The Ideal Communicator

For an air-tight example of an excellent speech introduction, look no further than Seth Godin’s speech about sliced bread at www.ted.com. In a little over two minutes (from minute 0.25 to 2.35 on the video), he not only tells the audience exactly what he’s going to talk about in an concise, interesting, and engaging way, but he includes the all-important WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) factor to really draw in his listeners.

How does he do it?  Watch the first 2 minutes of this speech for clues…

1. He immediately introduces the four specific examples that he’s going to talk about, including one of his own failures (Seth Godin failed at something?  I don’t believe it…) Read the rest of this entry »

This is my first blog. And I type my way into the world of blogging with both trepidation and excitement. I hesitated before jumping into this world for a long time; ”There are millions of blogs out there,” I thought. “What will mine say or do that will be any different?” So I took my time. And I thought. And had long debates with my web guru about it. In short, I procrastinated.  I felt that I had to wait until I felt like I had something of great value to share. I didn’t want to add to the noise of the ever-increasing blogosphere.

Meanwhile, as I stayed quiet, opportunities were being missed. Excellent speeches were not being recognized; bad speeches were not being analyzed. And as a result, any potential value was going right down the drain. Read the rest of this entry »