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June 16, 2010 by Jerry
Taking Personal Responsibility In anticipation of President Obama’s Oval Office speech about the BP oil spill, Mike Allen of Politico, who was dubbed by the New York Times as “The Man the White House Wakes Up To,” wrote: “White House advisers acknowledge that if it doesn’t happen tonight, it probably never will.” Ever since the April 20th explosion in the Gulf, Obama has been the target of increasing condemnation from both critics and supporters, from both the left and the right. Most of the critics, who have called the devastating event, “Obama’s Katrina,” have faulted the president for not
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June 9, 2010 by Pearl
In a prior blog, you read about how Less is More when it comes to store-front displays through one of Professor Sheena Iyengar’s experiments, and how the same principle relates to presentations. Now let’s take a look at another one of Ms. Iyengar’s experiments to see how this concept also applies to toy selection. In her new book, The Art of Choosing, Ms. Iyengar explores the science of choice through experiments and personal stories. She recounts the story of her parents’ prearranged marriage in India, noting the limited amount of choices available to the bride and groom in that
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June 2, 2010 by Jerry
In the previous post you read about how Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general of Connecticut, who is running for Christopher Dodd’s Democratic seat in the Senate and Rand Paul, the winner of the Republican Senatorial Primary in Kentucky, both had to walk back on controversial statements they had made. In politics, this is known as “spin,” or “putting lipstick on a pig.” The most egregious example of political spin I have ever seen arrived in my mailbox via an email blast that indicated that it had been forwarded many times. If you receive as many such missives as I
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May 26, 2010 by Jerry
Last week, Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general of Connecticut, who is running for Christopher Dodd’s Democratic seat in the Senate and Rand Paul, the winner of the Republican Senatorial Primary in Kentucky, found themselves having to explain controversial statements they had made in public: Mr. Blumenthal on the subject of whether or not he had seen active duty in Vietnam, and Mr. Paul on whether or not he would support the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Each man’s original statement raised a firestorm in the media and on the web and each man had to make new statements to
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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 12, 2010 by Jerry
President Obama spoke at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner last week for the second time. As always, the centerpiece of this high profile event is the comedy routine delivered by the sitting president. Judging from the audience reaction to Mr. Obama’s jokes, he didn’t do as well as he did in his first outing. You can see—and hear—the difference for yourself by viewing the two YouTube videos embedded below: All of which goes to prove the danger of trying to be funny. The task is difficult enough for professional comedians; the subject of a prior
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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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