Blogs
March 17, 2009 by Jerry
In an ironic coincidence, two prominent public figures pleaded guilty on the same day: Bernie Madoff to a judge, and Jim Cramer to Jon Stewart. Madoff, caught red-handed on 11 felony counts of swindling stocks, had to confess; Cramer caught red-handed of hyping stocks, did not. Hyperbole is not a crime—yet. But, if Cramer’s admissions were an effort to tell the public that he intended no malice, he could have done so more positively. Instead, he withered in the line of Stewart’s fire. Jim Cramer certainly had the wherewithal to stand up for himself in a contentious exchange such as
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March 16, 2009 by Jerry
In the opening scenes of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy runs away from her Kansas home and promptly encounters Professor Marvel, a seedy, itinerant con artist whose tacky traveling wagon advertises him as “Acclaimed by The Crown Heads of Europe,” and offers his services to “Read Your Past, Present, and Future in His Crystal Ball.” Professor Marvel, played marvelously by Frank Morgan, takes one look at the naive girl, glances down at her suitcase and says, “You’re running away!” Having missed his glance, Dorothy asks wondrously, “How did you guess?” The Professor replies, “Now, why are you running away? No,
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March 13, 2009 by Nichole
Have you found yourself having more adult-like conversations with children than in the past? I sure have. I’ve come across a lot of children who use multi-syllable words: three-year olds discussing their future jobs, and five-year olds having intelligent conversations about why one cartoon character is better than the other. Oh, and my two year old, (you met Brendan in my last blog) recently asked me, “Where’s my stethoscope?” His Diego Rescue Pack come with a stethoscope for saving animals. Let’s face it, today’s children are far more advanced at verbal communication than my generation (the 30- and
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March 12, 2009 by Jerry
In last month’s post “Obama Gets Drama,” I wrote about our new president’s first departure from his “No Drama Obama” nickname, the epithet he had earned for his uncanny ability to stay calm and collected during the very rough and tumble election campaign. The departure came when he showed his frustration during an impromptu speech to House Democrats after his economic stimulus package had run into the initial heavy Republican opposition. There was actually an earlier incident in which Obama let his emotions show, and it came the day after his soaring Inaugural Address. Vice President Joe Biden was about
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March 10, 2009 by Jerry
Last week was Teleprompter Week. It began with a continuation of the wave of negative reviews, including mine, of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s disastrous “teleprompted” speech. If I may be immodest for a moment, only mine focused on how the use of a single teleprompter unit contributed to Jindal’s forced speaking style. The teleprompter story then shifted from Jindal to Obama with comprehensive pieces by Peter Baker of the New York Times, Carol E. Lee, a White House reporter of Politico.com, and Dan Spencer of Examiner.com. Baker and Lee gave balanced and through reports, but Spencer, a self-proclaimed “Right Side
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March 9, 2009 by Pearl
Think of your last vacation—sipping a Piña Colada while basking in the sun and listening to the waves gently splash onto the fine white sand. It flew right by, didn’t it? Simply put, time flies when you’re having fun. What happens when you’re not having fun? If I were to ask how many of you have ever felt threatened or uncomfortable in front of an audience during a presentation, chances are most of you would say “Yes.” The fear of public speaking is common in all walks of life. According to Discovery Channel’s impressive program, Human Body: Pushing the Limits,
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March 6, 2009 by Jerry
In the 16th Century, the Dutch humanist, Erasmus, wrote, “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” In the 21st Century, a specialist in eye contact spoke about that subject with one eye. I am that specialist. As a presentation coach and writer, a major part of my technique deals with eye contact. But last week, in the midst of a media tour to promote my new book, The Power Presenter—which, unsurprisingly, deals with eye contact in great detail—I contracted an infection in my eye and had to deliver two presentations wearing a distinguished but nonetheless distracting
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March 5, 2009 by Jerry
In my previous post, “Obama & You,” I described how, during his pursuit of the presidency, Barack Obama, in order to involve his potential voters, consciously shifted from speaking about himself to speaking about his audiences, the electorate. Shifting from “I” to “you” or its variation, “your,” he deployed the word extensively on his website, in his campaign materials, and especially, throughout his speeches. Tracking Obama’s word usage from candidate to president demonstrates a further shift in his focus. In his historic Inaugural Address, he used “you” only 15 times, but said “us,” 23 times, “we” 62 times, and “our”
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March 4, 2009 by Jerry
With the nation reeling from a deepening recession, Barack Obama’s task in his first speech to a joint session of Congress was very much like that of a rookie football coach giving a half-time pep talk to a team trailing by a wide margin. The political pundits equated Obama’s challenge to that of Sir Winston Churchill addressing his nation enduring the heavy bombardment by the German Wehrmacht, or of Franklin D. Roosevelt addressing his nation mired in a depression, or even of George W. Bush addressing his nation devastated by the 9/ll attacks. Each of those leaders delivered a powerful
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March 3, 2009 by Jerry
From his former role as the New York Times drama critic to his current role as one of their leading political columnists, Frank Rich has long impressed and even inspired me with his depth of knowledge and points of view. In his most recent column, however, he took a point of view about my field—public speaking—with which I must respectfully disagree. Writing about Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s broadly derided speech, (please see yesterday’s post on the subject) Mr. Rich said, “The morning-after conservative rationalization of Jindal’s flop was that his adenoidal delivery, not his words, did him in, and that
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