| ____________ ____________ SpeechMech Speech Orgn WorkwWords Vocal Variety Body Language Value of Props ____________ Speech Types Inspirational Persuasive Humorous Informational Impromptu Special Ocasion StoryTelling ____________ Words Aids Dictionary Anthonyms Encyclopedia Word of Day ____________ Other Ideas Speech Topics Stories Archives Humor Ideas Stage Use Visual Aids Handouts Motivations ____________ Toastmasters TM International |
| Content |
| Effective communication and speaking skills are not just important to those who desire to become public leaders and speakers. They are an essential part of all effective interpersonal communication, whether public or private, personal or professional. _________________________ |
| Be Brief!
Articles on Delivery | Stephen Boyd | July 26, 2004 ______________________ Centuries ago great speakers often spoke two hours and more. But today when sound bytes on television news are the norm and serious problems are solved in an hour on a television drama, audiences are most interested in speakers that get their points across in a short period of time. In a speech delivered to a Women in Communication audience, Patricia Ward Brash said, "Television has helped create an impatient society, where audiences expect us to make our point simply and quickly." Today great speakers are noted for their brevity. Billy Graham, in a recent city-wide campaign in Cincinnati, spoke about 20 minutes each night. Theodore Sorensen in his book, Kennedy, gave guidelines by which President Kennedy prepared speeches. No speech was more than 20-30 minutes. He wasted no words and his delivery wasted no time. He rarely used words he considered hackneyed or word fillers. As Purdue communications professor and researcher Josh Boyd wrote, "In physics, power is defined as work divided by time. In other words, more work done in less time produces more power. In the same way, a speaker�s message is most powerful when he [or she] can deliver a lot of good material in a short amount of time." Here are guidelines to make brevity a key foundation in your next speech. First, keep your stories under two minutes in length. In preparing a story, continue to ask the question, "How can I say this in less time and in fewer words?" Script out your story and then seek to condense it. There is an adage in using humor: "The longer the story the funnier it had better be." Connecting this principle to stories in general, we might say, "The longer the story, the more impact it had better have." To make sure your stories stay under two minutes, include only information that answers the questions, "Who?" "What?" "When?" "Where?" and "Why?" If it doesn�t answer one of these questions, leave it out. Make sure also that you have a sense of direction in the story. Each part of the story should move toward the conclusion in the mind of the listener. The listener should always feel you are going somewhere in developing your story. Second, when possible, follow the proverb, "Less is better than more." Never use three words when you can say it in two. Leave out clich�s, filler words, and hackneyed words, such as "You know," "OK," and "All right." Leave out phrases such as "Let me be honest," or blunt, or frank. Avoid "In other words�" or "To say it another way�" Speak in short sentences, short phrases, and short words. Word choice should be instantly clear to an audience. Make it a goal to make every word have impact in your speech. Third, know the length of your speech by practicing it. Never be surprised by the length of your speech. Never say to an audience, "I�m running out of time, so I must hurry along." You should know because of your preparation and practice of the speech. To go one step further, if you know the time limit on your speech is 20 minutes, stop a minute short; don�t go overtime. Audiences will appreciate your respect of their time and will think more highly of you as a speaker because of that. You should never be surprised by how long it takes you to deliver a speech. Fourth, learn to divide parts of your speech into time segments. Let�s use a 20-minute speech as an example. The introduction should be no longer than 2� minutes. You can get the attention and preview your message easily in that length of time. Avoid opening with generalizations about the weather or the audience. Let the audience know up front that every word you speak counts. Spend the bulk of your time in the body of the speech. This is where you make your points and give support or evidence for each point. The final two minutes should be your summary and move to action statement. Some speakers have a hard time concluding. When you say you are going to conclude, do so. As one wise person stated, "Don�t dawdle at the finish line of the speech." One way to keep your speech brief is to have few points in the body of your speech�no more than three. With a maximum of three points, you will have the self-discipline to condense rather than amplify. In organizing your material, accept the fact you will always have more material than you can cover and that you will only include material that relates to one of the two or three points you plan to make. Trying to cover four to six points will almost invariably make you go overtime in your speech. A key to success in speaking is not just having something worthwhile to say, but also saying it briefly. We need to follow the speaking axiom, "Have a powerful, captivating opening and a strong, memorable close, and put the two of them as close together as possible." About the Author Stephen D. Boyd, Ph.D., CSP, is a professor of speech communication at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, Kentucky. ====================== How To Organize The Body Of A Speech Articles on Speech Writing | Speaking Tips | November 17, 2003 A speech (or presentation) generally falls into three parts, the introduction, the main body and the conclusion (beginning, middle and end). Each of these serves an integral and essential role with it's own unique function. The body of the speech is the biggest and is where the majority of information is transferred. Consequently, it requires careful thought and consideration as well as some imagination to organize the body of a speech effectively. To aid in planning the body of your speech it can be helpful to make use of concepts and themes which run through the body of your speech providing structure and tying thoughts together in unified manner. This isn't to say that your delivery must be uniform throughout. For example, a speaker might use several characters from a popular movie, television series or play to illustrate how a proposal might impact people in various roles within an organization. The characters and the attitudes they portray may differ significantly but their common source provides a unifying factor that the audience will pick up on and appreciate. The time to consider the way to organize the body of your speech is after you have selected and ordered the points you want to make. The best "organizers" act as a mechanism for the audience to grasp and remember what you say. Organizers make it easier to provide continuity between opening, body and ending. They help you connect with the audience quickly and are an aid to remembering the points you wish to make allowing you to deliver the speech with minimum use of notes. Organization Ideas Here are a few ideas for organizing a speech. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and some may work better than others for a given topic or setting. They can be used individually or in combination. The list is far from complete and you should feel free to get creative and come up with your own ideas. Acronyms: Organize your speech around an acronym with the individual letters representing a keyword which summarizes a component of your presentation. If at all possible, choose a word which is related in some way to your topic. Color: Color can be used to organize a presentation and then be coordinated with props, visual aids and handouts. As an added bonus, many topics have associations with a particular color (environment - green) or have color as an important component (fine art, interior decoration). In such cases, using color as an organizational aid is quick and easy as well as being intuitively clear to your audience. Issues: Issues can be financial, aesthetic, philosophical or political among others and can serve to simplify complex topics defuse areas where the audience has strong opinions or high emotions. Opinions: Many topics have distinct vantage points depending upon a number of factors including, but not limited to, factors such as age, gender, political affiliation, faith, job function, etc. Exploring different view points can be excellent for political topics or topics related to changes in the workplace. People: People can be actual, mythical, historical, political, or stereotypical. As with the illustration above, don't overlook well-known characters from literature, movies or television shows. You may also consider using characters based on stereotypical group behaviors. Examples of each of these include politicians, police detectives, teenagers and their concerned parents. Using characters can make for great entertaining speeches which derive humor from human frailties. Places: People have a strong sense of place and often make generic associations with specific types of geography or with specific locations. Many topics, such as travel or history, are place-specific. Problems and solutions: This is a good all-purpose organization and an excellent choice for emerging topics. It is flexible in that you don't necessarily need the same number of solutions as you have problems. Shapes and patterns: Use shapes such as circles, squares, or triangles for identification and to illustrate relationships and how things work. Storylines: Use a universal plot from literature, mythology, classic movies, popular novels or nursery rhymes. Alternatively, real stories and life experiences can make for powerful narratives. Time: Try using themes from the past, present and future for topics that change over time. Create a project time line and compare it to significant calendar units such as the fiscal year. ====================== Five Storytelling Tips Tips on Storytelling | Speaking Tips | April 12, 2004 Many professions such as historians, lawyers, physicians, economists and psychologists take advantage of the power of stories to illustrate and frame reality in order to help people better understand their subject matter. Professional speakers of course have been using stories to illuminate their messages long before and after slides became the vogue. On the other hand, occasional presenters are often reluctant to incorporate stories into their formal presentations or their reports, proposals, briefings, training and meetings. In some ways, this reluctance is hard to understand because as a group, humans are born storytellers and relate to stories at a basic, fundamental and very personal level. In our formative years, our environments are rich with storytelling at home, in school and through audio and visual media. Children absorb a sweep of stories from nursery rhymes to fairy tales to religious stories to family anecdotes. As adults, we pass these on to our own children in turn. Analagies, anecdotes, parables, fables, metaphors and idioms are all storytelling methods for imparting wisdom or making a point. Frequently, such methods represent a far more effective way to achieve this than through a plain presentation of facts. Here are five tips to help you find your story voice. 1. Leap and the net will appear Start turning personal experiences into stories for your presentations. It's important that you remember that experiences don't automatically equate to stories, it's how you relate them that does. Sharing such experiences innevitably requires you to be willing to talk publicly about what are essentially private events. This requires a leap of both faith and imagination, however once you have taken the initial plunge you wil find that you quickly become comfortable doing so. After you become comfortable sharing personal stories, you can begin to include your observations of other people's behavior and then move on to paraphrasing and adapting fables, parables, fairy tales, literature and urban legends. You will quickly build a repertoire of narratives that you will be able to adapt to complement and enhance presentations on a surprisingly wide range of topics. 2. Collect stories from a variety of sources In the real world, literature and the media stories abound. Start a notebook or database to improve your access to those you like. When you know a good story, sooner or later you will find a way to weave it into a presentation. Many popular childrens books are an excellent source of material. 