Twice last week I encountered speakers with a high number of UPMs: Uhms Per Minute. I was willing to forgive one of them. His UPMs were around 16. I wasn’t so easy on the other guy. His UPMs were around… Read More »UPMs: The Filler Word Debate
Look at this ad from Microsoft. It appeared in a newspaper exactly as it looks, I have not done anything to it. At first glance, it looks like a mistake. It doesn’t belong in a newspaper or a magazine. It’s… Read More »Effective Communication: The unexpected gets attention
Blaise Pascal was a 17th century French mathematical genius who spelled out the laws of probability more clearly than anyone before him. This was a watershed moment, because for the first time humanity had a systematic way of thinking about… Read More »Pascal’s Wager and Public Speaking
Blaise Pascal was a 17th century French mathematical genius who spelled out the laws of probability more clearly than anyone before him. This was a watershed moment, because for the first time humanity had a systematic way of thinking about… Read More »Pascal’s Wager and Public Speaking
On June 20th in the Wall Street Journal, in response to the media coverage of Tim Russert’s untimely death, Peggy Noonan wrote in her Declarations column, “When somebody dies we tell his story and try to define and isolate what… Read More »Public Speaking and the Importance of Character: A Life’s Lesson
In a political revolution, insurgents quickly target the media outlets. Their reasoning? He who controls the language controls the thinking. Now comes another study to suggest that insurgents may have it right. In this experiment, one group of volunteers was… Read More »Persuasive Speaking: Language and Experience