Elizabeth worked very hard on this speech, and she executed it flawlessly. Notice the ease with which she moves, how she takes her time with the language, how she tells stories to illuminate her point, and, finally, her dynamic call to action. Excellent stuff.
Posts Tagged ‘public speaking coach manhattan’
Speak Clear Client Elizabeth Schofield’s TED Speech
Thursday, October 13th, 2011Rex Ryan and Speaking Passionately
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011What makes a good planned speech? Structure, yes, but a speech needs feeling as well. Too often presentations lack fire, emotion, feeling. Ok so maybe you’re talking about your firm’s software, and not about famine, or war, or politics, but there are still opportunities to connect your values to your speech, and to let your passion show.
I like Rex Ryan’s speech here. The tone is rude, and tough as nails, but given his environment, that makes perfect sense. He doesn’t have a lot of structure to what he is doing, but he does the most important things well; he makes eye contact, and he speaks from his heart.
Experiment with going off-script. This doesn’t mean you wing your presentations, or swear like a sailor like Rex Ryan does. Bad idea. It just means you learn to keep it loose and follow your train of thoughts and feelings first, and your notes second.
How to Execute a Killer Twenty Minute Speech
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011JJ Abrams gives a killer twenty minute speech here.
How? Simple. First, NO POWERPOINT. Break the addiction folks, powerpoint is often way overused. He uses video.. a more interesting choice
Second, he has a single, simple message… can you find it? I think it is “mystery is more important than knowledge”.
Third, he tells loads of stories, and gives the speech a personal touch. He begins right off the bat correlating his love for mystery with his love for his grandfather, and then tells touching stories about him. There is always room to share; yes even in your business presentations.
Fourth, the power of three; he has a strong premise, discussion section, and conclusion. We all like threes… so tell them what your gonna tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them.
Fifth, he’s got cool props. Not slides, not graphs, not the dreaded hand-out, but props; the mystery box he bought as a kid, a deconstructed kleenex box, etc. Props are powerful storytelling aids.
He stumbles a bit for wording at the top, and has some vocal tics, but who cares, as long as the passion and craft are there, an audience can accept imperfection.
Thoughts?
Steve Martin and Knowing Your Audience
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
So Steve Martin bombed at a speaking event at the 92nd Street last week, and many Speak Clear folk are asking for my reaction. Here’s my two cents… I think he, and his interviewer, should have analyzed the occasion, and asked many more questions before the event.
Many speakers think that public speaking is about planning a speech on paper, and than simply executing it, but it goes beyond that. A good speaker needs to think about the audience, and be in touch with the organizer of the event well before he or she puts pen to paper (or fingers to ipad). I think what Mr. Martin missed was the occasion. He would have avoided the embarrassment of being panned in the New York Times had he simply asked the organizers a few questions; Who is coming? What is the demographic of the audience? Gender? Do they want me to talk about my early work, or my current work, or both?
By asking the organizer questions, a speaker can come to understand and know what the audience needs from the speech. A speech is for the audience, and not the speaker. I think Mr. Martin may have lost sight of this.
What do you think? Was Steve Martin prepared? Was this his fault, or a result of the audience’s lack of civility?
John Stewart’s Speech at The Rally for Sanity and/or Fear
Sunday, October 31st, 2010Gotta tell you I didn’t love this one. I really wanted to. John Stewart is a brilliant satirist, and he is wonderful on television, but he makes a mistake here that John Colbert manages to avoid when he speaks, namely he uses too many platitudes (“We can have animus and not be enemies”), and too many stale metaphors (comparing the American population to cars on the freeway).
The big public speaking sin, however, is that this speech simply lacks bite. Stewart has been hammering Fox News for years about their fear-mongering, and it was not lost on anyone that this march was a chance for Steward to really drive home his point. So what is his thesis?: “The press did not create our problems, but it’s existence makes solving them all that much harder”. Not exactly a call to action! Way to ride the fence. C’mon John why are you holding back?
The speech suffers from a desire to be too decorous and civil. Stewart doesn’t have the gumption to mention the networks, or the anchors, who are perpetuating fear, nor indict the culture that buys into the fear-mongering. Ultimately the speech turns into a gooey, sentimental, slack affair culminating in Stewart thanking the audience for being “present”. Snore.
In December of 1964, Mario Savio, a student at Berkley, gave a speech demanding that the university lift the ban of on-campus political activities, and honor the student’s right to free speech. Now here’s a speech with some bite:
What do you think? Was Steward brilliant or a bore?
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is a public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City.
How to Beat Procrastination when Preparing for a Speech
Thursday, September 30th, 2010One of the first questions I ask when I hear that an executive is nervous about an upcoming speech is how much time was spent preparing for the presentation. Sometimes I will hear “Well I looked it over last night”, or “I made a few bullet-points”. Usually I think to myself, “No wonder you are anxious!”. A good speech requires work, sometimes hours need to be spent culling together material, weeding out weak points and extraneous data, finding the main point of the speech, and developing interesting questions to ask the audience. At the very least, familiarity with the material is essential.
