, Speaker Launcher Blog, Speaker Coach, Presentation Skills, Speakers Bureaus
In case you’ve been living under a rock, the 2010 Olympics just wrapped up in Vancouver. Team Canada’s theme was “Own The Podium”. Now, I wasn’t 100% in favor of that message as I thought an athlete’s journey was important too, but in the end it was effective. 14 golds,...
Are You Asking for the Business?
Whether it be from the platform, or in follow up with clients, most of us are lousy at asking for the business. And, if you were to do a quick calculation, you’d see the cost. Just imagine if every audience could provide spin off to 3 more engagements…. And if each of those...
Whenever people find out that I am a coach for professional speakers, they always want to tell me about a speaker that they experienced. It’s rare that they remember the speaker’s name. But frequently they will tell me a story that the speaker told and we’ll be able to piece together the...
Where are You on Your “S Curve”?
There’s that old saying, what goes up must come down. And if you believe the philosophy behind the S curve in business, you’ll understand why. In last months Voice of Experience (NSA’s monthly audio) Mike Rayburn talked about the S curve and how you need to re-engineer your business before you get...
Yesterday during my workout, I was watching “So You Think You Can Dance”. There was a section where they stopped the auditions and told the dancers what the do’s and dont’s for this year were. First thing to go? The male booty shake. No surprise there – who...
Fire, Without Shooting Yourself in the Foot
How is next year going to be different for you? As we start to wind down for the holidays, you’ll no doubt be thinking about how you want to start off the New Year in your business. And, of course, you want to start it right. Right? Remember in The...
PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques
"Pimp Your PowerPoint" - 8 Tips from Experts on YourBusinessChannel
From YourBusinessChannel as found on MarketingByMouth.com....
PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques Resource Guide Rev 11
The PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques Resource Guide has been updated and is now in its 11th revision. Additions and deletions to the Resource Guide make this a current version for your reference to tools and resources to improve your presentation and PowerPoint skills. Call on Paul J...
Twitter more fully integrated into PPT - Powerful Presentation Techiques
I haven't been posting to this blog as frequently as I like due to spending more time with Twitter. I've found that Twitter allows me to quickly share articles and resources that I've come across without spending quite as much......
A dramatic reading from one of the books in the PPT Reference Listing
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Photo Editing Tools - Alternatives to Photoshop
As presenters, we're often using photographs in our presentations. There are many free and fee tools to enhance or modify our photographs to better convey our message or engage our audience. Read Write Web had an article reviewing 7 free......
How Twitter is Being Used at Conferences
Academic paper on how Twitter is being used at conferences and meetings....
Executive Speaking Weblog
Political Speak: We believe vs. the Facts
With elections in South Australia and Tasmania this coming weekend, as well as a Federal election and Victorian election due sometime this year, it is appropriate to look at political language – and I’m not talking about politically correct language. In election mode you will hear speakers from all sides of politics telling...
Why the Fear of Public Speaking?
Why do people fear Public Speaking? There are many statistics that state public speaking is our greatest fear. Apparently it is higher than the fear of spiders, snakes, flying and even death itself (though there are not stats on the fear of dieing from a snake or spider bite while flying) Why...
How Will You be Different for Your Clients in 2010?
If you want different results in 2010 you haev to be different to 2009...
The 5 minute Annual Sales Conference
Make this next sales conference interesting....
being comfortable at public speaking is not good. Here's why....
How Westpac got their Ads wrong...
Inter-Activ Presenting and Influencing
If you want to be good at sales, you need to learn how to present
In my book, presentation skills and selling skills go hand and hand. The principles of effective selling will help you to produce powerful persuasive presentation and the principles of great presenting will help you sell much better face to face. Almost every type of presentation is about persuasion. You want your...
How to write a five minute speech in ten minutes!
Sometimes people say that one of the reasons that they don’t speak in public is because they don’t have the time to write a speech. So here is the solution. A simple, foolproof process for writing a short snappy speech that gets results. Step 1: If you don’t already have a...
Don’t underestimate the power of storytelling in business and education
Stories are incredibly important tools for communicating all sorts of information. I have been an “unconscious” story collector now for many years and as a trainer, these stories have been incredibly helpful to my participants in bringing the material I teach to life. To be honest I tend to take them...
