World Champion Evaluator evaluating like a champion

Just read an excellent article by Lisa Braithwaite on metaphor.  In the article about the use of metaphor in the Tour de France commentary, Lisa talks about Phil & Paul’s excellent use of color to make a potentially dull 3+ hours, exciting.  The commentary is there to add a story to a sporting event.  The story makes the event come alive rather than just be a copy of what you can already see.

When you think of it compared to a PowerPoint presentation, Paul and Phil and not merely reading their slides, they are capturing the essence and making it come alive.

Evaluate your speeches and presentations.  Have you made the topic as interesting as you could?

Posted under Public Speaking

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
 
- Rudyard Kipling - Excerpt from The Elephant’s Child

There’s more to these 6 questions than initially meet the eye. Three of them are open-ended and three of them are much less so. Why would that matter? Well, open-ended questions work better at the start of a conversation, while close-ended questions work better once you have a decision.

Open-ended:

• What?
• Why?
• How?

Close-ended:

• When?
• Where?
• Who?

Never end your presentation on a question.  You will be at the mercy of the answer.  This often happens in PowerPoint presentations.  You have spewed your brain forth onto the slide and you want to know what you missed.  Avoid this.  Ask for questions throughout your presentation to engage your audience in dialogue.  If you don’t want to do that, prepare a strong conclusion that comes after the Q&A.

Finally, when you end a presentation, you can ignore the advice above and ask an open-ended question such as:

How do you see yourself making use of the information I just presented?

When you do this, you will get a sense of how well your information came across. Still follow it up with a fantastic close that ties that response into your conclusion.

Posted under Public Speaking

Does anyone in their right mind actually like criticism?

I do.  Constructive criticism that is.  I have gotten used to getting constructive feedback at Toastmasters that it heightens my perceptions when I don’t receive constructive criticism.  I am sure I physically cringe when I hear “I like it” or “I don’t like it” because they give you no information that you can use.

Today I have been reading a couple of great articles from The Closet Entrepreneur on criticism.  The first article tells you how to give criticism and the second article tells you how receiving criticism can be good for you.

The most important thing to keep in mind when giving constructive criticism is to focus on valid and unbiased feedback.

The articles talk about how to ask for criticism and who to ask. Great reading!

Posted under General

In a post directed at unemployed college students, Seth Godin talks about a fantastic post-graduate year doing the following:

• Spend twenty hours a week running a project for a non-profit.
• Teach yourself Java, HTML, Flash, PHP and SQL. Not a little, but mastery.
• Volunteer to coach or assistant coach a kids sports team.
• Start, run and grow an online community.
• Give a speech a week to local organizations.
• Write a regular newsletter or blog about an industry you care about.
• Learn a foreign language fluently.
• Write three detailed business plans for projects in the industry you care about.
• Self-publish a book.
• Run a marathon.

“If you wake up every morning at 6, give up TV and treat this list like a job, you’ll have no trouble accomplishing everything on it. Everything! When you do, what happens to your job prospects?”

Seth makes a compelling point.  I suggest you join Toastmasters and you will learn even more about communication AND increase your network, both of which will prove invaluable.

BTW, other than the possibility of running a marathon, there’s no reason why everyone that is unemployed could be doing this.

Posted under Public Speaking, Toastmasters

“If you could kick the person in the pants who is most responsible for your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”

~ T Roosevelt

Posted under Quote

Check out the Dear Speakers post by James Duncan Davidson.  The article started as a series of tweets.  Some great wisdom from the audience point of view.  There’s also some amazing pictures of speakers.

The pointers, which are expanded on in the article and in the comments (definitely worth reading), are:

• Please deliver your speech to the crowd, not the screen.
• Pick a spot and stay.
• Take off your name tag.
• Stop walking  backwards.
• Make eye contact with your audience.
• The corner of the stage is darker than rest of stage.
• If you are being videotaped, all of the above matters 10x more.
• Dress like you mean it.
• When on a panel, look at who’s talking.

Taking off your name tag was an interesting one for me.  Having a name tag in your photo doesn’t make you look so good.  You never know when you are going to have your picture taken, so it is good to get into the practice of taking the name tag off.

The comments shed a lot of light on moving around the stage.  A lot of people defending the practice.  James Duncan Davidson does not suggest that these are rules that MUST be obeyed.  They are pointers that most speakers could do better with.  Once you can do all of these naturally, then it is time to experiment by wearing shorts and a t-shirt, walking backwards towards the corner of the stage with your name tag on, all the time looking at your feet.

Posted under Public Speaking

There is an excellent discussion on evaluations over on LinkedIn.

One of the contributors in particular, John Zimmer, took the time to provide 10 tips for evaluations.  He has won a District level evaluation contest (the highest you can win), so knows what he is talking about .  Here is a bullet list of the 10 tips.  For more information see the discussion on LinkedIn.

1. Know the four criteria against which you will be judged.
2. Sit near the front, slightly to the side.
3. Gauge audience interest or reaction.
4. Have an original opening.
5. It is all about YOUR opinion.
6. Practice, practice, practice.
7. YouTube.
8. Don’t forget the middle.
9. Have a good ending.
10. The little things make a big difference.

Ten excellent points that can really elevate your evaluations to a new level.

Posted under evaluations

Yet another post from Seth Godin related to speaking!  Maybe I should rename the blog to Seth Godin as applied to Speaking?!

In a recent post, Seth talks about Ignoring Sunk Costs.  Go take a minute and read his post.

How does that relate to speaking?  Glad you asked

We are in the throes of contest time at Toastmasters.  There are many speakers vying to become the World Champion of Public Speaking.  They likely have a number of speeches from previous contests that they could consider using.

When considering which speech to choose, ignore the sunk costs.  Don’t consider the amount of time you put into a speech as a reason to use it.  Just because a speech has been evaluated more does not mean it is better than a fresh speech that only you have seen.  Go with the speech that energizes you.  Go with the speech that you can infuse with passion.

Posted under General

Just read a blog posting from Seth Godin entitled “Mechanics vs. Intent.”  It follows on from my previous post on What is Your Intent.

Seth boils down the discussion into such a simple form.

…if you don’t go the extra mile and I end up not caring, all the tactics in the world won’t help.

Although Seth is not talking directly about giving a speech, his words are just as relevant.  No amount of vocal variety, movement, or gestures will help you if you don’t go the extra mile to share your message.

If there’s no passion behind your message, please stop wasting both our time.

No matter how scary the prospect is to put your passion into your speeches, you owe it to yourself to share it with the world.

It doesn’t have to be a speech about world hunger or curing cancer.  It can be as ordinary as a fishing trip, a kitchen disaster, or a trip to Costco.  I don’t care about your mechanics.  All I care about is that your eyes light up when you speak.

Update:

Just read a post entitled Passionately Speaking by Robert Killen.  Complementary to this post:

Passion is the one thing that will get your audience to sit up and take notice. Without it, all the best slides and statistics will inevitably fail to ignite them.

Posted under Public Speaking

From a fortune cookie:

The eyes believe themselves, the ears believe other people.

Develop your listening skills to be as good as your observation skills.

Posted under Quote