8th April, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - No Comments
It’s true that the most powerful moments in your presentation are the first moments, and the closing moments. The way you start the message, and the way you bring it home, are hugely important. But there’s another powerful moment that most speakers discount, and that comes when you STOP talking. It’s the moment when your » Read More
30th March, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - 2 Comments
Storytelling has been the most powerful engine for idea dissemination throughout human history. It has served to explain the world, from the sublime to the mundane. Everything from, ”Is there a god?” to “why you should defer gratification and save for the future” has been explicated through story, and in a gazillion ways. We are » 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
16th March, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - 1 Comment
Ever wondered why you hate being in the audience for so many of the presentations you hear? It’s not because you’re bored. It’s because of something else entirely. More specifically, we know you get bored. But you don’t get bored because those speakers are boring. You get bored because those speakers are paying attention to the wrong » Read More
7th March, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - 1 Comment
Forget what your mother told you. Gossip is good. And it ought to be in your next presentation. Yeah, gossip can be dangerous. But it’s always riveting and often useful. If you haven’t learned something interesting at the water cooler (or on the water cooler replacements of facebook and Twitter), you aren’t paying attention. The fact is, » Read More
1st March, 2010 - Posted by janebeard - No Comments
Think again. We’ve found that most speakers – even the seriously, can’t-get-a-deep-breath-afraid-I-might-throw-up speakers – ALSO are looking forward to some aspect of the presentation. Mixed in with the anxiety, in other words, is anticipation. Sometimes eagerness. The thing is, anxiety and anticipation can show up in similar ways. Your heart beat picks up. Your hands can » 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
