Create Your Communications Experience

Believed To Be Heard in Audio

Short post here - but we had to announce that "You've Got To Be Believed To Be Heard" has just been published by MacMillian Audio - released on audio CD from Amazon and for download on Audible.

When I heard it I liked it! Now that may seem weird, but normally we don't like the sound of our own voices, and I'm no exception. Our recorded voice comes to our ears through sound waves and air - and we're used to hearing our own voices inside our heads, sound conducted by bone. Different - so I was pleased.

You can hear an audio sample here. (And of course I'd love you to hear the whole thing.)

Thankful for "Reality Check"

With so many good books out recently...

"Outliers", "Tribes", "You've Got To Be Believed To Be Heard" - had to have that in there ;-)  

why single out Guy Kawasaki's "Reality Check" on this Thanksgiving?

Because...

• It's that good.
• It's a big book.
• You can get a multitude of tips and inspiration from it.

It is also easy, fun reading, and you can pick it up and put it down. But you'll want to pick it up again because of Guy's uniquely witty and irreverent style.

Reality Check is all about communicating, in addition to it's chapter 'The Reality of Communicating'. What Guy does is give you great insights and techniques for creating an action oriented communication experience with these other chapter headings (the ones I liked best):

• The Reality of Starting
• The Reality of Raising Money
• The Reality of Planning and Executing (particularly laughed at The Art of the Board Meeting)
• The Reality of Innovating
• The Reality of Marketing
• The Reality of Selling and Evangelizing (powerful ideas for us all)
• The Reality of Communicating (best of course, and not just because I'm mentioned)
• The Reality of Beguiling (laughed again at The Art of Sucking Up, after The Art of Sucking Down)
• The Reality of Competing
• The Reality of Hiring and Firing
• The Reality of Working (don't miss Why Smart People Do Dumb Things)
• The Reality of Doing Good (and to do some good go to the Twitter Red Kettle)

Well, that's actually all of them - couldn't leave any out. Many of the short vignettes in the chapters are from Guy's great blog, cleaned up and expanded it looks like. All have either wisdom, or insight, or just plain fun. Usually all three.

That's Guy. I'm thankful he wrote the book. You will be too when you read it.

Connection Trumps Everything

Dave Paradi had an interesting post this week titled, "Does Great Content Trump Poor Visuals." (Another in my weekly Best of Alltop on Speaking.)

As he told the story of an academic presentation with powerful content but terrible slides, he noted that flashy visuals can't make the case with little content, but wondered if the reverse was true. I'd say neither.

You need connection. With dull visuals, with reading a speech, with no substance - you will have no connection. And no impact. Boredom, disinterest and tuneout. Twitter time for the audience.

Only if the audience is interested solely in the content and not the person and the experience (like college kids listening to a lecture for a test) does content reign supreme. At conferences and in business settings I've seen that happen only once in over 20 years - at a Pharmacist Convention during a research presentation (that would have been best presented in writing anyway.)

To make an impact you need connection, and that's people connection, emotional connection and action connection. It comes from high energy, use of stories (SHARPS), knowing your audience and relating, looking, moving and having a beginning, middle and end, etc. You can have a connection with no visuals, (if you have to), but you can't have a connection with boring and flat content and slides and behavior. If you have brilliant content but don't feel it needs connection, submit a paper. The written medium is faster anyway (just not as powerful.)

Dave said it well when he said to NOT go to the PowerPoints first:

"Next time you start to develop a presentation, don't sit down at your computer. Go to a quiet place with a pen and paper and allow yourself the time to concentrate on your desired outcome and the best way to achieve it. Only after you've got great content should you look to create persuasive visuals."

And if you're smart, then you will add some great visual ideas from Presentation Zen or Slide:ology.

Nancy Duarte, and the power of Twitter

Yesterday was a lazy Saturday morning, and I was checking my iPhone in bed. There was a Twitter from Nancy Duarte Tweeting that she was speaking at the Apple Store in San Francisco, so I turned to my wife, Dru Scott Decker, and said, "Want to go?" This would be a chance for me to see Nancy, show the power of Twitter (which I'm still experimenting with), and also use my new Flip Video that was still in it's box! And Dru, also a best selling author who loves Nancy's book Slide:ology said "Yes - love to."

Nancy Duarte at Apple Store

So the Flip Video came out - and it works great for a very small (iPod size) video camera of adequate quality that you can immediately edit and put up on YouTube. Here's an example - my first shot.

And Nancy was great - overcoming a lot of background noise and distractions at a busy downtown Apple Store. Here is Nancy with her first key point, on the importance of Telling Great Stories.

She had terrific slides of course, but even moreso was her great content (Dru took some notes as I was busy with Flip Video):

1. Tell Great Stories - she illustrated with visuals that ALSO told the great stories by themselves.
2. Reach Beyond Projection - a presentation can be slides - projected, but she told also of the many other varieties, from decks (the written) to on the web, to PDA plus devices - where you can interact, collaborate, and view. In other words, the world of presentation is a new world.
3. Show Don't Tell - and here she gave a great example of a Garr Reynolds' presentation on SlideShare.
4. Create  a Profound Experience - unusual was a chart of visual storytelling that looked for the conflict and resolution. Nancy said to identify those points in a preso where you want people to be conflicted, for conflict generates emotion generates action.

Dru Scott also bought a few more copies of Slide:ology. That deserved an iPhone picture.

The Flip Video was OK, but the quality isn't great when you have poor sound and a screen as background. For a longer and higher quality view of Nancy, you might try this interview.

