Some of us are born with, or acquire through experience, a voice that is tentative and evokes in others the tendency to ignore what we say. Habits such as talking too quietly, or too quickly, or going up at the… Read More »Training the Speaking Voice
When we watch TED talks, such as Rory Sutherland’s on the power of advertising, or Hans Rosling’s on the power of data, we are watching two men who know their way around the presentation platform. Both speak without notes, use… Read More »Using speaker’s notes
A good speech has a voice. It sounds like an individual—specifically, the individual who is delivering the speech. It should not sound like the speechwriter. And yet us speechwriters are often given only a brief time with the speaker to… Read More »Your speechwriter: How to get the most out of him
After seeing David Mamet’s play Race on Broadway, Sharon and I had half-an-hour until our train left New York’s Penn Station for our home in Montclair, New Jersey. We went to a bar. I ordered a Heineken and she a glass… Read More »Don’t read this one
Frank Kern is senior vice-president of IBM Global Business Services. On May 19, 2010, he released a new survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value. Are you ready for this? According to that survey, today’s… Read More »Creative Public Speaking and Presenting
You may be familiar with Matt Latimer’s book Speech*Less about his career as a speechwriter in Washington during the Bush administration. Apparently, President Bush had learned at Yale that all speeches should have an introduction, three points, a peroration, and… Read More »In search of creative public speaking