Dean Brenner

How many PowerPoint presentations are given every day? No one really knows, but there is an oft-cited number of 30 million daily that seems to make its way around the internet. But this number has no apparent source, and there really is no way to truly know the correct number. But here is something we […]

The hardest thing for any subject matter expert (SME) to do is to explain his or her area of expertise in simple and clear ways. When we are “in” it, when we are living the topic every day, and when we know a lot about it, it is really hard to distance yourself from it and […]

Today’s post was written by Brett Slater, Chief Social Media Officer at The Latimer Group As The Latimer Group’s Chief Social Media Officer, I’m exposed to every single piece of content Dean and the team produces. I read every blog post, watch every video, and listen to every podcast, and as you imagine, some of […]

I hear people refer all the time to a seemingly indisputable fact that we are neck deep in The Information Age. Everything about the way we generate it, consume it, store it, and share it is changing, rapidly. But while those trends are real and will continue for the foreseeable future, there is a bigger […]

Over our last several posts, we have been reviewing the key characteristics of great business communication: Clarity, brevity, context… and today’s topic: impact. Does you message stand out? Do you make it easy for your audience to remember what you say? Does your message make an impact on the mind of your listener? You need […]

Over our last several posts, we have been touching on a few of the important ingredients for great communication… clarity and brevity chief among them. Today we touch on a third critical ingredient: context. Context is critical. Context creates relevance. Context helps your audience engage and listen. Context helps your audience care. We are all […]

Have you ever sat through a meeting, or a conference call, or a presentation, and thought to yourself… “Oh my god… I wish this person would get to the point…“? Yeah. Me too. Many, many times. We all know what it feels like to have our time wasted by someone who just won’t, or can’t, […]

I am not a fan of former Boston Red Sox player Curt Schilling. In fact, as a Yankee fan, he was the player I hated the most. But today, he has earned my enduring respect… not because of something he did as a baseball player or in his current career as a sportscaster. No. He […]

Here is something your colleagues or customers will never, ever, say to you… “That presentation was TOO clear. Please be LESS clear next time.” There are very few universal truths in the business world. Many issues and topics depend on context and the details of the situation. Rarely can we make rigid rules of things […]

This is a topic we have written on before, but it merits another emphatic mention. PowerPoint and slide decks are completely overdone, to the point where the whole concept of the business meeting presentation is often (and accurately) lampooned. But many large organizations still rely on the internal presentation as a primary method of communication […]