Variety is the spice of life, and also of a good presentation. In many ways, mixing things up in your speech maintains audience interest and provides you with tools to underline the key points of your speech. A speaker utilizing vocal variety spares us the numbing chose of listening to a droning monotone voice. A [...]
Every speaker seeks to sway their audience to action in some way. Effectiveness at reaching that goal requires a combination of appropriate and concise content, good organization, and smooth delivery. What does “effective” look like? In essence, it means minimizing anything within your content or delivery that serve as distractions from your message, while at [...]
Recorded at TEDxHouston, June, 2010 Dan Phillips demonstrates in this talk how effectively a speaker can use humor to connect with the audience. This is one of the more amusing speeches about home building you will ever see. He also incorporates an unusual use of his visual aids, using is photos at first to illustrate [...]
A comfortable speaker relaxes the audience and makes them more receptive. This comfort flows from your confidence in your message and in your ability to deliver it, both of which can be learned. Why do so many people struggle with nerves when speaking? Perhaps it dates from an unfortunate bad experience back in school, or [...]
Being more knowledgeable about and familiar with your subject than your audience helps to make you confident as a speaker. But that expertise can come with a downside, as you run the risk of speaking over the heads of that audience. I refer to this as being “unintelligibly intelligent”; having a mastery of your subject [...]
A speaker whom I was coaching gave a preview of her speech in front of some of the organizers of our event. Her speech consisted of some very personal and heart-wrenching stories, and in the telling she momentarily lost control of her emotions and had to stop to collect herself. The small audience was riveted [...]
