It’s a really good question for presenters. Every slide, every story, every image, every point. Ask yourself ‘So what?’ because it will lead you to shorter, more focused and more powerful messages. And it’s worth reminding ourselves that it’s always the question that the audience will be asking themselves at some stage during your speech. …
Use Alliteration: Alliteration is the deliberate arrangement of words with the same letters and sounds at their start for explosive effect. Alliteration is a trick of the spoken word. A technique that is very popular with tabloid newspaper editors, TV presenters and poets… Examples: Magazine articles: “Science has Spoiled my Supper”, “Too Much Talent in…
Metaphor is a fundamental tool of the English language. Without it, meaning would suffer because we would be left with flat description not vivid pictures in words. A metaphor makes a link between previously unlinked things. This linking can add meaning, and depth to our understanding of the world. When Mrs Thatcher, the UK’s formidable…
Hypnotists and comedians know that people hypnotise and amuse themselves. A hypnotist’s job is to get the subject to use her own imagination to ‘see’ that other possibilities exist. To see her walking into a room with confidence, getting the job, making the presentation. A comedian’s job is to get us to see the joke…
In the ” Dictionary of Plain English”, the editor A.G. Fowler says… “Hackneyed phrases become hackneyed because they are useful in the first instance; but they derive a new efficiency from the very fact that they are hackneyed.” I think he means that clichés can be useful if you use the right ones. Use the…
Abstractions distance the audience from you as a speaker, they make it harder for you to connect your ideas with their lives. On bad days they make you sound like a charicature of corporate foolishness. The most commonly used abstractions in presentations are jargon words and phrases. Bullshit by any other name. They roll off…
We’ve all heard the numbers- 7% of your meaning is contained in the words you say; 35% in the vocal delivery and the rest (I can’t be bothered to do the sums), is body language… Well folks it seems like even the guy who did the study thinks it’s not true. Dr Albert Meherabian did…
A noun, as you know, is a word that describes a thing. An object, a town, a cat, a condition. An abstract noun is a word that describes a thing that has no physical reality. Abstract nouns can describe feelings, qualities, ideas and thoughts. Abstract nouns can describe feelings such as helplessness and sorrow; qualities like…
In the last 3 months we’ve been trying something a bit different in our campaigning for new business- we decided to follow our own advice, which is rare for consulting firms, in that we decided to run a really narrow campaign, rather than the ‘we can do everything in our space’ marketing so common in…