Sometimes we feel tense about a speech simply because we are in the habit of preparing at the last minute. It’s important to break this cycle. How can it be done? Make a plan:
1) Tell someone you know (a friend, a coach, a spouse) that you are struggling to find time for your presentations, and ask them for help. Support is important.
2) Set a certain number of hours allotted for your preparation, and report your progress to your coach or friend.
3) Weed out unnecessary information. Is your speech loaded with data? Putting everybody in the room to sleep, including yourself? Weed out everything that is unessential to your main point, which leads me to my next point…
4) HAVE ONE MAIN POINT TO YOUR SPEECH Ultimately a great speaker does not ramble , but revolves his/her speech around one main theme. The public schools need reform. My company invests more selectively than the rest. You can trust my leadership. You know what it is, pick it, and stick to it.
If you feel like it will help, post your progress to this blog post. Let me know what you’ve done to improve your presentations this week, and what you plan to do next week!
Good luck!
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is a public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City.
Making a Point with a Light Touch
Friday, September 17th, 2010Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.
Many speeches have a serious tone…but is it possible to drive a point home with a light touch? I think so. Seth Goldin gives a funny, and informative speech here on the concept of “broken”. The speech is hilarious, he uses visuals brilliantly, but what I think is most interesting is the sly way Mr. Goldin makes the listener contemplate what is “broken” and what is not.
Mr. Golden starts with a great attention getter, he has recently received a series of rebate cards, four of them to be exact, worth $30 a piece. Of course, he can’t use any of them effectively. He makes the choice to bring the cards on stage, and uses them as a type of prop, flipping through them as he tells his story, and then, bang, he throws them at the audience and states: “broken”.
The word “broken” is used repetitively; he riffs off of it, showing slides of ridiculous ad campaigns, and useless signage in order to make his point. With each slide Mr. Golden gets a laugh, and then uses this laugh as cover for some more serious questions: Why are useless ad campaigns designed? What are the reasons for ineptitude? What is “broken” and what is not?
If I had to quible a bit with this speech, I would say that Mr. Golden apologises a bit too much. There is never a reason to state “I am winging it” in a speech. Luckily he has charisma to burn, and pulls this off…but I would not try it at home.
So what do you think? Can you make a great speech, and keep it light?
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is a public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in Manhattan.
Roger Clemens and Non Verbal Communication
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
I’m always telling my clients that 80 percent of our impression of a speaker is non-verbal (that’s right, that speech you’re sweating over right now means much less than the quality of your voice, your posture, and how you gesture), so what do you think of this photo of Roger Clemens testifying before Congress? As many of you know, Roger Clemens, the former Yankee, and former shoe-in for the Hall of Fame, is going to be indicted for lying to Congress about his use of performance enhancing drugs.
I think this image is a powerful reminder that our bodies rarely lie. No matter what we say, our true feelings will be revealed by our facial expressions, our posture, and our tone of voice. This image just reeks of duplicity; the cocked head, the sideways glance, the backward-moving energy. Throw the jerk in jail.
Here is Harry Markopolos testifying before Congress. Harry is the guy who tried to blow the whistle on Bernie Madoff to the SEC to no avail. What do we see here? Definace, a steady gaze, forward-moving energy, confident gestures.
What do you think?
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is a public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City.
Passion and Public Speaking
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010Laurie Santos, head of the Comparative Cognition Lab at Yale University, gives a great speech here on the roots of human irrationality. The study itself is inspired and creative (she compares human economic behavior to monkey behavior), so a lot of the work for the speech has been done before she steps on stage. That being said, I think Ms. Santos excels at conveying passion and enthusiasm for her subject. I can hear you now: “But Jeff, that can’t be taught”. Au Contraire, yes it can. It’s quite simple if you follow an important guideline: Only speak about topics you enjoy speaking about, and add interest to a speech (quotes, stories, comparisons, contrasts) when your subject is boring you. Ambivalence about your topic is to be avoided at all costs. In this speech, Ms. Santos uses a great quote from Hamlet to humorous effect, and adds interest to an already engrossing topic.
There are two other things Ms. Santos does well; she does not over rely on her Power Point presentation, and she ends her speech on a positive note. Going negative is the cardinal sin of public speaking technique, and she avoids it well, coming to a nice, definitive conclusion.
If I were to quibble a bit with her technique, I would suggest that she could slow down, and breathe more. There are moments when she appears to be a little out of breath. Slowing down, and deliberately breathing more will help her calm her nerves, and will allow the audience to catch up with her ideas.
Overall, however, I consider this a job well done.
Your thoughts?
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is an executive public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City. (more…)
Language and Corporate Truth-Telling
Friday, August 13th, 2010In today’s Huffington Post, there is a great article about the verbal cues that give away an executive who is lying. According to a study done by Stanford University, executives who use general phrases like “the team” or “our corporation” tend to lie more often than executives who use more personal pronouns like “we” and “I”. In addition, exaggeration tends to be a key linguistic component of lying. According to the study, the former CFO of Lehman Brothers used the word “great” 14 times and “strong” 24 times while describing the firm’s performance during a conference call. The firm collapsed months later.
What type of language do you use when presenting? Do you keep it personal and use “I” statements? How have you seen language erode or increase credibility?
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is an executive public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City.