July 2007 |
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Happy Birthday to PowerPoint!
Presentation Software turns 20! |
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Joey Asher
President's
Perspective |
As
PowerPoint turns 20-years-old this summer, I’m reminded
of a particularly gruesome scene from the sci-fi action
film “Total Recall”, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. In
this scene, Arnold wraps a towel around his head and
then sticks a metal probe up his own nose.
The
probe then proceeds to crawl up into his brain and pull
back through his left nostril a glowing red ball that
looks way too big to make it out of his nose. Watching
the ball slowly and painfully emerge, I cringed in my
seat. As my nine-year-old daughter likes to say, “Now
that’s gotta hurt!”
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Yogi Berra's Speech to the Saint Louis U. Graduates: An
Hysterical Urban Myth. |
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Baseball great Yogi Berra once said, “I never said most
of the things I said.”
Indeed,
a funny commencement speech attributed to Berra -- and
which is circulating the internet as real -- is actually
an urban myth.
Berra
actually did deliver a commencement speech to Saint
Louis University recently. However, his comments were
pretty routine commencement fare, sprinkling in a few of
his language-twisting Yogi-isms, while
urging graduates
to make the world a better place.
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We Can Learn to Persuade from Homer Simpson!
So Says Author in New Speechworks Podcast. |
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Anyone wanting to
learn how to persuade an audience should follow Homer Simpson’s
example and learn about Rhetoric.
Indeed Homer
Simpson has a lot to teach us about persuasion says Jay Heinrichs,
author of “Thank You For Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer
Simpson Can Teach us About The Art of Persuasion.” It’s a fun book and worth
reading for anyone interested in learning how to persuade.
Heinrichs is
interviewed about rhetoric in this month’s Speechworks Podcast. To
hear the Podcast,
click here. |
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If Audience Members are Yawning, It May be a Compliment: Study
Says. |
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Next time you’re
giving a speech and you see people yawning, you don’t need to be
offended. It may actually be a compliment, a sign that your
listeners are so fascinated that they’re trying extra hard to pay
attention.
That’s the conclusion of State University of New York at Albany
researchers Andrew C. Gallup and Gordon G. Gallup Jr. in a study
outlined in the May 2007 issue of Evolutionary Psychology.
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Cool Phrase of the Month: Kodak Courage. |
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“Kodak Courage” is
that extra dose of courage and the tendency to go beyond one's usual
physical limits when being filmed or photographed.
“Next time you have
to give a speech and you’re nervous, get someone to videotape you.
It might give you some Kodak courage.” |
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Public Speaking Tip from Rod Laver. |
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“The next point –
that’s all you must think about.”
Those are the words
of tennis legend Rod Laver. We thought the quotation particularly
appropriate with the Wimbledon tennis championships having just been
completed.
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