Dan Cooney

It takes less than 30 seconds for people to decide what kind of person they think you are. What a quaint idea! In fact, Princeton psychologists Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov have demonstrated that study participants make judgments about a person’s competence and trustworthiness in as little as a tenth of a second. One of the […]

This post was written by Dan Cooney, Director of Business Development at The Latimer Group. We all see things differently. Thanks, Captain Obvious! Yes, it’s a truism, but why is this one so important to you as a communicator? You have to understand the perception gap — the difference between what you said and what […]

In my last post, I used Chief Brody’s character from Jaws fame as an example of how our fight or flight system is triggered. Its manifestations run from sudden dry mouth, sweaty palms, flushed neck, butterflies in our stomach, and a brain that sputters like an old Fiat rather than performing like the Porsche 911 […]

Chief Brody’s hands may have started to sweat and shake as he instinctively backs up away from the mortal threat, his mouth goes dry, his neck flushes and his voice wavers. He’s seen the shark, and he thinks that he and Quint and Hooper need a bigger boat to catch the shark.  The Chief’s autonomic […]

I’m so happy to introduce my former Broadcast.com and Yahoo! colleague Tim Sanders to our Latimer Group community. Tim is the author of five books including the New York Times Bestseller, “Love is the Killer App.” He is a top-rated keynote speaker and CEO of Deeper Media. Tim preaches generosity toward others at work. He […]

The first car stolen or “captured” in the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds” was a 1999 Aston Martin DB7. While Nicholas Cage had an entire minute to capture the car in the movie, in the corporate world, you have just ten seconds to capture your audience’s attention. In my last post, we showed you why capturing attention […]

“Did the speaker first capture the audience’s attention?” This is perhaps the most critical coaching question we ask in our persuasive communications workshops. What’s the big deal? Well, it’s a noisy, “this one goes to eleven” world out there, and it’s only getting noisier. How are you going to be heard in that world? If you can’t capture […]

Last week Apple revised revenue guidance down for the holiday quarter by 9%.  They communicated the news in a detailed letter to investors and also in a CNBC interview with CEO Tim Cook. In this episode of the Message Makeover, we discuss the pitch-perfect manner in which Apple delivers the bad news.  The first six […]

Do you love Ted Talks as much as I do?  I can’t get enough of them. But laughing at things we like (including ourselves) is healthier than an apple a day. If you have to present for your job or have to listen to others present,  we think you will find this parody video of […]

This post was written by Dan Cooney, Director of Coaching and Senior Facilitator at The Latimer Group. Knowing the goals for your communication is a key tenet of Latimer learning. In this episode of the Message Makeover podcast, we talk to Kate Duffy, a Second City alumnus, about the power of setting specific intentions for […]