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…
If you have something controversial to say it is often a good idea to put the words in someone else’s mouth. If you want to say that Audi make dull but reliable cars, quote Jeremy Clarkson. You can always follow up your insult with “I don’t happen to agree…” but your point has already been…
Everybody knows that stories have structure. They start with ‘Once upon a time….’ and end with ‘happily ever after.’ And in between the beginning and the end, comes the middle. In Western culture, most novels, plays and films tend to follow a simple 3 act structure, with each act playing a particular role in driving…
Tony Blair, then the UK Prime Minister, went to speak to the formidable ladies of the Women’s Institute (WI) in June 2000. The WI is a conservative body of middle class women who know what they like and is not the most natural audience for a socialist (ish) Prime Minister. He made the mistake (and…
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…