3. Learn the characteristics of a good story Take time to learn what makes a good story, one that people can relate to and will learn from. Look for the following points: It is told well The plot involves a transformation The storyteller is sincere The story fits the occasion The characters come alive The audience can relate to the story The story addresses the issues at hand 4. Observe how professional presenters use stories Professional presenters regularly use stories, especially personal ones, in their presentations and publications. When you hear a professional presenter speak, observe their use of stories. Good presenters will use stories for a variety of purposes among which include to: Provide humor Clarify and illustrate meaning Make points memorable Bridge cultural gaps Identify with the particular audience Persuade the audience to their point of view Encourage thinking Inspire people to act Build a shared vision Relieve tension Raise the energy level of the group Introduce controversial issues 5. Broaden your storytelling horizons Try attending a storytelling event or making the acquaintance of a professional storyteller. Observe how school teachers tell stories to the children in their class. Each time you listen to someone other than yourself tell a story, try to see how their performance can be used to enhance your own. Lastly, there are many websites and books that focus on storytelling skills, take the time to do some research by visting these sites and the local library. ====================== A Short Guide to Effective Public Speaking Articles on Delivery | Stephen Boyd | July 19, 2004 Delivering an effective presentation to 20 or to 200 people is difficult. Because listeners have better access to information since the internet became commonplace, audiences expect more content from speakers today. In addition, because of the entertainment slant of most media today, audiences want a presentation delivered with animation, humor, and pizzazz. If you would rather spend your time preparing your content than reading a book on public speaking, this is an article especially for you! From my experiences in delivering over 1500 speeches during the past 20 years, here is a quick guide to giving an effective and interesting presentation your very first time. Begin with something to get the attention of the audience. This might be a startling statement, statistic, or your own story. Listeners pay close attention when a person begins with, "Two weeks ago as I was driving to work a car pulled out in front of me...." You could begin with a current event: "You might have read in the paper this morning about the flood that...." A question is another way to make people listen. "How many of you feel our society spends too much on medical care?" might be a way to begin a presentation about curbing costs. Whatever technique you use, when you grab the attention of the audience you are on your way to a successful speech. Second, be energetic in delivery. Speak with variety in your voice. Slow down for a dramatic point and speed up to show excitement. Pause occasionally for effect. Don't just stand behind the lectern, but move a step away to make a point. When you are encouraging your audience, take a step toward them. Gesture to show how big or wide or tall or small an object is that you are describing. Demonstrate how something works or looks or moves as you tell about it. Show facial expression as you speak. Smile when talking about something pleasant and let your face show other emotions as you tell about an event or activity. Whatever your movements, they should have purpose. Structure your speech. Don't have more than two or three main points, and preview in the beginning what those points will be. With each point, have two or three pieces of support, such as examples, definitions, testimony, or statistics. Visual aids are important when you want your audience to understand a process or concept or understand a financial goal. Line graphs are best for trends. Bar graphs are best for comparisons and pie graphs are best for showing distribution of percentages. Tie your points together with transitions. These could be signposts such as "First," "Second," or "Finally." Use an internal summary by simply including the point you just made and telling what you plan to talk about next. "Now that we have talked about structure, let's move on to the use of stories," would be an example. When you have an introduction, two or three main points with support for each, appropriate transitions, and a conclusion, you will have your speech organized in a way that the audience can follow you easily. Tell your own story somewhere in the presentation--especially in a technical presentation. Include a personal experience that connects to your speech content, and the audience will connect with you. You want to help the audience link emotionally with what you are talking about, and the personal experience does that. With almost any topic you might choose, you have at least one "war story" to relate to the topic. When you tell the story, simply start at the beginning and move chronologically through the narrative, including answers to the "W" questions: "Who," What, "When," "Why," and "Where." To add interest and understanding to your speech, include a visual aid. A visual aid could be an object, a flip chart, a PowerPoint presentation, overhead projector slides, or a dry erase board. Whatever visual you are using, make sure everyone can see it. The best way to insure this is to put the visual where you will be speaking, and then find the seat farthest from it and determine if you can read the visual from that seat. Introduce the visual properly rather than simply throwing it at your audience; explain what the visual will do before you unveil it. Don't allow the visual to become a silent demonstration. Keep talking as you show the visual. You are still the main event and your visual is an aid. Look at your audience, not your visual. When the visual is not in use, hide it from the audience. Humans are a curious lot, tending to keep looking at the object and losing track of the speaker-you! If you are delivering a persuasive speech, in addition to your own stories include testimony of experts whom the audience respects and whose views reinforce your points. Add a key statistic when possible to show the seriousness of what you are discussing. For example, if I were discussing the need for improved listening to better serve your customers, I might add that although we spend half of our communication time in listening, our listening efficiency is only about 25%. By using stories, testimony, and statistics in your persuasive talk, you add depth to your evidence. Look at the audience as you speak. If it is a small audience, you can look at each person in a short period of time. If it is a large audience, look at the audience in small "clumps" and move from one clump to another. One way to insure good eye contact is to look at your audience before you start to speak. Go to the lectern and pause, smile, look at the audience, and then speak. This will help you maintain good eye contact throughout your presentation as well as commanding immediate attention. One of the ways to have consistently good eye contact is not to read your speech. Use note cards that have key words on them. The word or phrase should trigger the thought in your mind and then you can speak it. If you are including a quotation or complex statistics, reading from your note card actually lends credibility. If you write out your speech you will tend to read it and lose eye contact with the audience, as well as not being as enthusiastic in delivery as when you speak from note cards. Include a "wow" factor in your speech. Something in your speech should make your audience think, "Wow!" It could be a story, a dramatic point, an unusual statistic, or an effective visual that helps the audience understand immediately. With a "wow" factor, you then have something to look forward to in the speech that you know will have an impact on your audience. You'll become a more enthusiastic speaker because the "wow" factor will get you as well as your audience pumped for the speech. Consider using a touch of humor in your speech. Don't panic at this suggestion; you are not becoming a comedian but rather lightening up a serious speech so that people will be more accepting and interested in your ideas. Humor will help you to be perceived as an amiable person, and it is hard for people to disagree or be bored if they are smiling at you. Until you have lots of experience, keep your humor short. Perhaps inject a one-liner or a quotation. Yogi Berra said a lot of funny things. "You can observe a lot just by watching" for example. Tell a short embarrassing moment in your life that you might have thought not funny at the time. Now that you can laugh at the experience, you understand the old adage, "Humor is simply tragedy separated by time and space." Don't poke fun at your audience; you should be the object of any shortcoming, showing that you can laugh at yourself. Avoid long stories or jokes. Even seasoned speakers know that funny stories soon become unfunny if they go on too long. Probably the least risky use of humor is a cartoon. The cartoon is separate from you and if people don't laugh, you don't feel responsible. (Be sure to secure permission to use it.) Finally, leave the audience with something to think about. People remember best what you say last. You might summarize your main points, or you might complete the statement, "What I want you to do as a result of this presentation is...." But beyond that, make your last words a thought to ponder. For example, I might end a speech on becoming a better speaker with "As Cicero said centuries ago, 'The skill to do comes with the doing.'" A more modern guide to effective public speaking was penned by some unknown sage: "Know your stuff. Know whom you are stuffing. Know when they are stuffed." One never becomes a "perfect" speaker; developing public speaking skills is a life-long experience. But the points discussed here will get you started in becoming the speaker you want to be and the speaker your audience wants to hear. ====================== Quick Tips For Using Your Voice Effectively Tips on Voice Care | Speaking Tips | June 14, 2004 Here are eight quick tips on using your voice effectively in a speech, presentation or training session. Make sure you speak loud enough for the audience to hear you. Nothing is worse than having to strain to hear a speaker present. So, before you begin a presentation, have someone stand at the back of the room and tell you if you can be heard. Don't shout into the microphone. Conversely, if you are using sound amplification equipment, avoid the temptation to speak loudly. Before you begin, have the sound technician adjust the amplifacation so that you can be heard clearly while using your normal voice. Avoid speaking in a monotone. The easiest way to put an audience to sleep is by speaking in the same tone of voice for a long period of time. Instead use your natural speech patterns with their variations in pitch. Change your delivery pace. By speaking at different speech rates for short periods, you can add energy and animation to your speech pattern. Observe the way you speak during a normal conversation with a friend or colleague. You will notice that sometimes you speak quickly and while at other times you slow down. Slow down for important points. By slowing your speech rate while delievering your key points, you can convey emphasis and importance. Use the pause. Silence is an excellent exclamation point. By slightly extending a pause, you can add emphasis to a key point in your presentation. The best presenters plan their pauses to achieve maximum impact! Drink water. Before your presentation, drink a glass of water. This can help prevent potential voice problems during your presentation. Keep a glass of water at the podium and take a sip of water as necessary during the presentation. Check out the national news. News anchors provide some of the best examples of effective voice usage. ====================== Ten Techniques To Enhance Training Articles on Delivery | Speaking Tips | March 29, 2004 The quality of a training session can frequently be greatly improved if the trainer makes use of a few simple techniques to enhance their presentation. Here are ten techniques to help you turn your next training session into a memorable learning experience for your trainees and one in which the transfer of information is two-way rather than one-way. These techniques can be used in combination or alone as required. Overview: Use an overview at the beginning of the session to establish focus and paint the big pictire. An overview orients the trainees to the learning context and assists them in grasping the relationship between the organization, the training and themselves. A good overview should answer the questions: Where are we going with this training? How does it relate to my work? Who else is getting trained? What's in it for me? Objectives: Objectives are the specific skills, knowledge or attitudes to be taught during the training. These need to be identified (and where possible demonstrated) at the beginning of the training. You should be as specific as possible particularly when training is on a complex operation involving multiple skills. Metaphors: Metaphors and analogies often can be used in conjunction with props. They provide a link between the know and the unknown. In training, there is both factual and conceptual information to impart to the trainees. Metaphors can be used to illuminate both types of information. Props: Props are a way of thinking metaphorically. They can be toys, gizmos, costumes or tools that are generally recognized. Children's construction toys (Lego, for example) are great because they can quickly demonstrate how parts relate to the whole. As an added bonus, they are light, portable, and familiar. Stories: People remember stories and anecdotes, particularly if the stories you use come from your own personal experience or are of experiences and situations that everyone present can relate to. Stories are an excellent way to reinforce and explain the Overview and combine easily with several of the other techniques such as metaphors and props lending a coordinated feel to the training. Handouts: Training requires handouts to help learners reinforce and apply the newly acquired skills and knowledge. Training handouts can take the form of job aids, reference tools, charts, diagrams, manuals, or directories and can be posted on a Web site or on the organization's intranet. Color: Color has impact on reading, comprehension, learning and promoting ideas. Include it in your training design. For instance, handouts are improved if they are color coded. Acronyms: Mnemonic devices like acronyms help people remember key points and sequences. Everyone has used them in school and some have even worked themselves into the English language as words. Acronyms should be short like "SMART" objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound) and easy to remember. Tempo: