Dean Brenner

If we look at our communication as if it were a meal that our audience will consume, we’ll of course want to prepare a communication “meal” they will enjoy. A meal that will satisfy their hunger for simple, valuable communication. And in order to do that, there are 5 ingredients that must be included in […]

My son Zach has made a few guest appearances in our blog here. He frequently says or does something that makes me see connections between my work, and my conversations with him. Despite his age, he seems to have a knack for saying the simple little things to inspire me. Anyway… he did it again […]

We are learning to deal with details and data, enormous amounts of it. We have spent the last 20+ years making massive improvements to the ways we create it, gather it, store it, share it, and analyze it. But it is only recently that we have realized that all this information and data and details […]

Your audience will only remember a small percentage of what you say. Some studies suggest it will be less than 20%. Fact. Other studies suggest that the average adult attention span is now about 8 seconds. Bummer. So what do you do about it? Focus on all three aspects of the audience experience: 1. Make […]

We all know how it feels to have our time wasted. Have you ever been in a meeting/presentation/conference call that seemed to have no purpose? Or where the speaker could not get to the point? Or where you wondered why you were even there? [Pause for you to nod in agreement…] Have you ever listened […]

We recently wrote about the shift from the Information Age to the newly sprouting Communication Age. Information is now fully a part of our lives. It is baked into everything we do. And we are now on the back side of this massive shift towards more, better, more-easily-accessed information. The new competitive advantage will come […]

On April 9th, The U.S. marked the 150th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War. While I’m not a historian, history (American military history, specifically) is a favorite subject of mine, so this week’s commemoration has me thinking. In the wake of General Lee’s surrender to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, President Lincoln […]

When you are giving a business presentation, do you tell people what you think is most important? Or do you find ways to demonstrate value from their perspective? When we are talking about being more persuasive, this is one of the most important things to consider. If you want to persuade anyone of anything, you […]

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 […]