What you need for a speech or presentation

March 7, 2012 by  

image by Kheel Center, Cornell University

So you’ve just been asked to give a presentation or make a speech. You don’t expect to get the reaction a presidential candidate does, but you certainly don’t want to end up sounding like Every Presentation Ever. Start preparing for your moment on stage by gathering these resources for yourself.

1. Your own research

Answer these questions:

When you are speaking? (are you the first speaker in a panel of five or — ugh — the fifth?)

Who will be in the audience? Professionals, general public? If you can get information on likely gender mix and ages, even better.

What do they want you to speak about? Believe it or not, this doesn’t always get explained properly! The more narrow the subject matter, the easier it will be to create your speech or presentation.

2. Good speeches and presentations

Sit through too many snoozy presentations and you’re more likely to imitate one. Instead, watch a TED speech at http://www.ted.com/talks They’re long, but they’re spell-binding.

For something much more compressed, check out the five minute presentations from the Ignite speakers’ series at http://igniteshow.com. Their slogan is “Enlighten Us, But Make It Quick” — a great motto when preparing a speech.

3. Go Old School and buy some books

When I searched for a witty line to include in one of my email sigs, I naturally turned to the Internet. What a treasure trove there would be of obscure, hilarious lines millions of people had been compiling over the last 20 years!

But for some reason, there are maybe 75 tired one-liners and short jokes everyone publishes over and over. Do not waste one second Googling them, because every presentation ever has already done that.

Find an old joke book, at a bookstore, library sale, whatever. While you’re there, look for short books on business anecdotes and/or history anecdotes. If you’re very sure of the gender mix, ages and background of your audience, a book of military anecdotes or marriage and love anecdotes may also come in handy, but I would use them wisely.

Give yourself however much time you can to work through your own research and watch a few good presentations. Keep your books handy for when you actually write your presentation. Your next step is an outline, which we’ll discuss in a future post.

And if you’re a comfortable, veteran presenter, what speech resources have you found absolutely necessary?

Where technology meets etiquette: Siri edition

March 2, 2012 by  


image by Planetc1

From the New York Times comes a look at this dilemma: texting saved us from obnoxious cell phone conversations (of course texting has its own etiquette limitations, as you’ll know if you’ve ever seen someone text their way throughout a meeting or presentation).*

But now that technology is saving us from typing text and gives the ability to speak text, we’re back to people having obnoxious conversations — this time not even with a human being….

“Happy birthday smiley face,” was what Dani Klein heard a man say to his phone on the Long Island Rail Road, using the command to insert a grinning emoticon into a message.

“It sounded ridiculous,” said Mr. Klein, 28, who works in social media marketing.

Click to read “virtual assistants raise new issues of etiquette“.

*or been that person. Shame!

Is it time to get rid of internal email?

February 19, 2012 by  


image by Ian Lamont

The decision by French IT company ATOS to get rid of internal email by 2014 has made some workplaces look at their own overflowing inboxes and think, “maybe there IS a more efficient way.”

An article on Fresh Business Thinking talks about the most likely successor to office email, Instant Messaging:

“More than half (55%) of those who use IM at work say it cuts down on email traffic and 50 percent find it more efficient than email.”

Read more at “Are businesses missing out for overlooking instant messaging?”

But if you can’t beat ‘em, maybe manage ‘em more effectively. This article from the Sydney Morning Herald tells you how to get through that pile quickly and includes some blunt stats:

“Microsoft has estimated 50 per cent of emails received by office workers could be deleted or filed, 30 per cent could be delegated or completed in less than two minutes, and 20 per cent could be deferred to a task list or calendar to complete later.”

To see what’s started this whole frenzy over internal email in the first place, go straight to the source and read ATOS CEO Thierry Breton’s interview with the BBC on the issue.

Need QR Code ideas? Here are three great QRC campaigns

January 12, 2012 by  

2012 is supposed to be the year of the QR code, but not everyone has figured out how to make their QRC provide value to customers.

Looking for ideas? Here are three great and innovative ways companies have made their QR codes stand out.