Vary the pace of the training at least every 20 minutes. Intersperse, mix and alternate different training techniques. The kinds of activcites you might use include: (a) passive and interactive activities, (b) individual and group activities, (c) participatory and reflective activities, and (d) leader-directed and learner-directed activities. Humor can be a great way to facilitate a change in tempo. Enthusiasm: If you are not excited by your material, how can you expect your trainees to become enthused by it? Sometimes trainers lack passion because they try to cover too much at once. Try using the facts, concepts, principles, processes and procedures model. Consider the handout for the facts and procedures, metaphors for the concepts, and then release your passion on the principles and processes which excite you or you would not be the trainer. ========================= Develop Your Sense Of Humor Articles on Using Humor | Speaking Tips | February 16, 2004 The funny thing about humor is that it does a lot more than make people laugh. Among other things, it helps people to get acquainted, groups to bond into teams and strangers to feel welcome. Used correctly, it can improve performance, promote creativity, energize meetings and encourage positive thinking. Humor and laughter are recognized as so important that a cottage industry of consultants has developed to teach humor skills to business and professional people. Presenters and trainers especially value and use humor because in addition to the above, it helps their audiences to remember the main points, see the big picture and retain information longer. Humor allows the speaker, presenter or trainer to interact with members of their audience, address a sensitive idea or topic without causing offense and encourage members of the audience to feel free to express themselves. In public speaking, humor can take many forms, for example: Using zany props. Skits or parodies. Witty or wry observations. Puns, metaphors or analogies. Fable, fairy tale or other literary narrative. Personal stories or anecdotes. Humor looks easy but "humor producers" know it takes thought and practice. The good news is that to use humor in presentations and training, you don't need to be a stand-up comedian. What you need to do is make a connection with the audience. Do it by promoting an atmosphere of interaction, amusement, and openness. Sprinkle some levity in your title, opening story, and closing or surprise the audience with unusual connections. In spite of the many compelling reasons for us to use humor, many speakers and trainers resist designing it into their material because they simply do not see themselves as being funny and lack confidence in their ability to make an audience laugh. Yet these same people probably create and share humor with family, friends and colleagues on a regular basis. One possible reason for this is that many people have not learned to be themselves in front of an audience. They need to become as familiar with their persona as they are with their face in the mirror. If this is part of your problem, then you need to discover your inner clown, find your voice and unearth your preferred humor format. People are more inclined to use humor in an atmosphere of trust and familiarity: when there is as existing relationship between the people involved. But it works both ways. Humor and laughter are like "social glue" to help create trust, familiarity and relationships. One sure fire technique speakers/trainers use to develop humor is to talk to some of the audience before the presentation/training. This builds familiarity plus the conversation will invariably entail an idea or feeling that can be shared with the audience. Here are some things you can try in order to develop or enhance your sense of humor: Surprise your family, friends and co-workers with puns, parodies, props or pranks. Collect personal stories to use for future presentations. Customize anecdotes so they are relevant and pertinent to your message. Make sure they are inclusive not exclusive and bring the audience together. Use unexpected illustrations and examples in your presentations and training Exaggerate and alternately understate when you talk with people. Use gestures or facial expressions that are the opposite of your words. Use graphics that are literal but contradict what you are saying. Look for something funny in the unexpected. There are also some things that you should avoid. Do not: Use canned jokes that have no connection to your purpose. Read your jokes and stories instead of telling them. Laugh at your own jokes; better yet start laughing before you tell them. Announce that you are going to tell a joke; apologize if it bombs. Berate the audience for not laughing: "That was supposed to be funny." Tell stories that make fun of others or make them look ridiculous. Be sarcastic and act superior. Use humor that the audience may not understand because of cultural, professional, gender or age differences. Play practical jokes designed to embarrass people. Tell off-color stories. ========================= Fourteen Introduction Tips Tips on Introductions | Speaking Tips | December 22, 2003 A good introduction should capture the audience's attention, bring them together as a group and motivate them to listen attentively to the speaker. Here are fourteen tips to help you do just that. 1 Identify yourself by name and title, unless this has already been earlier. Remember, the speaker also needs to know who you are. 2 Know the speaker's name and how to pronounce it. If it is an unusual name, help the audience learn it. 3 Know the speaker's title or position. Be brief. Aim for between one and three minutes. Five minutes is too long. 4 Do not read the introduction. It will sound flat, unenthusiastic and convey the impression that you are unfamiliar with the subject. It is acceptable to bring notes to the lectern but keep them inconspicuous. Smile and be enthusiastic in tone, gesture and choice of words. 5 Know enough about the subject to sound knowledgeable. 6 Announce the speech title as given to you by the speaker. If you have any questions about it, ask the speaker before the introduction. Many speakers select specific titles for a reason or for a pun. If the speaker is not using a title, make sure that your description matches the speaker's. 7 Introductions are no place to use slides, overheads or presentation software. 8 Anecdotes are good but should pertain to the subject and be in harmony with the mood of the presentation. Avoid using canned jokes. 9 If the credentials of the speaker are so outstanding that they must be shared with the audience or if there are publications the audience will want to know about, insert them in the program or prepare a separate commemorative handout. 10 Never use the old cliche that the speaker needs no introduction. If the introduction ties the speaker to the audience and the topic then each introduction is unique, plus there is always something new about every speaker. 11 You are the catalyst, not the performer. Do not try to upstage the speaker with your knowledge of the subject. Do not dwell on your relationship with the speaker, even (or perhaps especially) if they are your boss, relative or significant other. 12 Introduction of a panel of speakers is the same except the introducer needs to describe the structure and format of the panel (speaking order, length of time) and the various points of view and perspectives of the panelists. The introduction of the individual panelists can be done two ways: All at once or individually as the panel program progresses. Most audiences prefer a handout with the panelists' credentials so they can refer to it as the panel progresses. ====================== Ten Causes Of Public Speaking Stress Articles on Stage Fright | Speaking Tips | June 7, 2004 Public speaking is a common source of stress in the modern workplace. Whether you work alone or with large numbers of people, the chances are high that you will need to speak in public at some point no matter how much you might wish to avoid the experience. If your career goals include taking a leadership role in your organization, you will almost certainly need to speak regularly to groups, large and small, on your road to achieving them. Here are ten common causes of public speaking anxiety and some tips for avoiding them. Believing that public speaking is inherently stressful. Public speaking need not be stressful at all. If you correctly understand the causes of public speaking stress and take care to address them, with practice speaking in public will become an invigorating and satisfying experience for you. Thinking you need to be perfect in order to succeed. Perfection is a goal that few, if any, professional public speakers attain. Your audience will not expect perfection and neither should you. Trying to cover too much material. Don't try to accomplish too much in the time you are given. Instead, be realistic with your speech objectives given the time you are alloted. Having the wrong objectives. Public speaking is about having an effect on your audience - to educate, motivate or peruade them. This is where your focus and purpose should be. Concentrate on what will benefit your audience, not yourself. Trying to please everyone. People are diverse. It is likely that each individual member of will respond differently to your presentation. It is unrealistic to expect to please all of them and you should not try to. Trying to emulate other speakers. You've likely attended more than a few events where you've listened to professional speakers or trainers give a presentation. Don't make the mistake of trying to copy their style. Instead, simply be yourself. This will allow you concentrate your full attention on your material and your audience. Failing to be personally revealing and humble. Telling personal stories to illustrate your points can have a profound impact on your audience and their receptiveness to your message. However, few things will alienate an audience more quickly than arrogance. Instead, be humble when speaking about yourself and your achievements and experiences. Expecting the worst. Believe that you will succeed and you are already more than half way there. The negative outcomes you might imagine will rarely, if ever, occur and even if they do you can use them to your advantage. Humor is a great tool for turning a minor disaster into a memorable teaching moment. Being overprepared. The adage that you can never be too prepared isn't always true. Take time to develop and foster confidence in your self and your ability to succeed. Thinking your audience will be as critical of you and your performance as you are of yourself. Your audience will want you to succeed and will give you every opportunity to do so. Mistakes and hitches which may appear glaring to you are likely to pass unnoticed by the majority of your listeners. If you get up in front of a group and find the experience stressful, don't let that stop you. Instead, find out what you did wrong or what you didn't remember. Then go back out and speak again until you get it right. It may take time, but the rewards will be well worth your effort. ====================== Using Your Natural Style On Stage by Linda Snyder Quality: bad ok good Quantity: brief fair comprehensive We were both speakers at the same convention presenting on the same day�but what a difference. I am tall, while she�s short. I am a magnetic speaker�I draw people in with stories and examples. She�s a dynamic speaker� humorous and vivacious. We both were hits�the audience loved us. How could we be so different onstage but the same in capturing the audience�s attention? Each of us was authentic and real on stage. Audiences know when a speaker is �pretending� and they know when a speaker is �real.� Have you ever been to a party and you met someone who seemed to be putting on a front and not being real with you? Your intuition told you something was wrong, even if you weren�t sure what it was. Audiences are the same. Their intuition, collectively, tells them that something isn�t right with the speaker. Why do people feel the need to be someone other than who they really are? Because they aren�t comfortable in their own skin. For some reason, they are afraid that who they really are isn�t good enough so they try to be someone else. Let me give you an example. If I tried to be funny, I would end up with mud on my face. Worse yet, the audience might start throwing tomatoes at me! I must accept that I will never be known as a humorist. That is not to say I don�t have humor, it�s just that my humor is the natural progression of telling a story, then giving a twist at the end that is different than what they are expecting. If I jumped around stage, as this diminutive, 5�2�, 102 pound woman did, I would look like an elephant trying to dance. It is not that I am as big as an elephant, it is just I�m centered and speak from a position of confidence and strength. That is my style and what I stay true to doing. On the other hand, she would have looked as if she were in a straightjacket if she hadn�t gestured continually with her hands. Her tendency was to laugh at her own jokes, and then the audience followed her lead. She was having fun and that enthusiasm was contagious. Each of us had a different style. What is your natural style? What are you confident in portraying to your audience? What are your best attributes and strengths? What will the audience love about you? As a speaker, each was curious to hear the other�s presentation and we both �analyzed� what the other was doing while she was on stage. We can always learn from others�both what we do well and what we can improve. Tony Robbins, one of my mentors, states that each person we meet knows more than us about some things and we know more than them about other things. With that in mind, I listened to my colleague speak asking what I could learn from her presentation. More than anything, I learned that by being comfortable with yourself, confident in your topic, and creative in your message�you will �wow� your audience, whatever your style. Presentation and sales coach Linda Snyder is the creator of "Dare To Dream: Plan to Succeed", a practical guide to achieving powerful goals based on Linda's 26 years of experience presenting motivational seminars and sales trainings. To learn more about this book, communications coaching, and to sign up for FREE teleclasses, visit www.clarityofvision.com. ============== Speech Writing Tips: The 14 Speech Writing Secrets of President Bill Clinton by Thomas Murrell Speaking in public can be a powerful way to build a business. It can help raise the profile of your business, generate new leads and create greater profits. But speaking in public can be nerve wracking and seriously stressful for first timers. Writing a speech can be a major challenge, especially for technical writers. We can all learn from watching professional speakers. I have achieved a long held ambition to hear Bill Clinton - in Perth on Saturday February 23, 2002. It was a fantastic event! My motivation? Anyone who earns $300,000 for a 50 minute keynote presentation must be good. As a professional speaker, I wanted to see Clinton in action. I didn't want to only hear what he said, but how he said it. Here's my analysis of what I learnt from hearing Bill Clinton in person and noting how he was presented. You should be able to adapt at least some of these points to fit your own circumstances. 