Presence and the power of alignment – part 3
In part 2 I outlined a step by step exercise to allow you to “walk up” the logical to help create internal alignment and in turn enhance “stage presence”. Here in the final part of this article I will explain how, having “walked up” the levels from Environment through Behaviour, Capability and Beliefs...
Presence and the power of alignment – part 2
In part 1 of this article I introduced you to Dilt’s Logical Levels model and suggested that it could be used as an exercise to help create internal alignment and in turn enhance “stage presence”. So here is how you do it. Start by getting five pieces of paper and labelling each piece...
Presence and the power of alignment – part 1
Many people ask me how they can come close to achieving the kind of charismatic stage “presence” that the best presenters and speakers seem to have naturally. My answer is that the best preseners are alligned and congruent i.e. how they are on the outide is a reflection of their degree of...
Geetesh Bajaj's Blogs
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Tech made easy and fun -- so that you enjoy tech, rather than tech enjoying you!...
Everything about PowerPoint programming including VBA, VSTO, and more....
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Twitter / johncmaxwell
johncmaxwell: One [person] can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one [person] cannot make a team. -Kareem Abdul-Jabbar...
johncmaxwell: On my blog today: updated travel schedule & a fun video: http://bit.ly/9Yt4AQ
johncmaxwell: On my blog today: updated travel schedule & a fun video: http://bit.ly/9Yt4AQ...
johncmaxwell: If a team is 2 reach its potential, each player must be willing 2 subordinate his goals 2 the good of the team. -Bud Wilkinson...
johncmaxwell: No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it. -Halford E Luccock
johncmaxwell: No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it. -Halford E Luccock...
johncmaxwell: Just a taste of the spiritual depth & meaning on our trip to Israel. Video of the Baalbusters Song: http://bit.ly/9Yt4AQ...
johncmaxwell: I'm back in the USA after speaking in Israel, South Africa, & Kenya. Great memories!
johncmaxwell: I'm back in the USA after speaking in Israel, South Africa, & Kenya. Great memories!...
Speak Without Interruption
TB: Experimental Fiction is Literary, with a goal towards an artistic presentation of the subject in a unique way. And in any innovative literature, especially the more experimental it is, a big part of the "subject" actually IS the presentation. The WAY it is conveyed can be exciting, and the...
My sister Sally is a few years older (and a few eons wiser) than me, and she was off and married to the man of her dreams when I was only five. I used to go round a lot to Sally and Philip’s house – a habit I haven’t particularly broken...
Stuart Aken reviews Like False Money by Penny Grubb
Some crime novels are intriguing puzzles begging for solution, some are sensitive character studies describing the relationship of investigator to crime and perpetrator, and some are fast-paced action stories packed with incident and threat. Penny Grubb, in Like False Money, has blended all three in one fascinating novel. The heroine, Annie,...
Background to Monday Afternoon
Stephen Sangirardi Bard715@aol.com Background to Monday Afternoon Asked to write some information about how I came to write my novel, I must be very frank about three things. Two years ago, my friend and the Editor of Wild Leaf Press, Bill Hunter, gave me some advice about writing a novel. Bill said...
Simmering a Book in a Year w/setbacks & backdrops & Dialoguing It
Setbacks can end forward progress on a writing project but it is not the mistakes and missteps that define us but how we react to them; overcoming the loss of 75 pages is the topic of the ongoing Cook a Book in a Year gauntlet I have thrown down at...
Growing up in Nigeria West Africa, there was a song we kids use to sing back in the day. It went thus: If I had the wings of a dove If I had the wings of a dove I will fly Fly away Over the mountains Over the hills ‘Cause my love is waiting for me. Thinking on...
washingtonpost.com - George F. Will Archive
Justices and politicians should boycott the State of the Union
The increasingly puerile spectacle of presidential State of the Union addresses is indicative of the state of the union and is unnecessary: The Constitution requires only that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union." But a reaction may be...
As a progressive, Obama hews to the Wilsonian tradition
There are legislative miles to go before the government will be emancipated from its health-care myopia, but it is not too soon for a summing-up. Whether all or nothing of the legislation becomes law, Barack Obama has refuted critics who call him a radical. He has shown himself to be...
