Here’s my list of bad to beautiful public speaking moments for 2010: 10. We’ll start with bad: I’m still amazed that this guy made it onto national news after the viral explosion of his supposed nomination speech at a political event in NE Ohio. Nonetheless, I’ll chalk it up to good acting as there’s no way someone sober […]
While executing a public speaking and presentation training for rising executive at a national manufacturer recently, we inadvertently found a deep breaking point. While she broke down weeping we knew that it meant one thing: we found her pain. Her boss had employed us for a day of evaluation and experimentation. She suspected that there
When you find the pain Read More »
If you were invited to share your story or idea at an event with 400 progressive minds in a contemporary art museum, how could you refuse, right? Welcome to Pecha Kucha. It means “chit chat” in Japanese and the concept started about 7 years ago and is now in over 350 cities worldwide. Around 10 talks
Are 6 minutes or 20 slides more important? Read More »
In our Influential Storytelling class at ar.tic.u.la.tion, we apply critical thinking methodologies to help properly frame a story. So on our summer family vacation a week ago, I thought I’d test the logic with my 7 year old daughter. What better story to practice than “what I did this summer,” knowing she’d be quizzed upon returning to school
How was your summer? Read More »
A college professor commented that his students were giving him a wide range of feedback on his lectures. “Some students think I’m the second coming and others think I’m a train wreck. What gives?” Having heard him speak at a public forum and also having had many conversations with him, the answer was pretty simple.
On Wednesday this week, Jan and I attended the ‘final exam’ in Alaina Sheer’s presentation transformation. I hadn’t written about our style and delivery session that we had a few weeks ago as I knew there was some additional work to be done before she was really ready to present. Tuesday night we had a chance
A presentation transformation: part 2. Read More »
From fairy tales to extreme makeovers, who doesn’t love a good before-and-after story? HGTV has built an empire around ’em (with good reason) and TLC offers a veritable pantheon of makeover shows about babies, weddings and beauty. So Ruth and I thought it would be fun and, more importantly, helpful and enlightening, to feature a before-and-after story of
A presentation transformation: part 1 Read More »
In today’s New York Times, an illuminating story about multi-tasking adorned the front page. It’s disintegrating our ability to focus, the research argues (I would personally agree!). And indeed, checking email, texting, facebooking, skyping, webinaring- whatever the task- must all be but aside for the careful work that is presentation preparation. I recently queried a PR
San Diego, August, 1996: I was sequestered for a day in the speechwriters’ room behind the big stage at the Republican National Convention. I was there to “traffic” a speech. I was charged to make sure the one that was supposed to scroll on the teleprompter was the one my ‘principal’ was expecting to give,
From Ruth: 25 years in the making Read More »
