20th July, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - No Comments
Business people – especially the ones in marketing and HR – looooove the word leverage. Their talks are full of how we’ll leverage assets, leverage people, leverage ideas, even how they’ll leverage the competition. Some of these speakers love the word leverage so much that, when I ask them what word they would use instead, if » Read More
17th July, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - No Comments
Yesterday, Steve Jobs gave a press conference on Apple’s response to complaints about the iPhone 4. We thought it was a terrific example of two things: making amends when you need to, and pushing back when you need to. Lots has been written about apologies, and what constitutes an “appropriate” apology. Here’s a good piece » Read More
17th June, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - No Comments
Forget about ‘em. Seriously. Because when your attention is on your hands, it’s not on us, out in the audience. And we matter more than your hands do. PLUS: Your hands are really smart. In almost all cases, they’ll do everything naturally and intelligently — IF you just let them do what they do. When you become » Read More
25th May, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - No Comments
“I pulled a few slides from a deck I gave last week to the Board.” Yikes. This speaker means one of three things, none of them good: – “I talk to the Board and you DON’T,” – “I prepared for them, but for you: leftovers. Deal » Read More
26th March, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - No Comments
“I have about 20 slides to share with you today.” You could almost hear the groans in the room. We were at the meeting to watch a client we’d coached – NOT this speaker, we hasten to add – when this speaker stood to present. Now, you’ve heard similar openings before. So you know what that » Read More
22nd March, 2010 - Posted by InVisibleLight, Inc. - 2 Comments
People spend way too much meeting time in looking back instead of forward. When we could be looking at what could and should and must happen next, our time gets wasted with reports on what’s already happened. We don’t have time for that anymore. If we ever did! If you have past performance data to share, send » Read More
22nd February, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - 1 Comment
We’ve met countless speakers who believe that telling a joke is a great way to break the ice with an audience. It doesn’t. All it does is break our hope that your presentation will be different from the others we’ve sat through. For every time it’s worked to start with a joke, there are thousands of » Read More
17th February, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - No Comments
TED is a terrific series of conferences on “Big Idea” topics related to Technology, Entertainment and Design (hence, TED). They invite speakers from around the world to come talk about “ideas worth spreading.” And in twenty minutes or less, the audience gets to learn what they’re creating and why. After the conference, TED posts the talks » Read More
8th February, 2010 - Posted by jeffdavis - 2 Comments
Somewhere in the mid-1990’s, business speakers began to get smart about spin. That’s when “problems “were transformed into “opportunities,” and “near disasters” became, “challenges.” There is something to be said for the detached, objective description of a situation. For example, flight attendants tell us, “In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks » Read More
3rd February, 2010 - Posted by jeffdavis - 5 Comments
There are a few phrases business speakers use that are meant to convey one meaning, but actually convey another. “We are well-positioned to…” is one of those phrases. It sounds so mature and business-like, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why so many speakers reach for it. When we hear speakers say, “We’re well-positioned to…” we hear » Read More
