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February 15, 2010 by Jerry
In the previous blog, you read about how the skill of Marques Colston, the New Orleans Saints leading wide receiver, resonates with the listening aspect of responding to questions in Q and A sessions. Now let’s look at another factor that contributed to the Saints’ Super Bowl victory: preparation. A Wall Street Journal article about the run-up to the big event reported that the New Orleans Saints and their opponents, the Indianapolis Colts, combined, spent 514,000 hours of labor per team. The article, based on a study prepared for Journal by the Boston Consulting Group, explained:   Â
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January 27, 2010 by Jerry
As a footnote to Monday’s post about Scott Brown’s upset victory in the Massachusetts senate race and his now-famous statement, “With all due respect. It’s not the Kennedy seat, and it’s not the Democrat’s seat. It’s the People’s seat,” this week, the New York Times reported about an election campaign in Illinois, in which one candidate is deploying Senator Brown’s formula, Representative Mark Steven Kirk, the front-runner in the Republican primary for the Senate seat once held by President Obama, has even taken
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January 25, 2010 by Jerry
Pundits have been analyzing the political factors in last week’s come-from-behind victory by Republican Scott Brown in the special election for Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts senate seat, but the presentation factors—as they invariably do—played an equally important role. Ever since 1960, when John F. Kennedy’s patrician poise stood in sharp contrast to Richard Nixon’s stiff discomfort, candidates have had to pay close attention to their personal images. Scott Brown had a distinct advantage with the image factor, having been named “America’s Sexiest Man,” by Cosmopolitan magazine in 1982 when he was a 22-year old law student. Mr. Brown accommodated the
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January 22, 2010 by Jerry
A recent article in the New York Times reported on a study of several hundred British dairies that found that cows that are addressed by name make more milk—about 6 percent in a given year—than anonymous ones. The rationale: “Named cows are more often treated nicely, and well-treated, calm and happy cows make more milk.” The lesson for presenters is to address members of their audiences directly by name, and to do so several times, throughout any presentation. This means that presenters have to make an effort to acquire the names of the persons they don’t know from the
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January 18, 2010 by Jerry
Today marks the national Federal holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great civil rights leader. It also marks a Day of Service organized in his honor to encourage volunteering. Dr. King was one of the most noted public speakers in American history. His speeches roused audiences to powerful responses. His rhetorical reach extends back to the Greek orators and forward to Barack Obama. The Greeks used a technique called anaphora, or the repetition of the first word or set of words at the beginning of successive sentences or phrases. In Dr. King’s famous “I Have
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January 6, 2010 by Jerry
In the previous blog, you read about an article in the Wall Street Journal on the creative processes of novelists that provided two valuable pieces of advice for presenters: • Begin with your goal or objective in mind • Write, rewrite and rewrite That same article provided two more pieces of advice from one of the novelists interviewed, Edwidge Danticat, the author of Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah’s Book Club selection. The first: Before she begins a novel, Edwidge Danticat creates
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January 4, 2010 by Jerry
The Wall Street Journal recently asked several novelists to discuss their creative processes. Their methods were as varied as their literary styles, ranging from preferred writing materials to favorite venues and even to the most productive times of day. But all of the writers shared one common technique: they all compose many drafts of their work. One of the foremost proponents of rewriting is John Irving, the author of the bestselling novel, The World According to Garp, and 14 other novels, including his most recent, Last Night in Twisted River. Although Irving was not among those interviewed for the
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December 7, 2009 by Jerry
On January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 took off from National Airport in Washington D.C. during a blinding snowstorm and suddenly plunged into the Potomac River, killing 74 passengers. Only five people survived the crash, one of them was a woman who owed her life to the courageous efforts of a federal employee named Lenny Skutnik. Skutnik, who was on his way home from work at the fateful moment, dove into the icy waters, swam to the woman’s rescue and, in doing so, became a catalyst for a speaking technique used by every U.S. president from Ronald Reagan
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December 2, 2009 by Jerry
In the prior post you read about the importance of making every presentation you ever give fresh and alive with customization. This important technique is applicable to one-time presentations or to multiple iterations of the same presentation. There are seven ways you can customize: 1. Direct Reference. Refer to one or more members of your audience by name. If you can, mention a well-known fact or figure about that person or his or her company or market. “Just before the
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November 30, 2009 by Jerry
Businesses trying to capture attention in today’s media-saturated marketplace have at their disposal a vast arsenal of bells, whistles and tools to support the delivery of their messages. They use high definition video, live web connections and theatrical staging to create “Big Tent” presentations that have taken PowerPoint slide shows to a new level. In the process, presenters have become programmed performers and their presentations have become canned. The end result is an event that has all the character of a fishbowl, where the presenter and the audience are separated by an impermeable glass wall. Unfortunately, this same separation
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