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February 2008 |
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Five Worst Ever Pieces of Public Speaking Advice. |
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Joey Asher
President's
Perspective |
During
a workshop, a client once cornered me and said, “Many
years ago, I had a boss that thought I looked great in
red. He told me that I should always wear red during
presentations because it made the best impression. So
I’ve always worn red. What do you think of that
advice?”
Cue the
“Twilight Zone” theme music.
When I
hear stuff like this, I want to channel Bob Barker and
shout “Come on down, you’re the next contest on ‘Bad
Public Speaking Advice from Your Boss.’” I also want to
hunt down the boss and tell him to cut it out. He’s
fostering bad presenters.
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Steve Jobs Gives Lesson in How to Use Visuals. |
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When
Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage last month at the
MacWorld 2008 Conference in San Francisco, he wowed the
conference with the unveiling of the new MacBook Air,
billed as the world’s thinnest notebook computer.
More
importantly from our perspective, Jobs gave the business
world a lesson in how to use visual aids in support of a
presentation. (To
see is presentation click here.)
His slides were simple. His graphics were stripped down
to their essence. And he did a masterful physical
demonstration.
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Great Presenters Fight the Battle of
the Bull. |
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When Jack Welch was
Chairman of GE, he would say to his division heads, “Let’s pretend
we’re in high school. Take me through the basics.”
Welch liked simple
explanations. He hated jargon. To be a great communicator, you
should learn to hate it too. Jargon undermines your connection
with the audience. It can also subject you to ridicule from IBM.
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Cool Word of the Month: Percussive maintenance |
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The art of
smashing, whacking, kicking or punching a machine to get it to work.
“If I can’t get
this computer working soon, I’m going to have to resort to
percussive maintenance.”
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Public Speaking Tip from Hubert Humphrey's Wife. |
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“Hubert, a speech doesn’t have to be eternal to be
immortal.”
Those
are the words of Muriel Humphrey, wife of Vice President
Hubert Humphrey. At Speechworks we couldn’t agree
more. We believe that the goal of a speech is to
connect with the audience and move them. If you know
what you’re doing, the speech doesn’t have to be long.
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