The Ideal Communicator

I was compelled to re-post this video, originally featured on the Huffington Post website. It features Councilman Phil Davison of Minerva, Ohio, making a fiery speech at the Stark County Republican Party’s executive committee meeting to select a nominee to run for Stark County treasurer.

You can’t deny that this man has passion.  But what’s behind this passion? Is it sincere?  Or is it simply a “I’ve got to shake up my listeners at all costs!” type of presentation? Notice how he tries to walk away from the podium, only to go back 3 seconds later to look at his notes; how he puts up a random number of fingers to signify the 13 years of experience he has. At around 1:20, he angrily states, “I will not apologize for my tone of voice tonight,” but never quite explains why he seems so angry, or why he continues to yell at his audience. If you’re going to go for the the “I’m mad, and I’m just not going to take it anymore!” tactic, at least make it clear why. He seems to get so caught up in the emotions of his speech that it even becomes too difficult to remember a 7-word quote from Albert Einstein.

There’s more… but once you watch the video, it’ll be fairly clear to you exactly how he might have been a lot more effective by trying to be a lot less impassioned.  

Davison did not get the nomination.

This video also appeared in Stark County Political Report, Martin Olson’s blog about Stark County Ohio

In this talk, the Jamie Oliver presents his TED Prize acceptance speech, where he reveals his wish to change the world. Compelling, persuasive, and at times heart-breaking, I highly recommend taking the time to watch this 19-minute speech not only to watch him display some unusual – yet highly-effective – speaking techniques, but to learn about the food-related problems facing the U.S. today.

From the moment Jamie takes the stage, it’s hard to take your eyes off him. So what makes this speech stand out? Here are 6 reasons: 

1 — DRAMA!  Right from his first words, he grabs the audience with dramatic statements that will make anyone sit up and take notice. “Diet related disease is the biggest killer in the US, right now, here today.” “Obesity costs you Americans $150 billion per year.” “We’ve condemned our kids to living 10 years less.” All designed to hit home. Of special note are the first words out of his mouth in this speech:  “Sadly, in the next 18 minutes, 4 Americans that are now alive will be dead because of the food they eat.” Now THAT gets attention – and would start any speech off with a bang.   Read the rest of this entry »

Evan Williams is one of the co-founders of Twitter. As a result, he’s probably invited to speak to tell his story and share his insights to all sorts of audiences. So how did he do in this 7-minute speech at TED?  Let’s take a quick look at what was good, and what needs to be improved the next time he takes the stage.
  

WHAT HE DID WELL:

Introduction: He wasted no time, and went straight into the speech with a personal story about the origins of Twitter.  The story was interesting enough, and was an effective way to start the speech.
 
Transitions and photos: He made an obvious transition out of the introduction and into the ‘body’ of the speech with the facts of what Twitter is and how it’s used.  The photos and images used backed up his points and the accompanying stories extremely well. 
 
WHAT CAN BE IMPROVED: Read the rest of this entry »

A lot has been said about the presentation style of Steve Jobs. Numerous books have written about it, blogs, articles and other media are continually discussing and deconstructing his finesse, his charisma, his ‘get-to-the-point’ delivery. And with good reason. This man knows how to launch a product. 

Most of us are used to this more ‘typical’ product launch presentations given by a ‘business speaker’: “Here’s our new product. These are the new features… These are the improvements on the old features… Here are the benefits… Here’s the price. Please buy it.” But Jobs does what many business speakers have a hard time doing. He intrigues his audience. He has them in the palm of his hand. He turns them into passionate Apple brand advocates.

Steve Jobs is much more than a talented, above-average business speaker. He’s a product evangelist. Not content to just launch a product or persuade us of its value, he makes us salivate for it. Beg for it. He makes us HAVE to have it – NOW. 

I looked at two of Jobs’ presentations – the introduction of the iPad in January 2010, and the introduction of the iPhone 3G in 2008. Both are very similar in style, so we can see that Jobs knows what type of presentation style works for him and sticks with it. So let’s look at four techniques that the Great and Powerful Jobs uses to bring his audience to their knees, begging for his product: Read the rest of this entry »

This 20-minute speech was forwarded to me by a very valued reader, who prefaced it with a simple “Wow! Check this!” And what I saw did not disappoint. Eve Ensler is known as the original creator of the Vagina Monologues and V-Day, a movement to stop violence against women and girls, which has so far raised $70 million to prevent violence and protect abused women. And after watching this video, now we can also get to know her as a passionate, intense speaker with a somewhat unconventional speaking style.

I’m going to assume that for many of the astute readers of this newsletter, you likely remarked on the same two issues that I did within the first minute of the speech: First, she’s sitting. Second, she’s got notes in her lap, which she refers to fairly often in the first 2 minutes, then minimally for the rest of the speech. This breaks some of the public speaking “rules” that we’re so familiar with: Stand up and move around, and don’t use notes (especially large papers stapled together). But what was also evident in the first minute of her speech was an intensity that caught my attention immediately, and made me want to hear more. Read the rest of this entry »