individulaity

"No task is so humble that it does not offer an outlet for individuality."

-William Feather

And there is no doubt that that applies just so well to public speaking. it is our chance to put our own individual stamp on the presentation - whether it be a short toast or a keynote to a roomfull of people. I see public speaking as a fantastic creative outlet. And, of course, a chance to build your image. Thanks, William Feather

Creativity Games for Trainers

Dr. Robert Epstein’s Creativity Games for Trainers arms you with 30 innovative, entertaining games guaranteed to enhance creativity in any organizational setting.

Use them to develop creativity workshops or to breathe life into any training sessions.

Each ready-to-use activity comes complete with lists of required and optional materials, time recommendations, reproducible handouts, follow-up discussion questions, and other essential information. You’ll also find simple instructions for customizing exercises to different settings. . .data collection forms to help measure and track success. . .special “challenge exercises” that help participants develop their own games. . .and unique “application exercises” to assist users in promoting creativity on their own.

You've already got what it takes, or why public speaking experts should shut up and sit down.

You already have everything you need to be an effective, charismatic speaker. You do. You don’t need to adopt certain tricks or mannerisms. Nor do you need to speak with an artificially amped-up enthusiasm or energized voice. You do not need to move in this way or that. Or use props or PowerPoint. All of these suggestions, though well-meaning, keep us struck in the illusion that we need to be other than who we are right now, in this moment, in order to speak well in public.

Read on ...

Storycatcher - making sense of our lives through the power and practice

Making Sense of our lives through the power and practice of Storytelling
by Christina Baldwin
Christina Baldwin’s work on Story…the art, the practice, the importance of telling and re-telling stories in our lives is a stunning masterpiece. Woven beautifully with fragments and selections of her own stories, Baldwin once again instructs, enchants and inspires the reader about the critical nature and importance of the individual stories of all of us. Whether it’s to build community, heal generational wounds, create stronger organizations, leave a legacy, or simply to pass on information, Baldwin’s narrative builds a compelling case for the power of “storycatching.” A magnificent read…and a wonderful gift to give. What will be the questions you carry to ask of yourself and others? A must-have!!

How not to make a powerpoint

This is remarkably true!! “How not to make a PowerPoint”
http://www.consultpivotal.com/videos.htm#powerpoint_not

Tips On Public Speaking; The Seven Secrets You Need to Know

With the information age upon us, and immense knowledge being constantly shared, people are being asked more frequently to address public audiences. The need to define study tips on public speaking is rapidly growing. More and more people are standing in front of their audiences with nothing to say, or it seems that way. These following tips on public speaking will show you why it is important to target you message to an audience that will enjoy it.

Read on ...

Why you should never read your speech ...

Planning on giving a talk?

If you're a nervous speaker, you might be tempted to write your speech and then read it. Don't!

Here are 5 reasons why reading a speech is an invitation to disaster.

Read on ...

Quote for the Week

If you can't write your message in a sentence, you can't say it in an hour.

Dianna Booher

10 Essential Steps to Communicate Effectively As a Speaker

Being able to communicate effectively through words has been a much-coveted secret for centuries. Take the blarney stone in Ireland, for example. The blarney stone is part of the Blarney castle in Ireland and it is tradition that those who kiss this stone are given the gift of the gab. If you want to have the gift of the gab but kissing the blarney stone is out of the question, maybe you could benefit from the 10 basics of communication and public speaking.

Read on ...

Public Speaking Success Tip

Alliteration is a particularly powerful presentation tool

Quote for the week

Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.
--Sir Ralph Richardson

More quotations about public speaking

A Short Guide to Effective Public Speaking

By: Stephen D. Boyd

Delivering an effective presentation to 20 or to 200 people is difficult. Because listeners have better access to information since the internet became commonplace, audiences expect more content from speakers today. In addition, because of the entertainment slant of most media today, audiences want a presentation delivered with animation, humor, and pizzazz.
If you would rather spend your time preparing your content than reading a book on public speaking, this is an article especially for you! From my experiences in delivering over l500 speeches during the past 20 years, here is a quick guide to giving an effective and interesting presentation your very first time.

Read on ...

Public Speaking Tips: The More You Know, The More It Will Flow - Tips For Knowing Your Audience

The more you know about your audience, the better your presentation will go.

Read on ...

Just for fun

Just in case you are sitting at your computer with nothing to do –

nothing at all …

http://www.widro.com/throwpaper.html

More items like this, and others that you can use in your speeches and poweroints, at the Pivotal Just for Fun pages

Help For Public-Speaking Anxiety

Fear of public speaking strikes some people harder — and differently — than others, according to a new study. The study shows that those who suffer most over speaking in public get more anxious, not less anxious, as their presentation gets under way. And when it's over, instead of feeling relief, they feel even more anxious.

