2-Minute Tip: Prewire your big meetings I first learned about the idea of Prewiring a meeting from the folks at Manager Tool. Check out their podcast for a deeper discussion. I also talked about it in the early days of this 2-Minute Talk Tips in Episode 7 (Empty Your Pockets and Prepare Your Audience). Basically, to prewire your audience before a big proposal, meet with your stakeholders…
2-Minute Tip: Slides are not Time How many slides should be in a 15-minute presentation? How long is a 10-slide presentation? I don’t know because the number of slides is a poor proxy for presentation length. I would rather see a presenter add more slides than to use a small font. Splitting one slide into multiple slides doesn’t lengthen your presentation. It just makes content more legible….
2-Minute Tip: Use Nose Contact Using eye contact effectively is an important skill for speakers to master. It helps the audience feel that the speaker cares. It emphasizes how the speaker and audience members are all participating in a shared experience. Looking at audience members’ eyes can be unnerving for some speakers, though. The solution is nose contact. Instead of looking at the eyes of the…
2-Minute Tip: Avoid Dairy Before Speaking I love a big bowl of sugary cereal or a nice cheesy pizza. I used to drink mochas like water before I decided to switch to Americanos for weight loss (by the way, switching from mochas to Americanos will NOT make 30 pounds just fall off). So I like my milky, cheesy goodness. But not right before speaking. Dairy consumption…
2-Minute Tip: Use an Event Form I used to travel from Seattle to Irvine, CA, quite a bit. It got to the point where I thought I knew where I was going down there. That was a false confidence. I began making wrong turns because I didn’t think I needed a map to help me. As we do more public speaking, we can easily make that same mistake. It’s…
2-Minute Tip: Restrict Your Practice Time Two of the biggest sins of public speakers are going overtime and rambling. Both disrespect the audience, When you go 5 minutes over, you’re not just taking 5 minutes. You’re taking 5 minutes from everyone in the room. If there are 20 people in the room, you’ve actually taken 100 minutes in total. To address both these issues, restrict your rehearsal…
2-Minute Tip: Keep Your Shirt Off Breakfast is the most important meal of the day (if you believe “Big Breakfast”). When travelling to give a talk, we may start the day with room service breakfast in a hotel room while we putter about getting ready for the day. That makes it really easy to spill coffee or jelly on your presentation outfit if you get fully dressed…
2-Minute Tip: Know Your Gear Whether its a projector, TV, laptop, audio hookup, or slide clicker, get to know your gear before you conduct your presentation. Figure out in advance how everything works so you’re not scrambling at the last minute to figure out why something doesn’t work the way you thought it would. If there is a problem making something work, you want to know about…
2-Minute Tip: Listen Actively Speaking is about more than just giving a speech. It’s about meeting the needs of the event organizer, getting the logistics right, and helping to put everyone at ease. One way to do that is with active listening. When meeting with your event organizer, customer, colleague or SME, there are some things you can do to help everything run smoothly. Look…
[podcast src=”https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/5966693/height/0/width/0/theme/standard/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/forward/” height=”” width=”” placement=”bottom” theme=””] 2-Minute Tip: Be Thankful As we begin Thanksgiving week here in the US, it’s a good time to think about being thankful as speakers. And not just to the universe or deity(ies) of your choice. While speaki9ng may seem like a solitary activity where we are on stage or at the front of a conference room by ourselves, there are a lot of…