Tesco’s South Korea subway campaign

What makes it great: Convenience. Mind-blowing convenience.

I actually had this idea first. Exhausted in the subway station, hungry but with a lack of groceries at home, I would dream of being able to touch the posters of food I passed in Toronto’s PATH system and have them appear at my house.

Tesco improved on my idea (which involved magic powers) with QRC-embedded posters of groceries on the wall instead. South Koreans scan each picture with their smartphones and the food is delivered to their homes. Click above for a demonstration.

Ethical Bean’s Back of Bag Story

Why it’s great: builds Ethical Bean’s eco-friendly, fair-trade brand, provides unique information, showcases the company’s social responsibility efforts

When you scan the back of a bag of Ethical Bean coffee, you are treated to pretty much an A&E Biography of your coffee. “This QR code contains the unique story of your coffee–from where it was grown and who picked it, to cupping, scoring and roasting information,” writes the company on its website.

Ethical Bean even takes their QR code beyond smartphones — typing in the number underneath the code into an online app lets you see the same information from your computer.

Heinz Ketchup’s “Our Turn to Serve”

Why it’s great: Engages customers, builds customer goodwill, showcases company’s social responsibility efforts and charity work.

Customers could scan a code on specially marked bottles of America’s favourite ketchup to send a digital postcard to US troops. Heinz would also make a small donation to the Wounded Warriors project for every message.

But even the best marketing idea needs near-flawless technical execution — over at Consected blog, Phil Ayres found Heinz’s QR code unwieldy for older smartphones. Read his analysis of the problem and suggestions for improvement here.

The possibilities of a QR code seem endless. What are some of the best uses of QR codes you and your smartphone have come across lately? Which are the worst (or most boring) ones?

Top 17 awful business buzzwords and their alternatives

January 9, 2012 by  

In December, CareerBuilder.com released the 17 most odious business buzzwords as decided by a survey of 5,300 people.

Here’s the list in descending order of offensiveness, along with their definitions and what someone thinking outside the box might say instead. Also check out which words I actually don’t mind. I make my case for which ones we should keep and which ones will outlive the cockroaches in a later post.

Outside the box 
What it means: creative, creatively
What to say instead: creative, creatively

Low-hanging fruit
What it means: an easily attainable goal
What to say instead: the easier goals, the simple things

Synergy 
What it means: better value or better results from combining resources or using teamwork
What to say instead: better results through teamwork / combining resources

Loop me in 
What it means: keep me updated
What to say instead: keep me updated

Best of breed
What it means: the best of a certain type of software, hardware or business
What to say instead: the best

Incentivize
What it means: motivate, strongly encourage
What to say instead: motivate, strongly encourage

Mission-critical 
What it means: critical, the most important
What to say instead: critical, the most important

Bring to the table 
What it means: has or have
What to say instead: has or have

Value-add 
What it means: an extra or enhancement to a product which is either free or low-cost
What to say instead: An extra or enhanced feature

Elevator pitch 
What it means: A quick, succinct definition of an idea, business or product
What to say instead: I actually like the poetry of “elevator pitch”, the idea so compact you could recite it during the seconds you spend in an elevator.

Actionable items 
What it means: Tasks or objectives that a business can complete on its own, immediately
What to say instead: The things we can do now, the things we have control over

Proactive
What it means: Show initiative
What to say instead: I don’t mind proactive either, actually.

Circle back
What it means: Come back to
What to say instead: come back to, return to

Bandwidth 
What it means: The time or ability to perform a task
What to say instead: I’m not able to do that right now (instead of “I don’t have the bandwidth”)

High level 
What it means: the big picture
What to say instead: overall, the big picture

Learnings
What it means: lessons
What to say instead: lessons, what we’ve learned, so far we’ve learned

Next steps 
What it means: things that need to be done next
What to say instead: I don’t mind this either, actually.

Sources: johnsmurf.com “Where business jargon goes to die”, online dictionaries merriam-webster.com, the freedictionary.com, businessdictionary.com and learnings.org “where corporate buzzwords go to die”

photo by Dalbera