Speaking

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:08pm

Here are a couple of regular IT guys who are more comfortable singing in front of an audience than speaking. Check out their musical introductions at our local Chamber of Commerce meetings to promote their business. Wanna get out of your comfort zone? Try singing your message!

Tags: Fun Stuff, Engaging the Audience, Taking Risks

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:50am

In “The Sure Thing,” John Cusack’s character, Gib, confronts a threatening pick-up driver by asking, “You think I got nothing better to do with my life then to sit here and pass the time with you?”  These days, as mobile communication increases and audience etiquette decreases, presenters probably feel like attacking their audiences with this same question every [...]

Tags: Content

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:50am

Up in New Hampshire, Republican Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte catches likely Democratic rival Paul Hodes offering statistics about the stimulus creating jobs in the state that are . . . well, in all likelihood, made up, as Hodes offers no citations for these 16,000 jobs, gives no explanation as to how he came up with them, and yanked the numbers from his web site once questions were raised.

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:50am

In “The Sure Thing,” John Cusack’s character, Gib, confronts a threatening pick-up driver by asking, “You think I got nothing better to do with my life then to sit here and pass the time with you?”  These days, as mobile communication increases and audience etiquette decreases, presenters probably feel like attacking their audiences with this same question every [...]

Tags: Content

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 10:00am

So what can Recovery.gov tell us about the impact of the stimulus on Allentown, Pennsylvania, the first stop on President Obama's jobs tour? Examining zip code 18102 on Recovery.gov tells me that the "City of Allentown" was awarded $672,157 in total awards, and 0.00 jobs were created or saved from it.Then another $2,258,098 was awarded to the "City of Allentown," with anot[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 09:18am

Here's what six weeks of advertising, estimated at a cost of $1 million, have done for Harry Reid: "Just 38 percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Senate majority leader, the same percentage as in October and 1 point higher than in August." I have no dog in the Nevada GOP primary, which features nine candidates but three major ones: businesswoman[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 09:14am

When certain prominent features of something or someone are highlighted and other features are diminished, that is called caricature. Studies have found that it is easier to identify a political leader from a caricature than from a real photograph.You can use caricatures of yourself in your own promotional material or in your programs to make fun of yourself. You can do the same thing to make fun [...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 08:39am

When a once-respected writer, editor and blogger wants to examine and re-examine her birth canal in excruciating detail like it's the Zapruder film, and numbskulls like Alan Colmes offer the medically innovative theory that flying on a plane caused her son's Downs Syndrome, maybe it's a bit much to expect Sarah Palin to come riding to Barack Obama's defense on birth certificate[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 08:29am

Mike Huckabee has a defender some folks might not have expected: Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney defended Mike Huckabee's clemency decision that allegedly led to the shooting death of four police officers in Washington state.. During an interview Thursday night with CNN's Larry King Live, Romney, who in his four years as governor says he did not pardon or commute a single[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 08:18am

This is rich: DNC Chairman Tim Kaine contends the future for the opposing party is dark because, “the tea party movement is devouring the GOP.” Kaine, the departing governor of Virginia, wanted to offer supporting arguments from Democrats like incoming Governor Creigh Deeds, incoming Lieutenant Gov. Jody Wagner, incoming Attorney General Steve Shannon, and state legislators Margi[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 08:01am

Over on the home page, a look at Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb, two Democrats caught between their constituents and the president on ObamaCare.

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 07:54am

This morning brings actual... kinda, sorta, almost good news on the economy: the unemployment rate is 10 percent, down from 10.2 percent last month; the number of unemployed actually grew, but by 11,000, which is a much smaller number than the usual six-figure numbers we've had this year and much of last. Perhaps we've hit bottom. However, if you hear any fool on the left contending tha[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 07:18am

How many times have you made a list of win themes and discriminators--or SWOT, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats--only to see that it reads like this: faster, low risk, best value, best of breed, world class, and people, processes, tools and technology? This list does nothing to help you win government contracts or new commercial business--what bidder is going to brag about the o[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:12am

What do you do when you prefer not to use a lectern, but its use is implied by the nature of your speaking engagement? Do you follow convention and stand behind it? Or, do you go with your gut and break free? Ask Six Minutes That’s the question posed in a message I recently received from a Six Minutes subscriber. He writes: I am planning a speech to about 2,000 people where I will be ask[...]

Tags: Delivery Techniques, Ask Six Minutes, lectern, religious speech

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 11:30pm

The great cliche of presentation blogs is that people fear making a speech more than death itself. Speeches, though, only win the silver medal in the Phobia Olympics. Most men would rather do a thousand speeches than have a single conversation with their mates about prostate examinations, let alone actually have one done. Which brings us, with that very tenuous link, to the magnificent effort of t[...]

