I recently attended a conference where two of the speakers raced through their talk without pausing. It was so exhausting. And their ideas seemed less important with the speaker racing through them. We all crave a START and/or an END: The human mind responds instinctively to the start or the end of anything so when More…
Clarity: How to get to the next level
I coached a scientist who was disappointed his pitch for funding wasn’t getting anywhere; when his newly developed technology was groundbreaking. He was a likeable and energetic presenter, but explained the value of his technology in a superficial way – using high level words. His pitch was basically: “Our technology makes it much easier to see More…
PM Gillard ‘Robotic and rehearsed’
An interesting article in The Age newspaper about Prime Minister Julia Gillard which echos what I’ve been saying for some time. While message management and media management are important skills for those in the public eye, you need to throw us some scraps of authentic and natural. The key skill is message management, not gesture More…
Does technology make us better communicators? (Part 1)
The short answer is ‘No’. The full answer is sometimes yes and other times no. Many people believe that if the visual aspect of the presentation is professionally put together, they will be more effective. It’s not that simple. Slick visuals do not mean that the two vital ingredients of a successful presentation are in More…
Wicked messages: getting people to take action (part 1)
A few years ago, a Systems Engineer at USC Berkeley wanted to understand how we could put a man on the moon, yet couldn’t do things that seemed straightforward – like designing buildings that functioned properly, agreeing on where to build freeways, etc. He identified that some problems were wicked, while other problems were tame. This concept More…
Conversational clarity: a flexible way of selling
One-way sales methods don’t work well. Gone are the days when a salesperson would force the prospect down a rigid, one-way path. People want to make the buying decision in their own way – and we all have different buying patterns. There is no one way! Today, a salesperson needs to be flexible because the More…
Steve Jobs’ iPad: not such a vivid message
As promised at the end of my last post, ‘Steve Jobs- structure helps engage’, here are the reasons I think Steve Jobs missed his message with the launch of the iPad… The iPad launch on January 27 2010 was not greeted with the positive reviews that Steve Jobs might have come to expect from major More…
