Guess what's in my head?
Ben Stein, the Economics teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, teaches us an important lesson about the types of questions that we should be asking from the stage when we're speaking or when we're in a classroom teaching.
Road test your slides for better performance
Use a simple strategy for improving your slides real world performance.
The proper use of bullet points
Bullet points are often vilified. And rightly so, because they're so often abused. If you use them the right way, they are actually a great learning tool.
Why are you tired after teaching?
Yes, you're tired at the end of a day of teaching. Is it for the right reasons?
CodePaLOUsa and Debunking the Steve Rule
The first Seize the Room podcast! We talk with Elle Waters and several of her co-panelists at the upcoming CodePaLOUsa conference where these panelists talk about "Debunking the Steve Rule."
The difference between speaking and teaching
Which one are you: a speaker or a teacher?
Branding your presentation
How do you define branding for your presentations?
Speaking Success: More Objectives
We usually start planning a talk by jumping in with clear objectives for what you want people to know and do after your talk. To take your speaking to the "next level", we need to ask two more questions that serve to transform your speaking into something that compels people to take action.
Speaking Success: Start with Objectives
When you're planning and creating a talk, there's a critical step that many people skip or miss because it is so simple, it seems almost like it isn't worthwhile. But these starting points are what lead to success and leave your audience wanting more because you deliver **value**, and there are clear takeaways from your talk.
Lucky Pants
It doesn't matter whether "pants" to you means "trousers" or "underwear" -- I wear the same pants over and over and over again while I'm speaking. Yes, usually both my trousers and underwear. Here's why my speaking routine is almost exactly the same, every single time.
The Power of Story Telling: Epiphanies
The art of story-telling is a critical skill for delivering great presentations. But you also must choose the correct stories. Eureka moments--where you literally have an epiphany--are some of the best stories to tell.
How to Create Value as a Speaker
The secret to paid speaking is mastering the concept of Value. If you want to be paid to speak, you need to have something valuable in your presentations. You need to help people save time, money, pain or just plain feel better about themselves. Here's a list of some of the things that you can focus on to create that value.
Getting to Best
Part of getting paid speaking gigs is about determining what you're best at doing and how you can share that with your audience. The formula that works for me is pretty simple and 4 key components that lead to repeatedly getting paid to speak at conferences around the world.
3 Simple Approaches to Finding Speaking Opportunities
I know you want to get paid speaking gigs. You need to find speaking gigs first—paid or not. Once you've found conferences, workshops, and events, you can start to zero in on the ones you want to speak at and the ones that will pay you. Here's a big step in the process: finding a decent number of gigs in the first place. How? Read and learn...
Getting Paid Speaking Gigs
I get asked this question over and over and over again. How do you find paid speaking gigs? It's all about one simple word. And it rhymes with dalue. If you can clearly answer the questions I pose here, you're well on your way to getting paid to speak.
Customizing Your Presentations
Customizing your presentations is a great technique to show that you're in tune with the audience. That doesn't mean writing a brand new presentation every time. It means some easy changes that help you connect to the people in the room.
Getting the most from a speaking mentor or coach
In a mentoring relationship, it's too easy for someone to say "Can you give me feedback?" If you want to make it really worthwhile, work with a mentor on very specific areas of concern. Ask them the right questions, and encourage them to give you the detail you need to take action.
Scour those tweets
You've just finished a talk at a conference and you race to read what people said about it on twitter. It was great! You got lots of praise and compliments and people tweeted quotes from you several times over. While this feels great, what are you going to do with it? Read on to see what you can do with some of the gold nuggets that come from the back channel.
Use more effective photos
One element that a great presenter incorporates into their work is the use of photography. Certainly you can use stock photography, but it is even better if you take the photos yourself and use them to tell stories that relate well to the topic you're speaking about. Here I show you an example of two photos I took on a recent trip to Australia and how I might use them in a talk.
How to Rock Blog World LA 2011 as a Presenter
I'm heading to Blog World LA tomorrow to speak and really looking forward to speaking at a different venue to a different audience than I'm used to speaking to. If you're speaking at BlogWorld this week, here are some speaking tips on what you can do to rock your talk.
Power Keystrokes for Apple Keynote
Manipulating an embedded movie clip in Apple's Keynote software can easily be done with some simple to use keystrokes. Much better than trying to look at the screen and use the mouse to control the movie as you look at the screen over your shoulder.
Transcript—Timezone Sickness
Know your role
You can't always be a comedian when you're speaking. Sometimes that just isn't your job. And if it isn't your job, you can't beat yourself up because you didn't get that many laughs when you delivered your presentation. You need to know your role and judge your success accordingly.
The Power of Why
When you're preparing for a talk, ask questions to find out more about what the event organizer or client is looking for. They've chosen you for a reason, so you want to be sure that you deliver what best suits their current needs. The most powerful question you can ask in preparation for any speaking, training or consulting engagement is "**Why?**"
How to avoid being wishy washy
When you're at the front of the room, it's yours. Keep it by taking these wishy washy phrases out of your talks. Don't ask the audience for permission to tell them a story—just tell the story!
Let's get it started
Sometimes you need to start fresh in order to experience something new. This is that fresh start. I love what I do, but always want more.