In a previous post on June 4, 2008 I discussed “Learning Hand Gestures from YouTube Videos”. I did not remember then where that idea came from. It probably actually came from an article by Carmine Gallo titled “YouTube your way to better speaking”.
The article originally in appeared in the August 8, 2007 issue of Business Week
It was later reprinted in Toastmaster for October 2007, which is where I read it last fall.
Mr. Gallo points out several great speakers, and even some specific speeches. He mentions two business executives he particularly admires: Steve Jobs of Apple and John Chambers of Cisco.
The title for this post is something one comedian said long ago about another “borrowing” his material. It may have been Fred Allen complaining about Milton Berle. Although you can learn a lot from others, you still need to find your own unique style of speaking.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
DIA - Drowning in Acronyms
DIA is an acronym that now means “Drowning in Acronyms”. DIA originally stood for the Defense Intelligence Agency, but now it just describes their mode of speech. DIA and the rest of our government (and much of industry) talk glibly about UAVs and IEDs, and so on. They know what this alphabet soup of abbreviations means. To them it all is quite obvious.
They forget that we do not understand most of what they are saying. If you absolutely must use an acronym in a speech, then please take a few seconds to define it. As a general rule please AAIP (Avoid Acronyms If Possible). Your audience will thank you.
Some of the most obscure acronyms are drifted names for technical societies. An acronym originally stood for the name. Then the name changed, but the acronym did not. Presumably this is due to the complexities of American trademark law. However, it is just wonderful for confusing outsiders. For example, I am a member of TMS which originally was The Metallurgical Society. Now TMS actually is The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society.
It gets worse. Over in Great Britain there used to be the Institute of Metals, IOM. Now it is IOM3, meaning the Institute of Materials, Minerals, and Mining. The newer alphanumerical soup is worse, and should be avoided even in Business to Business (B2B) communication.
They forget that we do not understand most of what they are saying. If you absolutely must use an acronym in a speech, then please take a few seconds to define it. As a general rule please AAIP (Avoid Acronyms If Possible). Your audience will thank you.
Some of the most obscure acronyms are drifted names for technical societies. An acronym originally stood for the name. Then the name changed, but the acronym did not. Presumably this is due to the complexities of American trademark law. However, it is just wonderful for confusing outsiders. For example, I am a member of TMS which originally was The Metallurgical Society. Now TMS actually is The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society.
It gets worse. Over in Great Britain there used to be the Institute of Metals, IOM. Now it is IOM3, meaning the Institute of Materials, Minerals, and Mining. The newer alphanumerical soup is worse, and should be avoided even in Business to Business (B2B) communication.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Life after “Death by PowerPoint”
Don McMillan has a hilarious, four minute comedy video on “Life After Death by PowerPoint”. It shows what you should not do. Most of us unfortunately have been victims of similar PowerPoint presentations. You can watch Don either on MySpaceTV
or on YouTube with added subtitles
What should you do with PowerPoint? Mike Futty recently has briefly discussed how to avoid “Death by PowerPoint”
On the same site is a longer presentation, a 34-page e-book, by Craig Douglas Strachan on Putting the POWER into Powerpoint
or on YouTube with added subtitles
What should you do with PowerPoint? Mike Futty recently has briefly discussed how to avoid “Death by PowerPoint”
On the same site is a longer presentation, a 34-page e-book, by Craig Douglas Strachan on Putting the POWER into Powerpoint
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Jargon versus clarity: The only thing we have to fear is significant anomalies
In his inaugural speech Franklin Roosevelt famously said that: “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”. He did NOT say that the only thing we have to fear is significant anomalies.
An anomaly is something abnormal or irregular. “Significant anomalies” is internal NASA technical jargon for major discrepancies that might lead to problems. Would we want to hear about insignificant anomalies? We probably would not. Somewhere inside NASA though somebody is looking to try and catch them before they grow to become significant.
Technical jargon has escaped from inside industry and government and now is being inflicted on the outside world. They know what it means, but the rest of us are scratching our heads. Jargon usually is the enemy of clarity in speaking. Steve Adubato discussed this problem in an article titled Lose the jargon, clarity is the way to go
When people ask me what I do, I tell them that for the last twenty years I have been figuring out why things busted or rusted. In technical jargon I could say that I conducted root cause failure analysis (or RCFA). My part of the puzzle starts from looking at the materials and processes used to make a component, product, or system. When I talk with a client, I often say that: “It was made right. We better look at how it was used to see why it broke (or rusted).” I have learned to resist saying that “Chemical and metallurgical analysis of the component revealed no significant anomalies.”
An anomaly is something abnormal or irregular. “Significant anomalies” is internal NASA technical jargon for major discrepancies that might lead to problems. Would we want to hear about insignificant anomalies? We probably would not. Somewhere inside NASA though somebody is looking to try and catch them before they grow to become significant.
Technical jargon has escaped from inside industry and government and now is being inflicted on the outside world. They know what it means, but the rest of us are scratching our heads. Jargon usually is the enemy of clarity in speaking. Steve Adubato discussed this problem in an article titled Lose the jargon, clarity is the way to go
When people ask me what I do, I tell them that for the last twenty years I have been figuring out why things busted or rusted. In technical jargon I could say that I conducted root cause failure analysis (or RCFA). My part of the puzzle starts from looking at the materials and processes used to make a component, product, or system. When I talk with a client, I often say that: “It was made right. We better look at how it was used to see why it broke (or rusted).” I have learned to resist saying that “Chemical and metallurgical analysis of the component revealed no significant anomalies.”
