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August 11, 2010 by Pearl
In the article “Best Formula for Selling Yourself,” Frances Cole Jones, author of The Wow Factor: The 33 Things You Must (and Must Not) Do to Guarantee Your Edge in Today’s Business World highlighted three proven techniques to close a sale⎯whether to sell an idea, a product, or yourself as a candidate for a job. The first of three techniques is to incorporate the word “you” in your narrative. As you read in a prior blog, a Yale University study of the most persuasive words in the English language found that the word “you” was on the top of
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July 28, 2010 by Jerry
Last Sunday, Frank Rich, the New York Times political columnist, provided another lesson in writing style for presenters; in fact, two lessons. In a previous blog, you read how Mr. Rich had used bookends, a figure of speech—a quote, a title, an incident, a person— that he referenced at the beginning and then again at the end of his story. This simple culminating device adds continuity to any story or presentation. The subject matter of both Mr. Rich’s earlier and current articles was racism. In Sunday’s article, he focused on the controversy surrounding Shirley Sherrod’s speech to NAACP, but
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July 14, 2010 by Pearl
Last Thursday, Sarah Palin and her political action committee, Sarah PAC, released its first campaign video of the year. According to a Yahoo! News article, the ad includes a vocal track of a speech Palin delivered in Washington in May, touting the rise of “mama grizzlies” and conservative women. Palin’s main message in the ad was to promote conservative female empowerment. But in the short one minute and fifty seconds clip, there were six instances of negativity, such as the use of “no” and “don’t.” References to mama grizzlies fighting and pink elephants stampeding, while promoting empowerment, also have a negative cast. Sarah Palin says, “You don’t want to mess with the mama grizzlies,” but are we ready for another political campaign of mud-slinging? Wasn’t 2008 enough?
May 21, 2010 by Jerry
In the previous post, you read about how a human interest story can add value to your presentation; either as supporting evidence for a particular point or as a through line for the entire presentation. But this double value can also cut both ways and backfire, particularly in the proof point usage. The culprit is digression, and the solution, of course, is to keep the anecdote brief, make it relevant, and to link it back to your main point. This, however, is easier said than done. For example, during a New York City Marathon, an article in the New
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May 19, 2010 by Jerry
Ronald Reagan was the master of the human interest story. Although he had developed his talent for the human touch in his early days in radio, (the subject of an earlier blog,) he perfected the art of the anecdote in the first years of his presidency with his telling the story of an American hero named Lenny Skutnik, (the subject of another blog.) Whenever Reagan spoke, he rarely missed an opportunity to refer to a dedicated student, a brave soldier, or a kindly senior citizen, often by name. Any presenter would do well to emulate The Great Communicator
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May 7, 2010 by Jerry
Karl Rove, who served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000-2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004-2007, was widely known as “The Architect,” because he was considered to be the power behind the throne of the 43rd president. Mr. Rove has just released his autobiography, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, which contains political advice analogous to presentations. The advice was called out in a review of the book in the New York Times written by Mark Halperin. As the editor at large and senior political analyst for Time magazine
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May 5, 2010 by Jerry
Power Presentations was recently honored by the presence of our first Nobel Prize winner. He is Dr. James E. Muller, the CEO and Chief Medical Officer of InfraReDx, a Cambridge, Massachusetts company that develops novel, photonic-based medical devices to help improve the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases. Dr. Muller was one of three American Co-founders of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) the organization awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. He and his senior managers participated in a Power Presentations program to develop a financing pitch for InfraReDx. During the program, the team heard—as
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April 30, 2010 by Pearl
In Monday’s blog, you read about the captivating effect of flow in Honda’s commercial “Cog”, and how it applied in presentations. Today, let’s look into another example of the same effective use of flow in two popular music videos by rock band, OK Go. The Rube Goldberg-influenced music video, “This Too Shall Pass”, begins when one of OK Go’s band members runs a toy truck into a domino, triggering a line of dominoes to fall one after another. Each subsequent part is then triggered into action. To date, there have been more than 12 million views of this music video
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April 26, 2010 by Pearl
Honda’s commercial “Cog,” is a two-minute long masterpiece created by Wieden+Kennedy, an international advertising firm. The production of the commercial required an astounding 606 takes and took 3 months to complete, including the engineering design of the sequence. The total cost of the commercial was 6 million dollars. Yet, no computer graphic or digital manipulations were used in the creation of its images. Everything that you see happened in real time. Despite the high cost, Honda executives believed that “Cog” would pay for itself simply because of the free showings. To date, there have been more than 470,000 views of
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April 19, 2010 by Jerry
In yesterday’s New York Times, two of their senior writers employed a literary technique that any writer or presenter would do well to use to his or her advantage: Bookends, where a figure of speech—a quote, a title, an incident, a person—is referenced at the beginning and then again at the end of a story. This simple culminating device adds continuity to any story or presentation. The writers in this case are opinion columnists Frank Rich and Nicholas Kristof, each of whom used bookends in his article about a current controversy; Mr. Rich on implied racism in the Republican
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