Public Speaking

Virtual Speaking Success: Effective communication in online meetings

by Michael Rickwood — Monday 6 April 2020

As many of us are learning, it’s easy to arrange a virtual meeting, but not so easy to run one successfully. There is quite a steep learning curve. One vital area to work on is speaking in virtual meetings. People often complain of video issues, microphone issues, poor vocal expression, monotonous speakers, and poor interactivity. Step 5 of our Virtual Meeting Revolution process is called Connection for a good reason: when speaking in an online meeting, you need to connect with the other participants, and you can’t connect if they are so bored they are not paying attention, or if they gave up trying to understand what you are saying.

The Top 5 TEDx Talks in number of views

by Pierre Morsa — Monday 30 March 2020

We worked with a lot of TEDx events over the years, and some of the talks have accumulated hundreds of thousands views, some even getting above the 1 million mark. Here are the top 5 talks of events we participated to, in number of views. In fifth place we have Jean-Gabriel Causse, speaking at TEDx Dunkerque, with nearly 600,000 views. Color me shocked, but his is talk about the power of colors is full of interesting details.

If you want to be brief and to the point, prepare

by Pierre Morsa — Tuesday 4 February 2020

A few months ago I recorded an episode for our video channel “The Business Presentation Revolution.” Initially, my content was too long to fit in the 3 to 4 minutes running time that we had planned. Looking at my script, I realized that many sentences could be simplified, some details omitted, and the structure streamlined. After several dry runs and rewrites, we finally managed to get the video down to 3 minutes.

The 3 Magic Ingredients of Great Presentations

by Phil Waknell — Wednesday 29 January 2020

Is there a perfect recipe for a successful presentation? No. Partly it depends on the audience and the context: a boardroom presentation shouldn’t look like a TED talk, even if the subject is the same. And different presentations at the same event – a conference, a demo day, an Executive Committee meeting – should also look different from each other, because otherwise none of them will stand out. So if there is no magic formula, are there at least some key ingredients we should always include?

Life after TED: How to show up in the Post-TED world

by Joe Ross — Tuesday 7 January 2020

You know that mental image you have of what you think you should be like on stage? Yes, that one based upon a mash-up of some of your favorite TED speakers whom you are certain you’ll never be as good as. Well, forget it! Welcome to the Post-TED style of authenticity centered presentation. In my last article, Wash that TED right out of your head: New Post-TED presentation, we explored some of the foundational reasons which many are experiencing, and what I call, “TED-like style Fatigue”.

Public Speaking

Should I stand behind the lectern?

by Pierre Morsa — Tuesday 17 December 2019

The lectern is a staple of traditional speeches. We see politicians use them all the time, as well as… who else? Who, apart from politicians, still uses a lectern? If I had to create a 0 to 10 presentation scale where 0 is totally informal and 10 is fully formal, I would say that running naked on stage is 0 and speaking from behind a lectern is 11. Yes, the lectern is really that formal, and in 99% of the cases, that’s not a good thing.

The story behind the story

by Pierre Morsa — Tuesday 3 December 2019

First, a mandatory disclaimer: I like Sixties-Boomer music. If poor musical tastes offend you, don’t read this. Last week, I was searching for an old song on YouTube, when suddenly I noticed a video from Joan Baez. I realized that, despite priding myself on my knowledge of 60s music, I never actually listened to one of her songs. So I clicked and listened to it. It was called Diamonds and Rust.

Being coached is the mark of true leaders

by Pierre Morsa — Tuesday 26 November 2019

Some leaders are afraid to let other people know that they took public speaking coaching. I want to explain why it’s a mistake, and why the best leaders are proud of being coached. The Consulting Partner who hired me back in 1996, for a company that was then called Andersen Consulting, was an extremely charismatic person and an excellent orator. One advice he gave openly to his peers, and to us young consultants, was to get professional public speaking coaching to become better orators.