Speaking tips blog
Communication matters. What are you saying?
You gotta want it
Talked with or heard about three people today who were needing help with their communication skills and... didn't want any help. Had a conversation yesterday with someone who had a whole division of people who felt like they were fine. I could make a case for an...
You’ve heard this before
Heard a speaker close with a signature story to drive home the point the other day. His lead-in was essentially, "I know you've probably heard this before, but here it is anyway..." With one statement, he took what was otherwise a good close and marginalized it and...
Look at me!
Another day of presentations, more common errors. Today seemed to be the "oh, excuse me, I just made a mistake" day. If you stutter, stumble, lose your place, even start the wrong presentation, everyone listening probably already knows. You don't need to tell everyone...
When in doubt
Worked with several presenters in the last few days. In most every case we are making great progress getting them into a unique approach that will capture their audience's attention and being true to their message, their personality, and their comfort. But in every...
Are you sure?
Heard an exec offer this compelling close today: "I think that's all for now..." I wanted to shout, "ARE YOU SURE?". I suppose matters were made worse by the fact that the wind-down took another 40 seconds to the actual close of the presentation. But I doubt anyone...
Stuck
Saw a presenter recently utilize some signs as part of their presentation. I thought it was a nice way to highlight some key points, provided a nice pause to put the signs out (of course you would pause -- you wouldn't talk while you did that, would you?), and was a...
Get turned on
Watched a speaker today get up in a sequence of speakers, pick up the remote to the overhead projector (only presenter to use the projector), and ask loud enough for everyone to hear, "How do you turn this thing on?" I suppose an easier method to impress your audience...
Tuesday’s child
I know. It's Wednesday. But a point from a recent class makes me think of Tuesday.Working with a hands-on lab, demo-driven with student exercises. It's a long class and keeping up and attentive is hard for students and instructor alike. One particular student was...
The point is…
Teaching a three-day class. It's long for everyone. Had a section where there was a key point that needed to be made. I made it, repeated it, repeated it again, summarized it, and felt like the horse was beaten beyond the grave. And then...I had a student ask a...
We’ll end with this…
Heard a speaker the other day enter that cardinal sin world of talking about time. It was subtle -- "... and we'll end with this..." So many problems with this. His main problem was... he didn't end with that. He went on, thought of something else he wanted to say,...
Foreign relations
One of the joys in my job is interacting with so many folks with international connections. There are just not that many nationalities I haven't interacted with while teaching/training. And while the language barrier or accent in the same language (I only speak...
Failure!
Had what I consider to be about the worst thing that could happen to me that doesn't involve the people I love. I had a hard disk failure. And I had not been good about backups. I'm in the process of recovery, but even the best-case scenario will take me several weeks...