Read on >>>

More on overcoming public speaking nerves

How Power Point Killed Public Speaking

The origins of the use of Power Point were solidly grounded in good intentions. Remember slides? People put pictures on them, or graphs -- visual aids. They were intended to act as accompaniments to lectures and presentations.

The whole idea was that the speaker would talk for a while, and then occasionally show a slide that illustrated a point with a picture or a striking image, or made a set of numbers clear with a bar graph or a pie chart.

Slides were time-consuming to create, and difficult to change. So most people used them sparingly. I once saw a speech by a National Geographic photographer that included a hundred slides, but each one was a uniquely wonderful picture he had culled from thousands, literally. He was entitled.

Then came Power Point.

Read on ...

More on Using Powerpoint on the Pivotal PowerPoint Pages

Public Speaking Quote for the Day

"Broadly speaking, the short words are the best,
and the old words best of all. "
-- Sir Winston Churchill

More quotes about public speaking

Seven Key Ways to Gesture Effectively

Gestures are reflections of every speaker's individual personality. What's right for one speaker may not be right for another; however, if you apply the following seven rules, you can become a dynamic, confident speaker who uses gestures well.

Read on ...

Concluding Your Presentation: End With A Bang, Not With A Whimper

Your conclusion should do much more than simply tell your listeners that your presentation is over. Your entire presentation, in fact, can hinge on the final impression you make. It's that last impression that can linger the longest. So preparing a strong ending to your presentation is every bit as important as preparing a strong opening.

Read on ...

The PowerPoint of no return

A FRIEND RECENTLY joined a multinational company where she was required to undertake several business training courses. In one particular course, she emailed her assignment as a Word attachment. The assignment was promptly
returned ungraded because she didn't "effectively answer the question".

She was, however, invited to resubmit the assignment, which she did and shot straight to the top of the class.

It was a remarkable turnaround by any standard - all the more so because, aside from the addition of two or three extra sentences, the content of the resubmitted assignment was identical to the original. The only significant change she had made was cutting and pasting her assignment into a PowerPoint template. Unless PowerPoint makes you more intelligent - and it's a safe bet that it doesn't - the lesson of the course was that form trumps content any day.

Loved by some, loathed by many more, PowerPoint has become a byword for much that's wrong with contemporary culture.

Read on ...

More on how to use Powerpoint

Three essential body language tips

For anyone who has done some training with me, you’ll know that I don’t focus on body language when presenting. People can get obsessed by trying to look convincing or slick, and neglect the content of their presentation. They perform
all the textbook hand gestures, and what comes out of their mouths doesn’t match up. A bit like watching 100 chavs pour out of a limo. It just doesn’t seem right.

Sometimes however I do give advice on body language for presenting - especially when it detracts from the message.

Here are the 3 biggest body language presentation pitfalls, and what you can do to avoid them:

Read on

Presentation Nerves Part I

There seems to be hundreds of theories and opinions about nerves in relation to making a presentation. Possibly one of the more famous sayings is that it is okay to have butterflies, as long as they are flying in the same formation.

Other people say presentation nerves are built-in anticomplacency buttons, ensuring that we are always on edge and performing to our best.

Article continues

More on overcoming public speaking nerves

Don't.Read.Your.Dumb.Slides

From the Shameless Self Promoter

I suspect some folks do put up the charts and bullet points and text-dense slide for the simple reason that they believe the information will speak for itself, so they won't have to do all that pesky work of presenting it in an interesting and useful way.

Here's a hint: IT WON'T.

Read on ...

Engage your audience when you speak

How do you make your presentation more interesting to your audience?

Perhaps the most important technique is to include them when you speak.

You can choose your words to engage your listeners — or leave them out. If you leave them out, boredom is the probable result.

In this article, I'll give you some specific techniques for crafting your content in a way that grabs the attention of your audience.

Read on

More on writing great speeches

Why Use Humour in Your Presentations?

Why should I bother using humour in my presentations?

Can't I just deliver my information and sit down?
You sure can!

That's what most people do.

The problem is that most people are not effective presenters.

They are nighty-nite, snooze-inducing, say-your-prayers, hit-the-sack, unlicensed hypnotists.

They are ZZZZZs presenters.

They might be experts in their field and able to recite hours and hours of information on their topic, but is that effective?

Read on ...

Research used to correct school langage

University researchers have helped West Australian teachers and schoolstudents tweak their talking skills to better suit modern life. For six months, a team of Edith Cowan University (ECU) researchers, Associate Professor Rhonda Oliver, Dr Yvonne Haig and Dr Judith Rochecouste, assisted 50 teachers to investigate the language skills of about 2500 of their students.

http://ecumediaqa.ids.ecu.edu.au/popups/mrPopup.asp?mrID=655

Public speaking FAQ

This is your cheat sheet to making public speaking easy and painless. The book distills the knowledge of three top-notch speakers into an eminently readable question and answer format.

