Public Speaking Skills

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]