1. The marketing strategy In previous years a big advertising blitz brought audiences to see speakers such as former Soviet leader Gorbachov and others. Their marketing approach was very commercially focused with a massive advertising budget. The Clinton event had a more humanitarian angle with funds being raised for a good cause, namely sick kids through The Princess Margaret Hospital for Children Foundation. This was a better match with Clinton's core values of building community and having an empathy with the concerns of ordinary people. The marketing campaign relied heavily on positive media coverage to create awareness of the event. 2. A memorable entry Clinton's entry to the ballroom was brilliantly stage-managed. Everyone was asked to stand and then he walked into the room to his US Presidential election theme song 'Happy Days are here again'. The emotion in the room was electric and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! 3. Personal presentation His dress and presentation was absolutely immaculate. (Maybe the $500 haircuts help.) Many women at my table commented that Clinton was far better looking in the flesh than on TV. 4. The Power of Presence There was a buzz about being in the same room as President Clinton. His body language, smile and confident hand shake exuded charisma. His considerable charm reminded me of that high school science experiment when you tip iron filings onto a white sheet of paper covering a strong magnet. People were attracted to Clinton like metal filings to a powerful magnetic field. 5. Warm-up Alan Jones was MC and the warm-up included a short film taking a light hearted look at Clinton's last days in office. Scenes included Clinton washing the Presidential car, clipping the hedges and playing switchboard operator in the Oval Room. A great scene from a press conference showed Clinton waking a single sleeping journalist. 6. Introduction A well constructed introduction helped build empathy and highlighted that Clinton's life had not all been plain sailing. The fact that his father died when he was young, his mother was a nursing assistant and he was born in Hope, a town of 10,000 people, helped put his success and achievements in context. 7. Building on the sense of destiny A strong personal brand is built on stories. The story of Clinton meeting President Kennedy when on a youth leadership camp was used to great effect. Not only was it mentioned in the introduction but that famous photo of Clinton shaking JFK's hand was also used in the marketing materials. Other brand building shots included an intimate moment with Hilary, a shot of him playing the saxophone, a jogging photo, one with Chelsea and one featuring Clinton lined up with 3 past Presidents. They all helped to define Clinton the man. 8. Customising the message Clinton's speech in Perth was customised to include stories relevant to a Perth market, including his memories of Perth switching on its lights at night for a US space mission re-entry and comments on a former US President's career as a mining engineer in Kalgoorlie. 9. Using humour Clinton had some great lines about how he could have helped previous Presidents in dealing with the media in tricky situations. 10. Memorable one liners using opposites This can be very effective. When talking about possible solutions to the war against terrorism, Clinton said "most of the big things in life are simple". 11. Repetition Clinton used this proven speechwriting technique to great effect. 12. Using metaphors Clinton used the metaphor of the gap between the invention of the club and the shield to describe the present situation in the war against terrorism. He said "this gap needs to closed". Metaphors can give intangible concepts more impact with an audience. 13. Develop empathy with the audience Clinton told the story of how he was in Australia at Port Douglas on September 11th and how his daughter Chelsea was in downtown New York. He connected with every parent in the room when he talked about his feelings when he couldn't contact his daughter for three hours on that day. 14. A call to action The aim of the event was to raise money for a Children's hospital. Clinton's final words were "I want you to help". Simple, direct and powerful. I hope you have enjoyed this analysis. I certainly learnt a lot by seeing one of the world's great communicators in action. Whatever your personal views on Clinton are ... his personal warmth, ability to connect with an audience and presentation skills are outstanding. ==================== The Ten Ps of Dealing with Questions by Graham Jones Quality: bad ok good Quantity: brief fair comprehensive Presenters and those making speeches will frequently be faced with having to answer questions. Sometimes these will be simple questions asked at the end of your talk and lasting only a minute or two. At other times you may be involved in lengthy panel discussions that take place after a series of presentations. In any situation, though, you will want to answer questions well. Here is a ten point plan for dealing with questions and answers when you speak. I call it the Ten Ps of Question Handling. 1. Prepare To be sure you will answer all questions well, you need to prepare as fully as possible for any potential question and answer session. Lack of preparation for dealing with questions will make you nervous and this will come across when you answer questions. 2. Predict Try and predict all the questions you might get asked. In preparing your talk get friends and colleagues to ask you questions. In this way you will be in a more comfortable position when you face your real audience. 3. Practice In the same way that you would practice your presentation, you should also practice a question and answer session. Practice will alert you to any problem areas and will increase your confidence. 4. Probe Find out about your audience and the kind of things that interest them. This will enable you to work out the likely questions they may ask. 5. Prevent Ensure your presentation answers the likely questions in advance. In this way you will actually prevent questions from being asked as your audience will already have had their points answered. 6. Pause When you get a question, repeat it back to confirm you have understood what you are being asked. This also gives you a bit of thinking time and ensures the rest of the audience knows what you will be answering as they may not have heard the original question. 7. Paraphrase If a question is vague or unclear paraphrase the question and turn it into one that you want to be asked and then answer your chosen question. 8. Pass the buck If you get a persistent questioner, check with the audience whether or not they are happy for you to answer the questions. Otherwise you will alienate them. Usually your audience wants you to shut the awkward individual up! 9. Pathway Use techniques to get the question back to your chosen subject. Remember your presentation�s key message and wherever possible use questions to help you repeat that. Always beat a pathway back to your subject. 10. Part company If in doubt, take questions �off line� by agreeing to see the questioner at the next break. That way you get a chance to think. ============== A Quick Tip for Delivering a Great Speech by V. Berba Velasco Does speaking in public leave you tongue-tied? Do you stumble over your words? Do you want to learn how to speak more eloquently in front of a crowed? Here�s a simple tip for getting started: Talk about something that you�re passionate about. Have you ever noticed how people sound more eloquent when they�re talking about something that�s dear to their heart? They speak more fluidly, and they�re less likely to grasp for the right words. They also speak with more confidence, emotion and conviction. And why not? They�ve probably delivered great orations to themselves many times before, in the privacy of their own minds. Speak about what matters to you. Speak about what�s dear to your heart. Of course, this isn�t a magic formula for becoming a great speaker. That sort of thing must come with experience. However, if you start out by speaking about things for which you feel passion, that can help you refine your technique and develop confidence. As with most skills, the secret is to practice, practice and practice. If you speak from the heart, then practicing becomes easier and more effective�and a lot more enjoyable to boot. About the Author: ===================== What Makes A Great Presenter? by Graham Jones Every day millions of people around the world make a presentation. Yet most of us who have been to meetings know that very few of those people are truly great. At each meeting there is usually only one person who stands out head and shoulders above the rest as someone who really connects with us in the audience. The truth is, most presenters are just plain average � and quite a few are simply dreadful. So, how can you move from being a run of the mill presenter to being fantastic? Every one of us has the ability to be truly great as a presenter. There is nothing particularly special about the people who stand out as brilliant. However, the average presenter is usually holding themselves back, doing things which prevent them from being good. At every training course run by The Presentation Business we spend some time debating what makes a great presenter. This inevitably leads to a discussion of what the bad presenters do wrong. Having kept a record of what these sessions considered I have been able to produce a definitive list of what to do to make your presentations great. The overwhelming conclusion of all these discussions is: content is NOT important. Of the hundreds of people who have debated what makes a great presenter not a single person has mentioned the value of the content. Your audiences are likely to think in just the same way. They are NOT interested in what you are saying, but the way you are saying it. If you say it well, that appears to make the content interesting. But what this means is, if you concentrate your planning and preparation on content, you are likely only to be average. The most important factor for great presenters according to our discussions is that they make a personal connection to every member of the audience. This means lots of eye contact, liberal use of the words �I� and �you, and that everything you deliver is done form the audience�s perspective. This means you need to know a great deal about your audience in advance so you can do this. The connection you make between yourself and your audience seems to be enhanced by the widespread use of examples. Our discussions at training courses show that your audience expects you to �show� rather than �tell�. In other words, you don�t need to give them �messages� and �content�; instead you need to give them lots of examples and they will work out the message for themselves. A further element of this aspect of being a great presenter is that these examples should always include you. Your audience wants to know about your thoughts, your feelings and your opinions. They want to share your experiences. If all you deliver is content, this does not help your audience. They could get your content from a book, a web site or some other non human contact. The fact that you are presenting to them means your audience wants to hear from you personally. Your audience also wants you to be a living person. They don�t want to hear from a statue. In other words you need to be active. The discussions held at our training courses show time and time again that presenters who move are the one who gain the most attention. If you think about this, it is quite understandable. In social situations we are active � we use gestures, we move our bodies and change posture. To avoid doing so when presenting makes you look abnormal and this serves to disconnect you. There is also a big advantage to moving � it helps reduce nerves when presenting. As well as moving to be natural, our discussions show that great presenters are interactive. They ask questions, they involve the audience and essentially they treat the presentation as a conversation. This helps boost the connection between themselves and the audience. That�s because for the audience the interactivity appears normal, whereas being spoken at for a great length of time does not. Another important aspect of making your presentation appear normal is that your audience expects you to deliver your material without any prompts. Conversations do not need notes! Hence