The Ideal Communicator

Well here’s a speaker you just want to sit down and have a drink with! Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling book and recent movie Eat, Pray, Love, shares her thoughts on creativity and the notion of “creative genius” in this 19-minute speech at TED - and in the process, shows her audience how very funny, thoughtful and well-spoken a writer – and a speaker – she is.

Elizabeth excels in many ways in this talk. And there are some small things that she might have ‘tweaked’ to make it even more powerful.

 
STRENGTHS IN DELIVERY:
 
1.  She’s funny – and here’s why:  There were a few instances of great use of language to get a point across. At around 1:45, she laments how some people ask her if she thinks that she’ll “die on a scrapheap of dreams with my mouth filled with the bitter ash of failure” because she’ll never be able to follow up the success of her best-selling book. This comment is quite lengthy, and she almost gets out of breath as she says it. This makes it go from a ‘witty remark’ to just a little outrageous, thereby pushing the audience from a potential chuckle to an outright laugh. Well done.  If you can get your audience to laugh in the first 2 minutes, there’s a much better chance of having them sit up and listen to you for the rest of your speech. (I’d also like to give credit to her vivid metaphor of  “It’s like asking someone to swallow the sun.” That’s a great visual!)

2. “Messy” – but enthusiastic and authentic. Like Jamie Oliver in last month’s blog post, Elizabeth can be considered a “messy” speaker…but in a good way. Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago, I attended a full-day marketing and branding conference to listen to six individuals, all professional speakers, authors, and experts in their field. They were scheduled to take the stage for 45-60 minutes at a time, to an audience of approximately 1,000 people. Some of these speakers were more well-known than others, but all had a specific expertise, and I was eager to listen to them all and hear what they had to share.

What did I come out with?

1. The speakers who can make the audience laugh the most will be rated the highest
2. You don’t always need slides to get your point across concisely and powerfully
3. Even the best professional speakers can miss the mark and completely alienate the audience

Let’s focus on point #3.

All the speakers had their fan base. There were two speakers who were big draws – one of them was an author of several books, very active on social media, and a true expert in his field. I know many people who RT him on Twitter regularly, who read his books, and follow his advice. The other had fewer books, a little newer to the speaking field, but is a well known local personality.  And while I can accept that even the best speakers can have an “off” day (as I was told by someone who had seen these people speak before, who assured me that they are generally much better than their performance on that day), here’s what these speakers did that really annoyed the audience: Read the rest of this entry »

In this 19-minute speech, Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. Having had the pleasure of seeing him present in 2006 at a conference, I am now very excited to feature one of his talks in this newsletter. Discussion of this speech will focus on three things: His movements, what makes his content so compelling, and ways in which he links himself with the audience.

HIS MOVEMENTS — OR LACK THEREOF

Sir Ken does not move around when he speaks. In this video, you’ll see that the camera is focused on his upper body and face only, and he stays planted on his feet throughout his presentation. This is a stellar example of how it’s possible to engage an audience without moving around, gesturing, or “working the stage.” This is quite unique to Sir Ken, as most speakers feel more comfortable moving around…and there’s nothing wrong with that either.

COMPELLING CONTENT

Sir Ken uses so many core components of a persuasive speech that it’s no wonder his audiences are mesmerized. Let’s take a look at a five of them:

1. Clearly stated hypothesis, problem statement, and introduction. Within the first three minutes, he states his hypothesis (“My contention is all kids have tremendous talents and we squander them. Pretty ruthlessly. So I want to talk about education, and about how creativity is as important as literacy”). He gets to his point quickly and concisely. Read the rest of this entry »

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