How the Constitution, filtered by the high court, affects guns
It is said, more frequently than precisely, that the reasons the Supreme Court gives for doing whatever it does are as important as what it does. Actually, the court's reasons are what it does. Hence, the interest in the case the Supreme Court considered last week....
How to ruin a child: Too much esteem, too little sleep
Memo to that Massachusetts school where children in physical education classes jump rope without using ropes: Get some ropes. And you -- you are about 85 percent of all parents -- who are constantly telling your children how intelligent they are: Do your children a favor and pipe down....
Marketing the 2010 census with a conservative-friendly face
Most recent challenges to the U.S. Census have come from the left, with claims of undercounts of blacks, Hispanics and the homeless. But what's striking about the 2010 Census is the emerging strength of challenges from the political right. Census participation rates have been declining since 1970, and if conservatives...
Handbook suggests that deviations from 'normality' are disorders
Peter De Vries, America's wittiest novelist, died 17 years ago, but his discernment of this country's cultural foibles still amazes. In a 1983 novel, he spotted the tendency of America's therapeutic culture to medicalize character flaws:...
Public Speakers Blog
A few years ago I got a call from an executive at Oprah Winfrey’s company, Harpo Productions. She was interested in having their executives attend the Bill Gove Speech Workshop. It was an unsolicted call from one of the best possible clients. We’ve had similar calls from Dear Abby, John...
Bill Gove: The Master of Keynote Speaking
I’m often asked what made Bill Gove, the father of professional speaking, so successful as a keynote speaker and coach of more million dollar speakers than anyone in history. After spending five years on the road with Bill, I think I know the answer. Listen to this post and copy...
PLEASE DON’T Write a Book in 30 Days
The average best-selling author spends 12-24 months writing their books, yet there’s a bunch of people promising new speakers they can do it in 30 days. These are the same people claiming the speaking business is easy and you can throw a speech together overnight and you don’t even have...
Should speakers thank the audience?
Seems like a pretty easy question to answer, but speakers have different beliefs about this. We get this question at every session of the Bill Gove Speech Workshop, and we give the workshop philosophy to the participants. Bill Gove, the father of professional speaking, felt very strongly about this. Listen...
Audience “Shocked and Stunned” by Senior Executives Comments on Speaking Business
I interviewed a senior executive last weekend in Atlanta at the Siebold Success Network meeting for almost 2 hours onstage, and the audience of speakers was shocked at what she had to say. This executive hires some of the biggest speakers in the business, and she told the truth about...
How to get booked as a professional speaker in the Fortune 500
If you’re interested in speaking for the biggest, richest companies in the world but you haven’t been able to figure out how to do it, don’t feel bad. Fortune 500 companies have multiple gatekeepers whose only job is to screen and block calls from unknown vendors. The good news is...
Excellence in Presentations
When you finished making a presentation or giving a speech, did you come away with the feeling that it was okay? When you asked your friend in the audience how it went, did the reply come back as “it was okay”? Have you ever wondered in your mind: did I...
Why do people get nervous when they speak in public?
This is an age old question. Why do people get nervous when they have to speak in front of a group of strangers? There have been many many studies done on this subject. Numerous doctoral theses have been written on this topic. The basic reason we get nervous is fear....
The Impact of Public Speaking on Top Sales Performance
Angela Definis of Blog Carnival asked me to write a blog on the impact of public speaking on top sales performance. Books have been written on this very topic. I will just summary here a few of the many keys points that I have in my own book. An excellent example...
What a difference from the previous post!
What a difference from the previous post! Here you have Steve Jobs having a conversation with the audience. You do not see a whole bunch of mind numbing bullet points or words on the screen. What you see is Steve going over the features of his new product (iPad) and...
This one borders on being criminal!
Take a look at this PowerPoint slide from an on-line training course! They actually have the temerity to have computer generated voice read off every word and acronym on that busy slide. Do they bother to explain what those acronyms (SJE, SJEOO, SJOO, STOO, etc.) mean? Of course not. ...
I came across this fantastic video by Tom Peters. The subtext of it is this: Perception is all there is. There is no reality. Think about that when you make your next presentation. Think about how your audience perceives you; think about this when you give a glib presentation —...