SpeakHQ Blog
Every few months there’s another article on the evils of PowerPoint, but it’s a poor craftsman that blames their tools. If you can’t think of a decent sentence to write, would you blame your pen? If you seem to habitually crash cars, would you blame the shape of the steering wheel? Regardless of how good…
Read MoreI’m a huge fan of helping people speak – I’m the speaker coach for Ignite Seattle, and did an Ignite talk called How and Why to Speak at Ignite hoping to get more people up on stage. Many events now use this short video, an ignite talk about doing good ignite talks, to help get…
Read MoreThere’s a fantastic discussion on metafilter about whether college students should be able to use the web during class time. The original question by quodlibet was this: How do I keep my students off the internet during lecture? Today, in the class I TA – I had about 5 students on facebook, another 2 texting,…
Read MoreI’d always wanted to do a talk about my curious path through the world of philosophy. I’ve studied philosophy my whole life, trying very hard to undo the bad lessons I was taught while getting a degree in the Philosophy Department in college. Thanks to Ignite Seattle I got my chance. So here’s Everything You…
Read MoreA potential client asked me – we’re not sure it makes sense to pay a speaker to come to us. What’s your argument? And so, I sat down and wrote this. Clearly I’m biased, since I make a good part of my living being hired to speak. However, back when I was a manager it…
Read More[This topic was requested with a slightly different title: How to make a convincing argument.] The word argument itself makes people think of lawyers or divorce proceedings, which are poor connotations if you’re hoping to charm someone into agreeing with you. It’s worth shifting to the more positive word: convince. The goal is to persuade, to…
Read MoreI saw on CNN today more about Sarah Palin’s use of handwritten notes on the palm of her hand. This story is stupid and pointless. It’s just as dumb as the people who criticize Obama for using teleprompters, while using telepromters themselves, which includes nearly every newscaster on every TV network (ironically, Sarah Palin criticized…
Read MoreMy latest essay for Forbes.com is now up – it’s called the importance of what you say. Many are surprised to learn that for centuries many of the great writers in history, from Emerson to Mark Twain to Peter Drucker, made much of their incomes not from their ideas alone, but from the interest people…
Read MoreAfter a month of promoting Confessions as hard as I can, and doing more than 30 talks or media appearances in the last talks in 4 weeks, I finally have some down time.
Read MoreWhile on tour in SF this week I ran into some folks who read my earlier books. They were surprised I’d write a book about a topic as boring as public speaking.
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