You may not have noticed, but Vice President Kamala Harris made a pretty good speech on November 7th, 2020. It was good because it got right to the point. She started with the pitch, not with the wind up. She… Read More »A Wealth of Information
Presenting is about transformation–not information. We present to influence, to make a difference, to change behavior, or at least to make the audience think or do something that it would not have otherwise done. Most presentations suffer from two paralyzing… Read More »A Tidy Package
Use analogies and metaphors to your advantage. To remind you: an analogy uses the word “like,” as in “this drug is like a protective shield around the cells.” A metaphor links an idea to an unrelated object, as in, “Our… Read More »The Power of Analogies and Metaphors
Back to Basics Let’s get back to basics. Let’s get back to the Rule of Three. Ever been to London? Stop, look and listen should be paramount in your mind because the traffic goes the wrong way. Like spaghetti westerns?… Read More »Rule of Three
These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar’s story artist. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. Keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer.… Read More »Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling
How much detail should you include in a speech or presentation? You want to be sure that your talk is meaningful and covers all the bases. However, you don’t want to be so laborious that you lose listeners along the… Read More »How Much Detail Should You Include?