your presentation will benefit from appearing normal if you do not use notes or any prompts of any kind � including bullet points on slides. Discussions at our training sessions show time and time again that audiences do not like presenters who use notes, prompt cards, bullet point slides or any other form of memory jogger. Audiences expect presenters to know their stuff. Great presenters never use notes. An extension of the lack of notes concept is that great presenters talk from the heart. They are passionate about their subject and they are emotional. The dispassionate, business-like presenter is one of the most disliked, according to our discussions. What this means is that you should talk less about your subject and much more about your experiences as this will help boost your passion. Our training sessions also reveal that audiences want to have fun. They want to see you enjoying yourself and they want to have a laugh. This does not mean you need to tell jokes, but it does mean your audiences expect you to be light. Even for serious subjects it seems that audiences expect some kind of lightness. They want humour and they want you to smile. Straight faced, dry presenters are particularly disliked by audiences. One final aspect that is revealed by the discussions at our training sessions and that is everyone in your audience expects the presenter to motivate them. This does not mean you need to be a motivational speaker. Rather what it means is that your audience is expecting you to tell them what to do. Your audience does not expect a presenter simply to deliver information � they can get that from a book or a web site. Instead great presenters give audiences some action to take. All of these discussion points suggest that those presenters who treat their presentation as a conversation � who just have a chat with the audience � are the ones marked out as truly great. People who give presentations by delivering content are seen as boring and uninteresting. This also means their messages are not conveyed, so they may as well not be presenting in the first place. Oh, and one final thing. Our discussions show that audiences simply detest the use of computerised slides. They just want to hear from you. Truly great presenters therefore do one other vital thing � they switch off the projector! =================== |
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| Favorite Articles Mental Principles for Speaking Success Dr Dilip ________________________ Like most sports, speaking success is about 90% mental. What that means is that your mental state and attitude will have a huge influence on your effectiveness as a speaker. Simply applying speaking techniques without the proper mental conditioning and attitude will make you a mechanically correct speaker without the ability to move an audience. So let�s look at five mental principles that can boost your speaking success. These principles are not my discoveries. Many wise people before me have voiced them or variations of these principles. Study them, absorb them, put them into practice, and you will find that you rise to a new level of power and poise. More important, you will speak with your authentic voice, have fun, and truly connect with your audience. 1 The origin of every action is something you entertained in your mind I could have said that the origin of every action is a thought. That�s true. But sometimes we don�t consider that what we day dream about, what we imagine, are thoughts. Believe this: everything you let pass though your mind is like a seed that falls on soil. If you visit and revisit that thought, it is the equivalent of watering and fertilizing a seed. One day that seed will germinate and bring forth a sprout. If you keep nurturing that thought, it will become a full fledged plant. In this context that�s an action. How does this work for a speaker? Mentally imagine what you want to happen in your speaking engagement. See yourself sparkling with confidence, hear the words smoothly rolling out of your mouth, feel the connection with the audience, see their rapt attention, etc. This is mental imagery. What you imagine very deeply and often about will soon be demonstrated in action. Create your reality by choosing your thoughts. 2 What you think about expands I first heard this from Wayne Dyer. It�s true. It�s related to the principle above. It relates to the nurturing of a thought and the expansion of its reality in your life. 3 What you oppose weakens you; what you support strengthens you This is another great thought from Wayne Dyer. Reframe your negative thoughts with a positive perspective. Instead of being against mumbling, be for excellent articulation and enunciation. Rather than opposing a poor memory, take a course on how to remember names. Instead of only thinking about the negative aspect of an issue, think how you can be supportive of the positive aspects and overcome the destructive aspects of the issue. Opposing something dissipates your energy. Being in support of something concentrates and focuses your transformative energy. It strengthens you. It makes you see other people, your audience, your speaking opportunity, the intent of your message in a positive perspective. It will give you inner power and you will have a positive effect on your listeners. 4 When you are the speaker, you are in charge This principle means that the buck stops with you. Although other people may be assigned to oversee them, the seating arrangement, the audio visual system, the lighting, the room temperature, are all ultimately your responsibility. This realization will make you ask questions, give detailed instructions, arrive early, and so forth. These are all marks of a responsible speaker. Even more important, whether the audience understands your message and acts in the way you want them to is your responsibility. On an empowering note, when you mentally take charge of your speaking event, your audience will sense your confidence and commitment to them. This confidence will also allow you to access your capabilities as a communicator and leader. 5 Your mission as a speaker is to be a blessing to your audience It�s all about your audience, not about you! Once you embrace this concept, you will forget about yourself and focus on your audience�s well being. It will cause you to seek to understand them, their pains, their joys, their opportunities, and their hopes. It will cause you to keep your audience in mind as you prepare every aspect of your speech. It will cause you to focus your energy on the audience and your message to the exclusion of yourself. Curiously, when this happens, you become truly yourself. It�s a paradox. It is in giving of ourselves that we become more fully who we are supposed to be. This is a powerful discovery all speakers have to make if they are to reach their potential. There you are � five powerful mental principles that will catapult you to speaking success. Practice them and prosper. ==================== Common Presentation Errors And How To Correct Them by Dr. Dilip Abayasekara The One-Legged Speaker Symptoms: The speaker puts most of his/her weight on one leg. The other foot is usually placed toe down. This speaker usually leans on the lectern. Cure: Stand upright on both feet. Keep the feet a comfortable distance apart. Maintain good posture. Refuse the temptation to lean on the lectern. The One-Handed Speaker and the No-Handed Speaker Symptoms: The "one-handed" speaker hides one hand in a pocket. Sometimes this speaker will remove that hand from one pocket only to put the other hand in the other pocket. The "no-handed" speaker locks his/her hands in front or behind, guaranteeing that the hands cannot be seen or used during the speech. Cure: Understand that your hands are perhaps the most expressive body language tool you have. Make them work for you instead of hiding them. The next time you get the urge to hide your hands, light that impulse and let your hands stay out in the open. The Reader Symptoms: The speaker reads the entire speech. Cure: Understand that a speaker speaks. Use your notes to guide you, but realize that the audience doesn't want a reader, it wants a speaker. Practice your speech beforehand so that you build your confidence and knowledge to deliver the speech as a speaker. Avoid using a manuscript and use only an outline or a Mind Map. The Reader-Speaker Symptoms: This speaker reads some sections of the speech and speaks on other sections. The result is a disjointed and choppy delivery. Cure: See above. The Sloppy Speaker Symptoms: This speaker uses slang, doesn't articulate words, and gives an unprofessional feel to the presentation. Cure: Realize that when you give a speech, your choice of words should reflect a more formal language than what you use in everyday conversation. Take the time to articulate words and project your voice. In doing so, you will also improve your eye contact and appear more professional. ====================== Speak Easy - public speaking techniques By: Gwen Moran _______________________ The person at the podium attracts the most attention. Why isn't it you-and your business? YOU KNOW public speaking is a powerful tool for establishing yourself as an expert in your field. You've been to public-speaking classes, you've perfected your style and you know your subject cold. But while many books have been written on crafting and delivering perfect speeches, one question often remains: How do you get the gig? If you're the CEO of a large, multinational company, you may have an agent or public relations department to book high-profile engagements for you. But if you're in charge of a smaller enterprise or new to public speaking, here are some steps to take to make yourself the main attraction: * Start small. By beginning with small engagements, you'll be able to polish your skills in a low-risk environment. Check your newspaper for groups that may be looking for speakers for their monthly meetings. * Do your homework If there's a particular industry you'd like to target, check with trade associations or clients in that industry to find out which events are the most important. Trade shows, conventions and other gatherings often have seminar programs, which offer great opportunities to speak to your key prospects. * Plan ahead. Call event organizers to find out the best time to submit your credentials. They may book events as far as a year in advance. ====================== Public speaking stress By: Press Release NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Speaking in public may be more than just terrifying. The stress may be deadly. A study released Tuesday found that people whose hearts show ominous signs of poor circulation during such mental challenges face triple the usual risk of death in the years to come. Often people with bad hearts suffer chest pain during exertion. Their clogged arteries cannot supply enough blood to their heart muscle. But over the past decade, it has become clear that mental exertion can also overwork the heart, although often without pain. Doctors call this condition silent ischemia. While doctors assume that silent ischemia is not a good thing, no studies until now have been large enough to prove that mental stress can actually be fatal for people with coronary artery disease.NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Speaking in public may be more than just terrifying. The stress may be deadly. A study released Tuesday found that people whose hearts show ominous signs of poor circulation during such mental challenges face triple the usual risk of death in the years to come. Often people with bad hearts suffer chest pain during exertion. Their clogged arteries cannot supply enough blood to their heart muscle. But over the past decade, it has become clear that mental exertion can also overwork the heart, although often without pain. Doctors call this condition silent ischemia. While doctors assume that silent ischemia is not a good thing, no studies until now have been large enough to prove that mental stress can actually be fatal for people with coronary artery disease. ====================== Public Speaking: Rule of Three Send this article to a friend One of the most pervasive principles in the construction of humorous situations is the Rule of Three. You will see it used over and over because it is simple. It is powerful and it works (see I just used it there in a non-funny situation). Most of the time in humor the Rule of Three is used in the following fashion: The first comment names the topic, the second sets a pattern, and the third unexpectedly switches the pattern which is funny. Here's a few examples from brochures advertising my seminars: In the 'How to Get There'; section From Washington, D.C. take Rt. 50 . . . From Baltimore, MD take Rt. 95 . . . From Bangkok, Thailand board Asian Air . . . By Metro take the Red line . . . By Car take New York Ave. . . . By Steamship take the Chesapeake Bay While in front of a group I might point to an audience member and say You can make a difference in your company. [Pointing to the next person] You can make a difference in your department. [Pointing to third fun person] You can [pause] Well not everyone can do this. The Rule of Three is also used in constructing bits (see bits article on this website). Three jokes or one-liners on one topic is enough to create a rise in the audience, but not enough to tire them about that subject. Don't forget that the Rule of Three is good in non-funny situations too. Even honest Abe Lincoln used it twice in the powerful, but short, Gettysburg Address: 'We cannot dedicate. We cannot consecrate. We cannot hallow this ground'; 'and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.' ===================== Face Your Fear of Public Speaking- Pave the Way from Paralyzed to Powerful Beth Tabak Are you allowing your fear of public speaking to hold you back from what you really want? Don't allow fear to control you. Learn from my experience of facing fear head on. In 2002 I made the decision to overcome my fear of public speaking. As an adventurous person, I was sick and tired of this one fear holding me back. I could go caving...crawling into dark trenches, parasail in the Bahamas, sail around and explore uninhabited islands, or ski at great speed down a mountain. But the thought of standing in front of a group and having to speak with all attention on me was petrifying. If you would have told me a few years ago that I would be speaking in public in the near future, I would have told you there was no way and that you have lost your mind. However, the day came when I could see that fear was holding me back from what I really wanted in my life and it was time to take it on. I realized that fear is really in the future. You see fear is about what might happen, and usually doesn?t. I realized that fear was controlling me, and I was ready to take back control. If you are ready to take on your fear of public speaking dig down, grab some courage, and read the following tips. 1- Make the decision to face your fear head on with courage and grace. Taking on your fear by itself is beautiful, admirable, and will make you feel good about you. 2- Set a time period to focus on this challenge. This is not a one time try it and see if you like it. It is a process. I chose one year. Is my fear gone? Not completely, and I made so much progress that I am excited about where this will lead. Setting the time period will focus you on the process and not one particular event. During the process you will gain experience, knowledge, and confidence. 