The FAQ Book On Public Speaking

The authors, Eric Feng along with his colleagues Irene Ang and Kelvin Lim, has aimed to answer all of your most burning and nagging questions on public speaking. Straight to the point with no fluff...just stuff that works!

You can download a complimentary chapter of the book right now. Be relieved that your days of being fearful about speaking are coming to an end...

And when the book is launched look for the great bonuses you will receive when you buy your own copy.

Preparing for your presentation

There are so many ways a room and its set-up can affect your presentation. It is so important to make sure it works for you - your position, the audience's position, the equipment, the sound, the heating ...

Graham Jones used this gret example in his tip : Check the room layout for presentations

I was at a meeting the other day when a woman was invited to speak. She stayed where she was in the room to deliver her five minute talk. However, this meant that some people in the room couldn't see her; others couldn't hear her. As a result, about half her audience had five minutes of their time wasted. She also wasted much of her time because she didn't get her message across to half the room.

Where you sit, where you look and how the audience feels is dependent upon room layout. You need to seriously consider all the options before you talk. Get the room layout right and your presentation will be much better. What this means is you should never accept the room as it is - unless it is perfect for you and your audience. Almost every room needs changing in some way so that the audience gains the best from you.

Public Speaking Success Tip - Creating a confident first impression

Before you open your mouth to say the first word of your speech, you are communicating with the audience. Your stance, facial expression and body language are a picture that paints a thousand words. Make it calm, confident and pleasant, and you start "on the right foot!" So plant both of your feet, stand up straight and smile at them. You'll feel confident, sincere and professional and the audience will know. Then you can play with them.

Using Computer Presentation Programs Effectively

"Are you still doing speeches in the stone age?" This was the question a participant asked of a presenter at a recent conference I attended. The presenter had lugged along a box of transparency slides to show during his half-day seminar, and I admit, I was a little doubtful at first about the lack of modern technology. The presentation went well, overall, but could have clearly been enhanced by a good Microsoft PowerPoint, Lotus Freelance, or Aldus Persuasion program. Additionally, it would have been much easier to present for the speaker, and definitely lighter to carry on the airplane.

Later in the month, however, I got a different perspective when I spoke a participant in one of my seminars after the rest of the class had gone. She told me that when she first walked into the room, she was very disheartened to see a computer-generated image being shown on the screen. She confided that although she had enjoyed the presentation entirely, and that I had overcome her initial apprehension, her first reaction was:"Oh no! Not another PowerPoint Presentation"

This reaction is not unique, I've found. When talking to people in my seminars and social settings, the message I get is clear; People are tired of worn-out power point presentations! Does this mean we should jettison the technology and go back to the "stone age", as one person put it, in giving our presentations? No more than we should ban television because of the likes of Jerry Springer and Temptation Island. The medium itself is not to blame, it is how that medium is used that falls short.

Read the whole article

We’re in an Epidemic and it’s called PowerPoint!

Everyone uses it, but is it the best way to present your information?

Most people who use PowerPoint of give Presentations have not had much, if any, public speaking or presentation skills training. However, we tend to copy what others are doing. I would like to suggest stop doing what everyone else is doing and do it right. The following steps will help you stand out above the rest.

Read on ...

Powerpoint backgrounds

To create effective backgrounds in PowerPoint is one of the most challenging tasks for a presenter, as balancing visual impact, layout balance, properly matching colors while keeping great legibility is nothing that I would consider easy. Article continues

Your voice is your most essential tool in presentations

When making presentations it is often easy to overlook the importance of your voice.

But without a dynamic and strong voice you may as well not be presenting.

A friend of mine realised this last week. He makes presentations every day, but he managed to get some kind of throat infection which left him speechless - literally.I pointed him in the direction of Vocalzones, a herbal lozenge which
can help speakers and singers maintain a clear voice. He sucked on a couple of the lozenges and his voice was good enough to give his 20 minute talk.

Your voice should never be neglected and be allowed to get into bad shape. You should always take care of it. To ensure you keep your voice in tip top shape see this article on
voice maintenance.

Powerpoint backgrounds

To create effective backgrounds in PowerPoint is one of the most challenging tasks for a presenter, as balancing visual impact, layout balance, properly matching colors while keeping great legibility is nothing that I would consider easy.

Article continues

Public Speaking Success Tip - fillers

Unless your speech if absolutely fascinating, any "pause fillers" you add repetitiously, like um, or y'know, or OK will start to stand out.

They will capture the audience above your speech.

Start by listening to others - sports commentators, interviewees on television, anyone speaking publicly.

Listen for their fillers then you will learn to listen for your own.

Gestures

Gestures can make or break a presentation. Normally, they flow naturally as a person expresses their thoughts, but if they are wooden or distracting, then they spoil whatever point the speaker is trying to make.

My latest free set of tips is about gestures - how to overcome the problems of being distracting or wooden, or when they just don't work for you.

Visit the courses web page and click the button, and I'll send you the first in the series.