Tags: Staging, Ben Coombe, gareth percey, Scene Change Tasmania, prostate cancer, depression

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:15pm

A presentation should have a consistent look and feel on each slide. When you are using just text and PowerPoint shapes, this is no problem: just use consistent fonts and colors. Images complicate things because they usually come from different sources and - as a result - have different styles:Colors"Real" images versus studio shots"Real" images versus computer-generated render[...]

Tags: Presentation, PowerPoint, Design, Images

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 07:47pm

Buckle your presentation seatbelts, because the backchannel is coming! I’ve spent the last part of the year writing my new book The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever , which explores the dramatic changes that are coming soon to a presentation near you. As far as books go, the book happened amazingly fast - fro[...]

Tags: Books, backchannel, BBP news, BBP resources

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 07:47pm

Buckle your presentation seatbelts, because the backchannel is coming! I’ve spent the last part of the year writing my new book The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever, which is now available at online retailers and soon in a bookstore near you.  The Backchannel explores the dramatic changes that are co[...]

Tags: Books, backchannel, BBP news, BBP resources

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 04:29pm

Now he tells us: "The tension we've been seeing is that what is good for the longer term may not work as an immediate short-term stimulus. We're still getting slapped around in the Recovery Act for this," Obama said. "The term 'shovel-ready' -- let's be honest, it doesn't always live up to its billing."

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 04:26pm

We've come to one of those rare circumstances where you hear me saying, "good for you, Mr. President." Gallup reports: President Obama has managed to thread the needle with his newly announced Afghanistan strategy, with his approach winning the approval of a majority of both Democrats (58%) and Republicans (55%) in a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Wednesday night. At the same tim[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 04:17pm

Both Rasmussen and Daily Kos have released polls looking at Arkansas' Senate race next year. Incumbent Democrat Blanche Lincoln is in rough shape in both, with a favorable rating at 43 percent in Rasmussen and 41 percent in Kos. Rasmussen has Lincoln losing to all GOP challengers, by margins from 3 to 7 percentage points; Kos has her narrowly ahead of two and ahead by a healthy margin agains[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 03:45pm

Fellow speakers,When making a series of points to your audience, look from the left to the middle to the right for each point, balancing out your looks with the audience as a whole.In balance,Tim

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 02:26pm

We are told North Carolina Democrats are quite excited that a former state senator who fought in Iraq, Cal Cunningham, has changed his mind and will now run for U.S. Senate against Republican Richard Burr. I'm not quite sure they should be. Burr's numbers are pretty "meh" for an incumbent, but the highest Cunningham has gotten in any head-to-head matchup is 31 percent. Would R[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 01:52pm

Most people who present don't do much preparation. The ones who do prepare, do not prepare as well as they could. Here are three quick steps to prepare for great results:1 - Decide what the desired outcome of your presentation is.2 - Write down everything your audience needs to know in order to produce that outcome.3 - Think of stories, examples, and analogies that you can use to hone your m[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 12:56pm

Mark Knoller of CBS News informs us that Vice President Joe Biden -- you know, the guy who was put in charge of the stimulus because "no one messes with him" -- just told the attendees at the White House jobs summit that "the economy is in a depression." I suppose this is better than out-of-touch happy talk, but heck of a pep talk, coach. Tell us again about how the stimul[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 12:54pm

We’ve done a lot of negotiating at The Speakers Group this year. Wait, for speakers? I thought speakers weren’t supposed to negotiate. Something about fee integrity… Yes, speakers negotiate. The secret’s out. With meeting budgets slashed, speakers, speakers bureaus and other vendors in the meetings industry have had to adapt to meet clients’ needs.[...]

Tags: Organizational Excellence, Leadership Development, Sales Management, Negotiation in Turbulent Times, Negotiation Tips, Negotiation Speakers

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 12:37pm

I am notoriously bad at coming up with titles. You might have noticed a slew of boring titles on this here blog, and all I can say is that I sure hope the content is way better than the titles.Now, I'm in the process of writing a book/e-book on making presentations fun. The book will cover many aspects of fun: props, visuals, games, skits, stories, music, activities, tools, tricks, etc., and [...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 12:00pm

Today’s teleclass ‘Creating Fame Using Social Media’ has been postponed until January. Our guest expert Laura Roeder felt really bad about having to reschedule. So she wanted to pass along this exclusive video as an apology. It’s about how to set up a Social Media Listening Station. I’ve used this, it took 11 minutes, and it’s very cool[...]

Tags: Most Recent Post

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 11:53am

In an era that has seen Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy, a lawmaker's retirement should never be assumed. But most members of Congress eventually decide to hang it up at some point. Until recently, Democrats felt reassurance from the fact that they had no announced retirements in their House caucus, but in the part two weeks, two members have surprised their districts[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 11:37am

CAPS Convention 2009 in CalgaryIf you are in the business of professional speaking then the event of the year is the annual convention of your national professional speakers' association.As a Canadian speaker, I am an active member of the Canadian Assocation of Professional Speakers, (CAPS). I was there at the first CAPS convention in Toronto 14 years ago. I'm not sure of that date. Natu[...]