The Ideal Communicator

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 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 »

by John White, Marketing Communications Writer, VenTAJA Marketing

There is an art to writing slide decks that support your presentation, and an art to presenting without a slide deck. Hire a writer who can help you with both.

Have you ever seen a slide deck get in the way of a presentation? Your own presentation, perhaps?

You’re standing in front of forty people delivering an animated presentation, when it dawns on you that the members of your audience are not engaged. At first they ogle the screen and leaf through your handouts. As your presentation goes on, some of them pick up their phones, check e-mail and surf a bit. Finally, you begin to read a message on a few faces: “All right, we’ve got the deck with your information. May we go now?” If you could read their tweets, you would probably confirm that they’ve checked out (and are telling people about it in real time). Read the rest of this entry »