Other tidbits:

• Nancy said to use high quality images - they evoke credibility, and Duarte Design spends over $150,000 a year on images!
• Nancy Duarte and Garr Reynolds have changed the process of creating and presenting in less than a year with their influence, blogs, and particularly their wonderful and complimentary books Slide:ology and Presentation Zen. Both books are in the top 100 at Amazon already. Amazing.
• Twitter, Tribes (also in the top 100 at Amazon) and Technology are changing the face of communicating. (At least task and relationship communicating - nothing will ever replace 'face to face'...)
• The video revolution continues. Flip Video costs $179 and enables anyone to immediately shoot and edit and be able to use videos in their PowerPoints, blog posts, YouTube or devices. And video is the BEST way to capture emotion to influence to action in a very short time.

Rule of Three - List of Three

Max Atkinson has a great blog that you will want to visit if you are at all interested in speaking and communications (which is why I assume you are here!) He is the speaking expert from the UK behind "Claptrap", which is an outstanding movie classic on the use of oratorical devices. Sounds boring, but the 30' film dramatically takes a woman with moderate education and makes her into a "standing ovation" parliamentary speaker. With Max Atkinson's help. (Unfortunately the film's only available in PAL.)

His great post on Barack Obama's advanced use of alliteration, list of three, and other oratorical devices is not to be missed. Atkinson is a master at coaching and analyzing the written speech. As he mentioned in his email to me, Obama "included 27 three-
part lists at a rate of about one every 30 seconds!"

And keep in mind that the "list of three" is not just a device of rhetoric. As a proven principle in physics, it is also used in communicating for

1. organizing ideas on the spot
2. creating presentations, and
3. putting together agendas of any kind

(and a lot of other uses beyond those three.)

It is one of the organizing principles for The Decker Grid, which we use in every program we teach and train. So if you use the Rule Of Three you will be

1. More prepared,
2. More persuasive, and
3. More powerful!

The Bully Pulpit Is Taken

Never has a President-elect wrested the reins of communication so fast. In less than a week Barack Obama has already taken hold of the Bully Pulpit - that very real lightning rod of power of the presidency.

Why?

• Obviously because Obama is an outstanding communicator. That is now a given, and people expect him to speak out clearly, and with force.
• Bush gave up the Bully Pulpit long ago. His voice as one of power and influence has long since been weakened, and is now almost irrelevant. Astounding for a U.S. President.
• The Obama people (and thus their leader) appear very smart. They ran a very competent campaign, and they are not slowing down. They are being immediately proactive on several communication fronts - media, internet, Obama appearances, key appointments that make impact, etc.

So power doesn't really shift for more than two months, on January 20th. But it already has.

Proving once again that the effectiveness of a President's communication determines the effectiveness of his presidency.

Transformational Election - Transformational Speech!

A rare moment of opportunity and execution came together in the Presidential Election and the victory speech. The election itself was transformational - that's not for this blog to expound as there are enough others talking, blogging and twittering over that major event.

Barack Obama gave a once in a decade speech in accepting the Presidency. He has an incredible ability to move people with oratory in both his behavior and content - and he took advantage of that when he had his most important audience of perhaps hundreds of millions of people across the world.

• Presidential: He looked and spoke like a President. Whether you voted for him or not, if you weren't impressed you were not looking and listening. He did all the right things, under pressure.
• All About You: He talked about the people of his campaign, the people of his country, and the people who did not vote for him. He did not gloat, but he spoke as one who wanted to unite. This speech was not about him.
• On Point: He had a Point Of View, and stayed on message - just as his campaign did. It was all about change. Change from a country of slavery to a country where a black man could be elected President. Change from a broken country to a healing country. It was a disciplined speech, just as he ran a disciplined campaign.
• Story: He used his usual picturesque language, and had a great story of Ann Nixon Cooper, a 106 year old woman from Atlanta who waited to vote for 4 hours. She was born a generation from slavery, and when women couldn't vote, couldn't drive and couldn't fly. Powerful contrasts to today, and the task at hand.
• Likability: This is one of the most important factors in communicating - and determines most elections by influencing the undecideds. Barack Obama has the unique quality of being both Presidential and likable. He is measured (actually professorial), easy going yet energetic. He smiles, has an open face and appears thoughtful (a listener). His personality and ability to connect with eyes, gesture and voice is impressive, and certainly helped him influence the vote in his favor. And those behaviors all came to the fore in this memorable speech.

There is more, and there are some things he could do better. But that's for another time. Tonight is President-elect Obama's night - and he took advantage of the opportunity to bring others along with him. That's what a great speech does.

Alltop - Inspiring New Ideas

Guy Kawasaki has a brilliant new product in Alltop. It's an aggregator - what he calls a 'magazine rack' of the best of the internet - and a lot more.

I noted it before for speaking, but after using it for awhile now, I find it to be the fastest for the best of whatever you're interested in. So...

Since this blog is about communicating and speaking, I'm going to feature here the best, or most interesting, or otherwise unusual post I can find from Alltop that relates to getting your message across, influencing, and making a difference.

Here's the first:

From the blog Speaking About Presenting:

Scientific Evidence for Banning Bullets

Multitasking is a delusion - which at a minimum should revolutionize anyone's use of PowerPoints or Keynotes. Tests prove (and experience shows) that you cannot be talking and have someone supposedly listening while they are reading your slides. (BTW - use Black Slides!)