What makes smart people dumb? Elizabeth Newton, a psychologist, conducted an experiment on the curse of knowledge while working on her doctorate at Stanford in 1990. She gave one set of people, called “tappers,” a list of commonly known songs… Read More »Communication Skills: Why Mr. Smarty Pants Has His Knickers in a Twist
Like that moment in bowling, when your ball leaves two pins standing far apart, there are times when your audience is divided into two camps. One half is knowledgeable about your area of expertise, while the other half is green. … Read More »Public Speaking: Split Shot Audience
Derrick called and spoke a mile a minute. His boss, the founder of a new hedge fund and the primary money runner had to speak at a capital intro in a week. Could I come and help? I asked if… Read More »Business Presentations: Hedge Fund Capital Intro
We often think that the placebo effect comes from the belief that a sugar pill is actual medicine, which leads us to the conclusion that if we believe something is good for us, we get a positive physiological response. I… Read More »Interpersonal Skills: the Placebo Effect
During the Clinton/Obama debate from California, Barack Obama seemed to get off to a good start, making his point (“I am the future, she is the past.”) at the end of his opening remarks. As I listened, I was made… Read More »Public Speaking Skills: Hillary vs. Obama
Michael Blechar is a smart and thoughtful guy (and a very good writer.) Years ago he told me about a good way to organize a sales presentation. Recently, we were swapping emails about one of my Presentation Pointers (the one… Read More »A Recipe for Sales Presentations