3- Get support. Join a group such as Toastmasters (www.toastmasters.com) or develop your own support group of friends, associates, and family to back you. Set it up the way it makes you feel comfortable. Some may want a group of friends at an event to support them. I preferred just having one. You may want to practice on someone. These people will support you to help you gain confidence. 4- Go into it with no expectations. Simply having the guts to try is an honor in itself. When there are no expectations you are setting the stage for success. You have nothing to worry about. You do not have to be brilliant. For the first year my goal for each talk was to have one person walk away with something that would add value to their life. This year it will be two...even though the feedback shows I have reached many more than that. No expectations reduces your stress level. 5- Keep it simple. Choose a topic that you are very comfortable with. Keeping the amount of time in mind choose only one to three key points that you believe will add value to your audience. The audience will consist of people who have different learning styles...visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. It is helpful to keep all three in mind while preparing. A handout or vivid story may benefit the visual learner while an interactive exercise may intrigue the kinesthetic learner. Using stories and interactive exercises gets the audience involved and keeps it easy on you. They are not looking for or expecting perfection. They simply want something of value to take home with them...a good feeling, a helpful tip, the inspiration to do something new, or just to be able to say they had a great evening out. 6- Prepare, prepare, prepare. When I really looked into my fear I found that in the past I had never taken the time to be well prepared. I do not mean memorize. Prepare to a point where you feel ready. 7- Choose a montra such as ?I will grow from this experience and love myself no matter what.? Just a reminder that no event can be so big as to destroy you. If you mess up...big deal! What if a toddler after his first fall said ?that?s it...I?m never going to walk.? What do we tell frustrated kids when they are learning to read and say ?I?ll never be able to read!?? We tell them ?Yes you will...keep practicing...you?ll get it.? They do. We can learn a lot from watching kids face their fears one after another and succeed. 8- Maintain a positive attitude and stifle your inner critic. When you notice your inner critic taking over shift your attitude to something positive. Visualize yourself succeeding. Confidently tell yourself you can do it...even if you have doubt. Focus on how awesome you will feel when it is over and you have faced your fear. If you are a spiritual person prayer works wonders. Do whatever it takes to encourage and coach yourself to success. 9- Meet the audience. They really want to support you. Plan to get to the event a little bit early (not too early) in order to get a feel for where you will be and the events leading up to your talk. I like to go around and meet the audience. You quickly realize that they are not big ogres... just real people. 10- Breathe. Whenever the butterflies are getting the best of you remember to breathe. Take slow deep breathes in through the nose from the diaphragm and out through your mouth. Relax into it. 11- Use your nervous energy. When you are introduced use your nervous energy to get you started. Walk up with excitement, stand tall, and speak out with confidence. 12- Be yourself. Don?t try to mimic someone else. Be human. For those of you who remember Johnny Carson?s monologues, he was the best at using a bad joke to his advantage. Many of the comedians today follow his lead. Oprah?s tremendous success has been in part to her ability to relate to the audience by showing her humanness and putting her own challenges and struggles out there. How many people would feel comfortable having a multi-millionaire as influential as Oprah come to their home? Yet I get the impression that most of Oprah?s audience would feel right at home having Oprah over for tea. 13- Focus on the task at hand and not the reaction of the audience. Follow your plan. Do it your way and not as a reaction to others. As you gain experience you can become more flexible. In the beginning, stick to your plan and learn from the experience. Keep in mind that the one person that you think dislikes you the most may be the one listening most intensely and gaining the most from your talk. 14- Distribute comment cards and collect them right away. Ask for honest feedback on the comment cards and accept them with an open mind. This is a great way to have people sign up for your newsletter or to receive more information from you. When you make it a safe place for them to share their information you will receive more cards. You can have a drawing for a free gift to encourage more to participate. In any event, the comment cards are a wonderful tool for you and the positive comments increase your confidence. 15- Celebrate! Celebrate that you faced your fear with grace and courage. Honor yourself for that. If you have read this far than you are ready to face your fear, otherwise I am lucky and totally grateful to have held your attention this long. Get out of paralysis by taking the first step. As you gain experience you will improve and gain confidence. You can do it! Pave your way one step at a time and you will gain the power to take back control of your life and to achieve all that you want to be. ===================== 15 Tips For Making A Great Speech by Kathy Thompson 1. Listen to your internal dialog. 2. Visualize a positive out come. 3. It's not all your fault. 4. Do you believe in your message, do you have something to say? 5. Look at your audience as an extension of your family. 6. Prepare a good introduction and conclusion. Open with impact, close with direction. 7. Be Natural. 8. Tape Yourself. 9. The audience want speakers who are believable, dynamic, comfortable, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, uses humor. 10. A good speaker leaves the audience hungry for more. Stimulate them to action. 11. Over dress. 12. Read your audience's reaction. Learn to dance with them. You lead, they will follow. 13. Ask for angled or curved seating, so the audience can see each other's reactions. 14. Your audience will best remember the first and last things you discuss, plus those which are outstanding, relevant, and repeated. 15. FOR A SHORT SPEECH: Identify your topic. Write the conclusion you want to reach. Write your attention getting opening. Choose 3 key points you want to make. Find or create a story or illustration that proves each point. Add linkage to bridge the gap between (transitions). If I can do it, so can you. With 20 years of experience under my belt, I put together a very special report for you; "Public Speaking Made Easy". There are four simple steps, and great solutions on dealing with the fear of speaking. ===================== Fear by Fran Watson Of what am I afraid, you ask. Of myself, I answer. The self I have hidden deep down inside, the one I'm afraid you won't like, the one I sometimes don't like either. I'm afraid that parts of this self will rise to the surface and I won't be able to push them back down. I will no longer be able to hide them and maybe I'll lose some of what I have my friends, my loves, my present lifestyle. I feel like so many parts of me are fighting for control of my being. I feel torn apart, confused, v wondering what I can safely let out, and what will escape. I wonder how I'll put myself back together, which pieces will stay, and which will be gone. I don't know what will happen and I'm afraid of the unknown. It's so much safer just existing as I am, but I know I must face myself, my fears, if I'm to have any peace, and I want peace. Fear -- that queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. The feeling that makes the sweat start to flow. The feeling that constricts the blood vessels so that you can't catch your breath. The feeling that makes you think you are losing your voice. The feeling that keeps us from accomplishing many things, that keeps us from trying something new. Fear is, and always has been, one of the greatest enemies of humankind. Fear of public speaking ranks higher than fear of death. When Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," he was saying that the emotion of fear, rather than the reality of what we fear, is what causes us anxiety, stress, and unhappiness. When we develop the habit of courage and unshakable self-confidence, a whole new world of possibilities opens up for us. When we have limited information, we tend to be tense and insecure about the outcome of our actions. Ignorance causes us to fear change, to fear the unknown and to avoid trying anything new or different. But the reverse is also true. The very act of gathering more and more information about a particular subject causes us to have more courage and confidence in that area. Imagine how free we would feel and what we could accomplish if we could live without fear. The only way to effectively deal with fear is to confront it; to ask ourselves, what is the worst that can happen? Usually what we imagine is much worse than the actual result. It's ironic that some people are more fearful of public speaking than of driving in traffic. Yet, vastly more casualties and fatalities result from traffic accidents than from public speaking. The courageous person is simply one who goes forward in spite of the fear. It is a funny fact, but when you confront your fears and move toward what you are afraid of, your fears diminish and your self-esteem and self-confidence increase. You may remember Anna in the King and I. She was afraid of the King and so she sang a song about her fears and how she noticed that when she pretended she wasn't afraid and fooled others, she also felt less fearful. As Brian Tracy says, "the habit of courage can be learned just as any other success skill is learned. To do so, we need to go to work systematically to diminish and eradicate our fears, while simultaneously building up the kind of courage that will enable us to deal with the inevitable ups and downs of life unafraid." Fear is a natural survival mechanism. It can motivate us, or stop us in our tracks. In situations that pose a threat to life and limb, fear motivates us to be careful. However, fear is a problem when it interferes with our goals and achievements. At Toastmasters fear is what prevents our participating in Table Topics, or making a speech. We may be afraid of making a fool of ourselves in front of others. We may have been teased or taunted as children. Whatever the reason for our fear, one of the reasons we come to Toastmasters is to learn to overcome some of these fears about public speaking and the only way to do this is to actually participate in the activities of the evening meeting. For those who are just starting, the job of "Ah counter" or "Timer" may be an appropriate job. The job description can easily be read from the back of the agenda if necessary, sparing the participant the trouble of actually having to remember the duties, thus easing a little of the tension. For those who are a little more adventurous, participating in the Table Topics, giving the word of the week, or telling a joke or story may be the next step. I decided to join to help me get over my fear of giving a speech to a large group of people. I've been giving training workshops for a number of years, but workshops are much different than speeches. In a workshop you have a lot more time to do things, you are in a discussion with others, and you can back track if necessary. With a speech, you have to have it all in the right order right from the beginning. Working through the 10 speeches for your Competent Toastmaster certification can give you the direction and confidence you need to move ahead. Once you become more comfortable with the people around you, you realize that they are only there to help you, to edify you. Then it is time to take the next step and confront your fears by giving your first speech - your Ice Breaker. This will help you gain confidence to move on through the rest of your speeches. Remember, the more you learn, the easier it is to face your fears. Do not be afraid to shine. This world needs what you have to give. Open up the areas of your being; Expose them to yourself - to others. you are valuable. You are unique. You have much to give. Do not be afraid to give it. As we risk ourselves, we grow. Each new experience is a risk. We can try, and maybe fail, And, as a result, grow-- Or hold back and stagnate. You have the potential To be anything you want. You are free to choose. You are limited only by your fears. Let your dreams take over. Fly with the eagles. Soar into life. The world is waiting for you. ==================== How To Write Powerful Presentations, Speeches And Talks by Suzan St Maur Most of us get nervous about making a speech, whether it's to 2000 convention delegates or a PTA meeting at our child's school. Often, though, people find that's the worst part of the whole process - the anticipation. The reality is often a lot easier to handle and can even be quite enjoyable, provided that you take the necessary precaution of doing your homework beforehand - preparation. There are very, very few people who can get up at a moment's notice and give a good speech totally impromptu and on the spur of the moment. There are plenty of people who think they can and/or who will tell you they can, but the truth is most of them are deluding themselves and boring their audiences to tears. There are also plenty of speakers who get up and present and make it look easy, as though they hadn't prepared anything beforehand. These are the real experts who, despite having years of speaking experience under their belts, if anything put more effort into preparation than people who speak for ten minutes once a year at the Golf Club dinner dance. So, what about that preparation? Really, it's about remembering those key golden rules that apply to all good business writing and they are: 1.Define exactly not so much what you want to say, as what you want your speech or talk to achieve - ask yourself, "what do I want the audience to be thinking as I come to the end of my speech?" 