Saturday, June 14, 2008
QUOTATIONS: “I use not only all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.”
Woodrow Wilson said that many years ago. You can find it and some other thought provoking quotes listed online at: http://www.susanbaughman.com/Famous-Quotes.asp
Originally I ran across it in the "Complete Guide to Informational Interviewing and Networking" by the University of Houston:
http://www.career.uh.edu/general/ucsHandouts/files/Complete%20Guide%20to%20Info%20Interviewing%20and%20Networking.pdf
Quotations can provide ideas for talks or just punch lines. Remember that you usually don't have to reinvent the wheel, just to borrow a hubcap or two. Bartelby.com is a great online source for quotations: http://www.bartleby.com/quotations/
Some quotations are deeply embedded in our language. For example, "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread" comes from the English poet Alexander Pope. Johnny Mercer has used just three words "fools rush in" for the title of a song in 1940. Those words also are the title of a romantic comedy movie from 1997 starring Salma Hayek and Matthew Perry.
Originally I ran across it in the "Complete Guide to Informational Interviewing and Networking" by the University of Houston:
http://www.career.uh.edu/general/ucsHandouts/files/Complete%20Guide%20to%20Info%20Interviewing%20and%20Networking.pdf
Quotations can provide ideas for talks or just punch lines. Remember that you usually don't have to reinvent the wheel, just to borrow a hubcap or two. Bartelby.com is a great online source for quotations: http://www.bartleby.com/quotations/
Some quotations are deeply embedded in our language. For example, "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread" comes from the English poet Alexander Pope. Johnny Mercer has used just three words "fools rush in" for the title of a song in 1940. Those words also are the title of a romantic comedy movie from 1997 starring Salma Hayek and Matthew Perry.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Podcast on How to Create a Great Speech
Alan Weiss just recently presented a wonderful 7-minute podcast on "Creating a great speech". You can find it and others in his series at: http://www.contrarianconsulting.com/category/podcast-series-the-way-i-see-it/
What is a podcast? It’s just an audio file you can play on your computer. You also can download it, save it, and listen to it later on. Then you can move it over to a portable MP3 player (iPod, etc.) and listen while you jog or drive.
UCLA has an introduction called "What is Podcasting?" that you can either read one chunk at a time or download as a big .pdf file to read later. See http://www.oid.ucla.edu/units/tec/tectutorials/casting/whatispodcasting01
What is a podcast? It’s just an audio file you can play on your computer. You also can download it, save it, and listen to it later on. Then you can move it over to a portable MP3 player (iPod, etc.) and listen while you jog or drive.
UCLA has an introduction called "What is Podcasting?" that you can either read one chunk at a time or download as a big .pdf file to read later. See http://www.oid.ucla.edu/units/tec/tectutorials/casting/whatispodcasting01
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Stand & Deliver!: The Importance of Context for Idioms
In my previous post I referred to Steve Adubato’s web site titled "Stand & Deliver" http://www.stand-deliver.com/home.asp He started his company with that name in 1999. Variations of that phrase have been used as the title for several books about speaking and presentations.
In 2006 there was Jocelin Kagin’s, "Stand & Deliver: your guide to dynamic presentations".
In 2002 there was Philip Khan-Panni’s "Stand and Deliver: leave them stirred, not shaken" (a sly reference to the fictional secret agent James Bond and his martinis).
Of course, "Stand and Deliver" also was the title of a 1988 movie about Jaime Escalante teaching calculus to students in East LA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver
However, if you mention the phrase "stand and deliver" to an audience of Englishmen as being related to public speaking you may expect to be greeted by peals of derisive laughter. That phrase also has a VERY different older meaning related to highway robbery (or "income redistribution"). Stand means to come to a stop, and deliver means to hand over your wallet or purse. The phrase uttered by a highwayman typically was "stand and deliver - your money or your life".
Can you find the meaning for an entire phrase? Sure! Go to a library and look in a dictionary of idioms. The McGraw Hill Dictionary of American Idioms says that "stand and deliver" means "to give up something to someone who demands it (originally used by highway robbers asking for passengers valuables)"
In 2006 there was Jocelin Kagin’s, "Stand & Deliver: your guide to dynamic presentations".
In 2002 there was Philip Khan-Panni’s "Stand and Deliver: leave them stirred, not shaken" (a sly reference to the fictional secret agent James Bond and his martinis).
Of course, "Stand and Deliver" also was the title of a 1988 movie about Jaime Escalante teaching calculus to students in East LA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver
However, if you mention the phrase "stand and deliver" to an audience of Englishmen as being related to public speaking you may expect to be greeted by peals of derisive laughter. That phrase also has a VERY different older meaning related to highway robbery (or "income redistribution"). Stand means to come to a stop, and deliver means to hand over your wallet or purse. The phrase uttered by a highwayman typically was "stand and deliver - your money or your life".
Can you find the meaning for an entire phrase? Sure! Go to a library and look in a dictionary of idioms. The McGraw Hill Dictionary of American Idioms says that "stand and deliver" means "to give up something to someone who demands it (originally used by highway robbers asking for passengers valuables)"
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