Listen like a butterfly, talk like a bee
I know, paraphrasing the motto of the great Muhammad Ali, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”, doesn’t seem to make much sense. Yet my point is that in a debate it is extremely important to listen and move with a maximum of agility, and talk with a maximum of punch. Take the example of the Gilets jaunes controversy in France. The government was completely taken by surprise by the popularity of the movement. Their initial listening position lacked agility and guile. They were perceived as static, which gave the impression, justified or not, that they were not listening at all. Their counters used words that didn’t have any punch, believing that the threat would disappear by itself.
Continue ReadingI presented at CES and all I got was a bunch of ungrateful tweets
My colleague Ricardo pointed me to a tweet from Rene Ritchie, who was attending the conferences at CES. Dear almost everyone on stage at CES: Pay ungodly amounts of money — anything you have to — to get WWDC speaker training ASAP. Or go to Juilliard or the Royal Shakespeare Company for a month. Whatever works for you. — Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) January 8, 2019 This tweet says: “Dear almost everyone on stage at CES: Pay ungodly amounts of money — anything you have to — to get WWDC speaker training ASAP.
Continue ReadingWhat presentation lessons can we learn from Apple’s profit warning?
By now, you’ve probably heard that Apple was doomed. Last Wednesday they released a profit warning press release, followed by an interview with CEO Tim Cook. I’m all too aware of Apple’s previous profit warning. Back in the nineties, after Steve Jobs returned to Apple and a Saudi prince (whose name I forget) bought a lot of Apple shares, I decided that I would be a smart investor and I bought Apple shares too.
Continue ReadingDon't Inform, Transform
Too many presentations aim only to inform, yet this is one thing oral presentations are particularly bad at – we forget most of what we hear within 30 seconds. If you want people to remember information, give them a document and a coffee, and time to read. Then you can answer their questions, discuss, agree on the next steps, and leave. This is what happens in meetings at companies like Amazon and LinkedIn, where not only do meetings never have slides - they never have presentations. Meetings begin with a period of silence, during which participants read a document that tells them everything they need to know, and the subjects up for discussion in the meeting.
Continue Reading5 Speaking Lessons from President Macron
Yesterday French President Emmanuel Macron took live, unscripted questions from an audience of 2000 tech entrepreneurs and investors at Station F, the undisputed hub of the French startup community. Ideas on Stage may not be a tech company, but we have helped thousands of start-ups with their pitches, and partner with many accelerators including Ashoka’s ShareIT.io, based at Station F. So we are very much part of the French Tech ecosystem, and very interested in how it is evolving under its new Director, our good friend Kat Borlongan. If you weren’t present for the event at Station F, you can catch the playback on Facebook LIVE here.
Continue ReadingAre you ready?
It’s already October and you know what that means… Firming up plans for next year. Pitching projects. Assigning budgets. And ultimately getting creative about how to expire old, ineffective systems and implement a smarter and better approach. Look around and catch the shift. It’s not time for just another step forward. It’s time to leap. At Ideas on Stage we coach, train and design for international clients and companies large and small, from CAC 40 enterprises to startups and incubators. They invite us in to provide outside perspective and help leadership and teams to think big, bold and with purpose for how to serve their respective end user, whether internal or external.
Continue ReadingWhat Business Can Learn From TED
Today marks the start of TED2018, the latest edition of the world’s best-known modern conference. Participants in Vancouver will be treated to high-quality talks from well-prepared speakers, and will leave feeling energized and inspired. Back in the office, you and your colleagues will no doubt be subjected to low-quality presentations from poorly-prepared speakers, and you will leave feeling bored and uninspired. Business presentations are not TED talks. A board meeting is not a stage with a round red carpet. Yet businesses can and should learn a few vital lessons from TED, and apply them to their own presentations.
Continue Reading7 Tips for Overcoming the Fear of Presenting
Fear doesn’t remove the danger. Embrace it and get on top of your presentations. “There is nothing to fear but fear itself” - a memorable line from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inaugural address in 1932 at the depths of the Great Depression. At the time he may not have realized it, but his words are among the most powerful pieces of advice for public speaking. After all, what we all fear in presentations is succumbing to fear. Losing our cool, forgetting what needs to be said, not convincing the audience enough. Failing in front of our peers. Doubt, doubt and more doubt.
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