Emphasis, the great speaker’s skill. Proper emphasis helps an audience remember those things that the speaker thinks will be most useful to them out of everything h/she says. Every line that you say will have words that carry the meaning of that sentence or phrase. The stress that you place on those words will change…
I know that getting laid is not the only measure of success, but it’s translatable for everyone isn’t it? Whether you want the doubtful charms of an audience member, or business for the long-term from a corporate client, it’s opportunities we want isn’t it? So as a metaphor, let’s use the ‘getting laid’ idea as…
There’s an epidemic of near-fatal speaker’s diseases to be seen in corporate life. Here’s a quick outline of three of them, with the key symptoms for each to help you decide if you know anybody who’s suffering. If you do, there’s a simple cure. Outlined at the end of the article. Abstraction poisoning: This occurs…
On Tuesday evening, I experienced two firsts: I went to the Apple store on Oxford Road (enormous, trendy and grand), and I saw the brilliant Garr Reynolds speak. If you’re not familiar, Garr is the author of the ‘Presentation Zen’ books – a must read for anyone who ever makes slides, writes speeches, or presents…
I had reason to sit in on a brief, fifteen minute lecture recently, where an SEO specialist was setting out Search Engine Optimisation tactics to a group of amateur Mum bloggers. He started off well, giving a quick round-up of what SEO actually means – it’s about improving where your website gets ranked in Google search results….
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…
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