PowerPoint on iPhone or iPad: Practice and Present
If you have an iPhone or an iPad and you do PowerPoint presentations, you will want to get the free SlideShark app. I’ve used it on my iPad to do one-on-one presentations and I’ve also used it on my phone to practice presentations. You can also broadcast your presentation to the web and connect your […]
Is Communication Really 93% Non-Verbal?
Have you heard these statistics?: “Effective communication is only 7 percent verbal and 93 percent non-verbal (the non-verbal is 55 percent body language and 38 percent tone of voice). They are often accompanied by a PowerPoint pie chart: Maybe you have even quoted those statistics. I’ve heard so many speakers quote those numbers (including a […]
Improve Your Speaking with Improv
Aside from participating in Toastmasters, the most beneficial activity I have done to improve my speaking was to take a couple of improv classes several years ago. The idea of speaking without preparation may be terrifying to you. It’s still not my favorite thing to do, but practicing improv in class, in Toastmasters and even […]
Don’t Risk a Bad Start: Bring Your Speaker Introduction
Your speaker introduction is an important part of your presentation. It should get the audience leaning forward with anticipation of the topic and also set up your credibility (here’s a post on how to write your speaker introduction). Unless you have a video of your introduction played just prior to your presentation (which can be […]
Writing and Publishing Ebooks for Speakers
It was July 30, 2010 and I sat across from Mark LeBlanc, a business consultant and former National Speaker Association National president. He looked at me with his hound dog eyes and said, “You need to write a book. And you can do it next month” It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a “demandment.” I […]
Free ebook–Public Speaking Lessons from TED Talks
Free until Saturday, March 8, 2014 Get your free Kindle version of the short e-book, Public Speaking Lessons from TED Talks: The Good and the Bad from the 10 Most-Viewed TED Talks Imagine giving a powerful, TEDTalk-Style Presentation. You can learn insightful tips from this ebook, a compilation my past 10 posts on the top 10 most-viewed TED Talks. The […]
Speaking Tips from TEDTalk #2: How Great Leaders Inspire Action (Simon Sinek)
TEDTalk Countdown: the #2 most-watched video on TED. Video and Transcript The Big Idea: People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it. The overall construct of the speech: Persuasive, using logic, research and anecdotes Not perfect: His opening rhetorical question took me off-track at the start. “How do you explain when things […]
Speaking Tips from TEDTalk #7: Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are (Amy Cuddy)
Video and transcript here The Big Idea: Amy Cuddy shares how “power posing,” standing or sitting in a posture of confidence, even when you don’t feel confident, can affect testosterone (dominance hormone) and cortisol (stress hormone) levels in the body, causing you to feel and be perceived as more confident. It’s not “fake it till […]
Speaking Tips from TEDTalk #9: The SixthSense Interaction (Pattie Maes)
Video and transcript here The Big Idea: An inexpensive, wearable device (SixthSense) can interact with our environment to give us easy access to relevant information to help us make better decisions. The overall construct of the speech: A demonstration, mostly via video. The demonstration was of a device that functioned somewhat like Google Glass, but […]
Speaking Tips from TED Talk #10 The Puzzle of Motivation (Dan Pink)
This is the first in a series of 10 posts, looking at the public speaking lessons from each of the top 10-most viewed TED Talks. Dan Pink: The Puzzle of Motivation video and transcript here The Big Idea: Science has proven what business is only slowly realizing: Using incentives as rewards in business doesn’t work […]