2.Find out as much as you can about your audience and ensure your content is very, very relevant to them and their needs. 3.Use language and tone of voice that the audience will understand and identify with - and blend that in with your own natural style of speaking. 4.By all means use a bit of jargon and a few "in" phrases as long as you're certain the audience understands them, but never use jargon others may not know. The only extra point I would make here is, remember that people can't rewind/replay or re-read you. For that reason you can't expect them to absorb as much detailed information as they would if you were to write it in a document or CD-ROM, which allow them to refer back to details as often as they want. Knowing your audience is also unusually important here - you'll find out very quickly if you've got it wrong, because you'll see it in their faces and their body language. Cut the clutter Depending on the nature of the presentation you're making, sometimes you will be giving out delegate packs or some other form of permanent record of your material, so details, expansions, etc can go in there. Whether you're doing this or not, though, what you say must be clear and uncluttered. With live speeches, your success is almost entirely dependent on what your audience remembers of what you say. People have very bad memories, and if a speech has been boring or complicated or both, they will remember even less of its content and only recall how terrible it was. Often senior managers are called upon to give speeches - usually to internal audiences - which cover a wide range of topics, for example a review of the company's performance over the past year, announcements about new developments, etc. These presentations sometimes last for nearly an hour and attempt to cover more topics than a fat Sunday newspaper. At the end of it the audiences have absorbed very little, having been mesmerized by the drone of the boss's voice and an increasingly urgent desire to leave the meeting and go to the washroom. Yet, argue the senior managers, we have to get all this information over to them at our conference. The answer? Split a one-hour speech down into four fifteen-minuters, interspersed with the other presentations throughout the day or half-day session. (Or if you can't do that, split the one-hour presentation across four different speakers.) Fifteen minutes is much more comfortable for the audience's attention span. And the fact that there are more, shorter presentations creates variety which, to totally misquote an old saying is the spice of live communication. Start by writing yourself a list of points - a structure. This should cover the usual story-telling technique of a beginning, a middle and an end, although the old soap-box principle of "tell 'em what you're going to say, say it, then tell 'em what you just said" is a bit repetitive. Try if you can to keep the main issues in your presentation to fewer than five, no matter how long your speech is. If you can't actually put it together as a traditional story, what you must do is ensure that one topic leads logically on to the next using some good, workable links. The right order It is possible to change direction abruptly in a presentation, but you need to be a practised speaker to pull it off and know how to use your stage body language as well as that other wonderful presenter's tool, silence. Nothing gets an audience's attention faster than a few seconds of total silence when they're expecting a stream of words. All of this carried out by a novice speaker who can't quite get the nuances right, however, can be a disaster. Links are actually quite useful even if they are a little abrupt, because they act as punctuation to your material. They also tell the audience that we're now moving on to something new. Your links can be as simple as a few words ("now that we're all familiar with the financial background of the new project, let's see how its implementation will affect the company's turnover in the next 12 months.") They can also be several sentences long, but shouldn't be any longer than that otherwise they cease to be links and become short topics in their own right. Openers and closers Many people will tell you that a powerful opening and close of a speech are terribly important and in fact as long as those are good you can say pretty well what you like in between. I don't necessarily agree. I've seen (and written for) many speakers who have agonized during several sleepless nights over how to start their speech with a big bang at the company sales conference, when all the time a simple, sometimes gently humorous opening is far easier - and more effective. It helps here if we re-examine just why openers and closers are important in the first place. To put it politely, they help to locate the audience, to act as a signal that you're about to start talking to them about something interesting or that you've just finished telling them something interesting. To put it crudely, sometimes the opener at least has to act as an alarm clock - waking the audience up after a narcolepsy-inducing previous speaker - or as air-raid siren, warning the audience to settle down, shut up and pay attention. But even if the speaker prior to you has been intensely boring and has had the whole audience shifting from one numb seatbone to the other for 45 minutes, you don't necessarily have to go out there in a top hat and false nose riding a unicycle and playing a trombone at the same time. What will get the audience's attention is for you to go out there and be yourself. Say something amusing, heart-warming, witty, whatever, as long as it's something you would say in "real life." You probably don't want to say something rude about the previous speaker, although it will be tempting, but an in-company joke if it's an in-company audience, or even a relevant quote by a famous person (there are numerous books and websites where you can find quotes) will instantly signal a major change and have the audience looking forward to what you have to say. The opener and closer don't have to be earth-shattering, but they do have to be part of you and your material. If you're naturally a quiet, private sort of person there's no way you should struggle with a passionate, emotive ending to your speech, even if others think you should be able to carry it off. One very important rule about giving speeches is if you don't think something will work for you on the night, you're right - it won't. Don't be talked into retaining anything you're not comfortable with, because something that's a small hiccup in rehearsals will become a major stumbling block on show day. On-stage nervousness greatly magnifies any little glitch. If a few, self-effacing words of "thanks for listening" are all you think you will feel comfortable with at the end of your speech then that's what you say, even if you use a speechwriter who tells you otherwise (and some of my colleagues would.) Spoken speech Once you have created your structure and decided how best to open and close your speech, the best way to ensure it sounds natural is to switch on an audio recorder, talk through the structure to yourself, and transcribe the recording. (It's a terrible job, but worth it.) Now, edit that transcript and tidy it up a bit, but don't take out the commas and the periods. Long sentences in speeches can leave you gasping for breath and losing the plot. And don't add in anything you wouldn't say in real life. Spoken speech is simply, only, what it says it is. It is monologue or dialogue as you would speak, not as you would write the same information or thoughts down on paper or screen. All you have to do is forget trying to write out your speech material (or your drama dialogue or narration) and merely say it out loud or in your mind. Then commit those words to paper or screen, a few at a time or in short phrases and sentences. If it sounds right, it is right, and if it sounds wrong it is wrong even though it may look right on paper or screen. Even great playwrights interpret spoken speech in exactly the same, uncomplicated way. Where you see their tremendous talent and creative genius is in how they use that simple technique to capture the uniqueness of the characters and scenarios they create. Think Moli�re, Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, Tennessee Williams, Jack Rosenthal, Alan Bennett and many more. Their characters' dialogue may seem unnatural to us when we hear it but that's because the character is surreal and extraordinary - and the dialogue is, in fact, perfectly natural for that character. I've lost count of the number of speeches I've listened to (not written by me I hasten to add) that came over as completely different from the personality of the speaker. This happens because many people believe that giving business presentations is a serious artform where the grander the verbiage and more ostentatious and self-important the oratory the more points they'll score with their audience. It also happens because people write bad speeches so they are virtually indistinguishable from bad brochure copy or website text or any other manifestation of overstuffed corporate-babble. Either way, it's wrong. If you write stuff for yourself to say that reads like it was written for some pontificating old codger or worse still, for some formal brochure copy, you will come across as very two-dimensional, shallow, and dishonest. You will also make yourself very uncomfortable and stumble over the words and phrases, which adds "incompetent" to the list in the previous sentence. Okay, you shouldn't give a speech in the same ribald style you might use to tell a joke to your friends in the changing rooms at the gym or the 19th hole at the Golf Club. But you must ALWAYS be, and write for, yourself and your own personality. Unless you're a trained actor, the only way you're going to come over well is if you are as at ease as possible with your material. This won't happen if you write words and phrases that may look very eloquent on paper, but which are lumpy mouthfuls to say. The right style is always conversational. The best speakers always talk to audiences as if they were talking to a friend over a cup of coffee - a natural, friendly, personal style. Gone are the days when being in a business environment meant that you should never use a short word where a long one would do. Only lawyers and doctors do this nowadays and that's largely because of their respective jargon which they're stuck with. (Can you think of a short way of saying "antitrypanosomiasis?" In fact it might be "drugs to cure sleeping sickness," but even that's pretty long.) Here are some of my own tips on writing full scripts for spoken speech: Basic spoken speech writing skills *To get a true idea of your own natural speech style, tape record yourself talking to someone in a business context and then transcribe it *Write in the style of the transcribed text (or that feels comfortable for you to say) - not how some people think "public speaking" should be phrased *Even if you want to make a formal impression on the audience, avoid long words - especially unfamiliar ones you could trip over when your stage nerves are making you edgy *Don't use jargon or clich�s, and especially not as crutches to prop up weak ideas or to cushion unpleasant news - that doesn't fool anyone *Always write shorter sentences than you do for text, vary the length of them, and never follow one longish sentence with another *When in doubt, read it aloud - if there's anything awkward you'll feel yourself tripping over it *Don't use long or even short qualifying clauses - they work on paper or screen but not in spoken speech. Try reading this aloud: "the way forward, although not necessarily what was intended by our parent company, is to buy more components from Thailand" � sounds odd, doesn't it? Turn it around instead: "this is not necessarily what was intended by our parent company, but the way forward is to buy more components from Thailand." *If you list a number of items, reprise your initial thought