I went to see ‘Top Gear Live” with the kids and my wife last week. For the uninitiated, TG is a TV car show in the UK, now widely franchised throughout the world, that gives three middle-aged men the chance to talk and drive and drive and talk. The ‘Live’ event is a sign of…
Brilliant presenters understand that their audience has ever shifting attention. Sometimes it’s on you, sometimes it’s not. And that’s okay, so long as we know where it is and where we want it to be. Poor speakers tend to leave the audience to their own devices, then get jittery as the audience’s attention tends to…
People often ask me how to inspire people in a speech. They ask cautiously, carefully, as if it’s something they should be ashamed to be wanting to know. They ask as if it’s an evil kind of magic like a love potion, that would give them an advantage in love and life that they don’t…
I love all of the contact I have with my readers and clients, I love the challenges that they bring to me and the stuff that they teach me. It really keeps me going – and if you would like to get in touch, please use the contact form, or sign up to the mailing…
“Does anybody have any questions about what I’ve covered today?” Blank looks all round. An uncomfortable thirty seconds of silence, as everyone cranes their neck to see if someone is going to ask a question. “Okay folks, well thanks for listening.” Does this scene seem familiar to you? Does the mere suggestion of a Q&A…
Have you come across it? It’s the fastest growing participation sport in corporate life. It just needs a place in which to do it, an audience, as many players as you can muster, a few minutes’ preparation and a victim. The game is a product of boredom, cynicism and powerlessness and comprises a strange mix…
How to improve presentation skills? Should we be more formal? I was asked the question the other day by a Graduate at a top city firm in London. He’d just given a pretty good presentation, under great pressure in a business simulation in front of his boss, colleagues and other senior people in the firm….
MICROSOFT boss Steve Sinofsky puts on a brave face as his company’s rival to the iPad FREEZES at the opening presentation. Here’s the video- The papers, not surprisingly, reported it as negatively as they could- Just after the Microsoft president explained how users could “browse smoothly” on the tablet, the system, which was being…
I’ve been lucky to have worked with hundreds of Spaniards, Catalans, French, Polish, Russians and Swedes over the past 20 years, helping them to present and pitch to international audiences in English. All of them have had enough English to do exactly what they needed to do, but all of them wanted help to do…