about them afterwards or there'll be an awkward jump. Try reading this aloud: "It's taken 3 months of co-ordinated effort by HR, marketing, sales, distribution, logistics, warehousing, finance and customer service to achieve our objectives" ... falls off a cliff, doesn't it? Now add a reprise: "It's taken 3 months of co-ordinated effort by HR, marketing, sales, distribution, logistics, warehousing, finance and customer service - all these, working together to achieve our objectives." Why a full script? You notice that I say you must write your speech, even though I know you may deliver it from bullet points or entirely from memory. Highly experienced public speakers often do not write their speeches but work only from a memorized opening and close. This is fine if you're a very experienced public speaker. If you're not, don't risk it. A full script offers a number of advantages: �It provides a detailed framework if you're an inexperienced speaker �It allows you to develop and balance your content more easily �It means you don't have to make anything up as you go along �It acts as a safety net if you do speak from memory then forget something �It keeps you to your allotted time (most speakers present at an average of 120 words per minute, so divide the total wordcount of your written speech by 120 to get its rough presentation length in minutes.) �It allows others to cue your visual support accurately (if relevant) The downside of creating a full script is that other people in your organization can tinker with it, if they know it exists. However this is a small price to pay for the reassurance and confidence a full script can give you. As you get more practised at speaking you will probably find that you become less dependent on the script and may work off bullet points or notes, but I still think it's worth writing the whole thing out initially. Anecdotes and humor Unless your presentation is an information-heavy financial report or other totally factual speech, a few anecdotes (preferably personal ones) are highly effective in helping to illustrate the points you make. Especially in England where self-deprecation and extreme modesty are the required penances to be paid by the successful, audiences warm to speakers who tell stories against themselves. That's probably because your admission of being human brings you closer to them and therefore you seem more approachable and believable. It's also because audiences are naturally voyeuristic and love to feel they're getting an inside glimpse of the real you. Whatever the reason, though, anecdotes work, as long as they're short, to the point, and totally relevant to your other material. Humor is something to be approached with caution, although used wisely it works superbly well. There is a big difference between being witty and telling jokes, and unless you are a first-class raconteur you must avoid the latter in your speeches, even if they're for "after-dinner" or other social purposes. If you're not a naturally "funny" person you won't suddenly transform yourself into one just because you're standing up in front of a group of people. If anything that tends to make you less, not more funny. So whatever happens don't be persuaded to tell a few jokes if that's something you would never dream of doing informally at a social gathering. If you do feel comfortable telling jokes, then use them sparingly, as punctuation - unless you're to be "best man" at a wedding or the entertainment after a social dinner, wall-to-wall jokes are usually inappropriate. Jokes in a speech should always be tailored to the audience and material. Gag writing is a specialized writing technique and there are quite a few good books around on comedy writing, if you're interested in learning how to do it. Over the years I have collected a database of thousands of jokes which I use to "switch" for clients' speeches, presentations, cabarets and business theatre. Basically what you do is take the hub or kernel of a joke and build up the surrounding story in line with your subject matter. For example: Original The food in this hotel is disgusting. What could I do about it? You'd better bring it up at the New Guests' Welcome Meeting. Adaptation I was in the powder room after lunch and overheard two other ladies talking. Well, I thought the lunch today was absolutely delicious, but one of these women really didn't like that crab dish we had. The other one was horrified and said she should bring it up at the next management meeting. Original It's nice to be addressing a live audience today. Yesterday I gave a talk to a budget committee. Adaptation I must say I'm so pleased to be talking to a live audience today. Yesterday I presented my new business plan to the loans panel at XXXXXXX Bank. Original A little boy and his mother were walking through a cemetery one afternoon and the little boy stopped to look at the epitaph on a headstone. It said, "Here lies a good lawyer and an honest man." The little boy read it carefully then turned to his mother and said, "Mum, why did they bury two people in the same grave? Adaptation (Replace "good lawyer" with relevant adjective and occupation, e.g. "car salesman," "clever accountant," "loans officer," "financial director," "tech support consultant," or whatever.) Another way you can adapt existing jokes for good use within in-company speeches, is to make them about your colleagues. There are very few organizations' workforces who won't get a huge laugh out of a light-hearted speech that pokes fun at their bosses and, given at the right time and in the right place, such a speech works wonders for in-company relationships. I'm often called upon to write speeches like this, and sometimes I even create entire cabarets based on in-company jokes performed either by staff or by professional actors. Although I wouldn't recommend that you try to do a cabaret - that takes experience and knowledge of stagecraft and dramatization as well as joke writing - you can easily make a few jokes about other senior people in your organization. A good place to find base material is within their hobbies, provided that the majority of the audience knows what their hobbies are. There are hundreds of jokes about golf, sailing, horse riding, skiing and nearly every other activity which you can adapt so it appears to be about the person concerned. Hobbies also offer the advantage of being distanced from the work persona of the "victim," which helps minimize embarrassment while still being funny. Lastly, if you are to deliver an after-dinner or other speech that is purely for entertainment value rather than information content, you can create a storyline which is loosely based on fact, on which you hang various adapted or original jokes. An example of that is a speech I once wrote for my Dad, a retired newspaper publisher, when he had to talk about his career to his local Probus Club (for retired business people) after one of their monthly lunches. He loves telling jokes so I used his work as a newspaper editor as the storyline and included numerous gags in among the true anecdotes. The speech was a great success, if only because nobody fell asleep - their normal tally is about 50% of them already snoring by the time the speaker's been up for five minutes, and as my Dad's voice isn't very loud it had to be his material that kept them awake! If you're looking for jokes to adapt there are some good joke books available in bookstores (including one or two written by yours truly...) and of course you can find them online via the usual big sites - try keying in +JOKES+(YOUR SUBJECT). If you key the same thing into a search engine you'll also come across jokes archived on websites devoted to the subject concerned. Something you need to be mindful of is copyright and legally you may not have the right to use a joke as it appears in a book or on a website, because when you give the speech that could constitute public broadcast. Obviously I can't be more specific about this because the circumstances vary from country to country. If you're at all concerned about the copyright implications of using jokes in your speeches you should ask your legal advisers for guidance. Visuals One issue which isn't strictly about writing but certainly is about content, is visual support. There is nothing, but nothing, worse than a speaker who gets up and gives a long, droning talk around a set of hideously complicated slides full of figures and charts that no-one understands and only half the audience can see, because the words and numbers are very small and crowded together. These are the same people who will start each link with "and on the next slide you'll see..." and at the time I'm writing this, these people often refuse electronic speaker support and cause previously normal conference producers to froth at the mouth, because they insist on using overhead projector slides. Because their visual quality is so poor, overhead projectors are the curse of the conference production industry and although they were probably invented before the Industrial Revolution they are still worshipped by many speakers, particularly academics who love to slap blank slides on the lightbox and scribble things on them with marker pens. There are a few other useful points to remember about support material too. You should use slides as a complement to, not a repetition of, what you say. The right visual support can increase the audience's retention of your content by at least 50%, so what's the point of using slides that say exactly the same thing as you do? Word slides are useful to summarize the points you are making, and also to add information to your points. Column, bar and pie charts do not have to contain lots of figures and so are useful to illustrate quantities and proportion. Written figures tend to break up on even the best quality screens and are hard to see from the back rows. The columns, bars or pieces of pie, however, serve to give a tangible dimension to the figures you're talking about. Long sequences of similar slides become mesmerising and lose the audience's attention. If you absolutely have to go through a large number of figures or computations then it's best to break the sequence up every few slides with something different, even if it's only a plain company logo. Try not to refer to your slides in your speech, because it looks amateurish and in any case should be unnecessary. The slides should speak for themselves. Also, you should try to avoid looking at the slides for the same reason, but that can be tricky sometimes when you're cueing them yourself, or if you're not using a script. Rehearse, rehearse I don't want to be depressing, but once you've finished all the hard work of preparing your material, writing your speech and (if relevant) organising your visual support, you then get down to the really hard work - rehearsing. You've got to practise, practise, practise. Not too soon before the event, or you'll be so stale and fed up with the speech you'll lose interest. But don't wait until the night before, either. Memorize the speech as well as you can, but don't worry if you forget the odd "and" or "but." If you say "er" and hesitate slightly now and again, it will make your speech sound more natural. What you must memorize perfectly is the content, and the order. Then on the day, you will use your script or bullet points as a reminder - not as an essential element that you would be desperate without. All that rehearsal - in the shower, in the car, to your family or if they don't appreciate your oratory, even to your dog - will pay off because you will be confident a) that your material is good and b) that you know it well. If you're giving your presentation in a large conference environment you may find yourself working with a show crew and a very sophisticated set and equipment. Novice speakers can feel daunted by all this stuff but what you must always remember is that it's there to make your job easier, not harder. Many times my elbows have been clutched nervously by speakers who've just caught their first glimpse of a teleprompting device, only to find that the next day when they've used it they wonder how they ever managed without one. I won't go into how to use a teleprompter here because it's a bit complex and in any case, when you rehearse your presentation one of the show crew will teach you how it works. All I will say is that teleprompters are wonderful, because they free you to deliver your performance without having to worry about anything at all - your whole speech, or your bullet points, are always in the right place without you having to do anything. And provided that you don't wander "off script" and start ad libbing with no warning, your visual support material will be cued by someone else too. All you do, is be the star. Any further tips? Oh yes, cue cards. I know they're low tech, but the places where you may have to speak are not always going to be state-of-the-art theatres, so they're useful. Two very, very important things to remember. One, always get two sets made, not just one. Keep them in separate places - e.g. one in your pocket and one in your car - so if one set gets lost you know you've got another handy. And two, ensure that both sets are irrevocably tied together in correct order via a securing device looped through a hole in the corner of each card. That way you can turn the cards over as they're used, but should you drop them you won't have to fumble around trying to pick them up and re-order them. The securing device does not have to be sophisticated, as long as it's strong. I once confounded the CEO of a major European telecomms company who, fortunately for me, was an engineer by trade, when I showed him the high-tech fasteners I'd used on his cue cards. "Good stuff," he said, "they work well. Can my secretary get these at a stationery store?" "No," I replied, "from your local car dealer's workshop. They're wiring loom clips." ==================== |
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